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Why and How I’m Celebrating Human Achievement Hour
"Better to light one incandescant bulb than curse the darkness" Tonight is Human Achievement Hour, a time to celebrate human progress and…
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Human Achievement of the Day: Hydrogen Power from Plants
Early in the week I wrote about a major breakthrough toward the peaceful use of nuclear fusion. While that type of energy could drastically…
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Interested in co-authoring a law review article?
I keep a list of law review articles I’d like to write. That list has grown to thirteen, ten of which are about class action…
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Human Achievement of the Day: Bionic Eyes
You won’t see the glory of human achievement if you abide by the World Wide Fund for Nature's recommendation that you spend an hour…
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Human Achievement of the Day from HumanProgress.org: Organ Replacement Technology
We are only three days away from Human Achievement Hour (March 29, 8:30pm to 9:30pm)! What better way to celebrate than with a post from…
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CEI Podcast for March 27, 2014: Bait and Reciprocal Switch
CEI Fellow Marc Scribner talks about his new paper, “Bait and Reciprocal Switch: Forced Access Regulation Threatens the Rail Renaissance.”…
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Human Achievement of the Day: 3D Printing Cups, Cars, Houses, and Faces
3D printing is a relatively recent technological development that has already begun to revolutionize model-building, structural and other medical procedures, and construction of items from…
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Sneaky Regulation? Federal Agencies Issue over 24,000 “Public Notices” Annually
A mixed economy like ours does not remain static. Economic activity increasingly shifts toward government outright (health care, retirement, education) or exists under "Mother-May-I" constraints…
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Human Achievement of the Day: Autonomous Vehicles, from Imagination to Reality
[caption id="attachment_55209" align="alignright" width="300"] CEI General Counsel Sam Kazman about to take a spin in a Google self-driving car in May 2012. (Photo by Marc…
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How Matt Drudge (and Other Obamacare Victims) Can Escape the “Liberty Tax”
Former Competitive Enterprise Institute Research Associate Michael Mayfield provided invaluable assistance with this post. Matt Drudge's widely discussed…
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CEI Appeals Agency’s Withholding of Documents about Its 2013 Government Shutdown Shenanigans
Earlier, I wrote about how Obama administration officials have been very “tight-lipped in response to FOIA requests” about their “government shutdown shenanigans,” such as closing private…
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Human Achievement of the Day: Breakthrough toward Unlimited Clean and Cheap Energy
Shocking as it might seem, some of us at CEI agree with environmentalists that reducing personal waste is a good idea. Voluntarily reducing our individual…
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Kicking off Human Achievement Hour 2014
Annually since 2009, my colleague Michelle Minton has organized a celebration of economic liberty for one hour at the end of March, known as Human…
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Draconian Dodd-Frank Durbin Debit Controls Need Not Be More Destructive, Court Rules
As the weather finally turns to spring, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals today blew a nice cool breeze of common sense. A bipartisan three-judge…
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Agencies Withhold Documents about Closures of Private Businesses in Government Shutdown
In last October's government shutdown, the Obama administration closed down, or blocked access to, many private businesses that had been allowed to operate in earlier…
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Johnson-Crapo Is Phony Fannie-Freddie Reform
Ever since the phrase appeared in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet," and its variations, have…
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The Wrong Way to Regulate High-Frequency Trading
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Beekeeper Speaks Out against Anti-Pesticide Campaigns
Anyone worried about honey bee survival should read the piece by Canadian beekeeper Lee Townsend in the Guelph Mercury newspaper. In recent years, beekeepers have…
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Ohio Constitution Prohibits Union Release Time
Yesterday, Media Trackers reported the Ohio Centerville Classroom Teachers Association membership agreed to a new collective bargaining agreement that is still waiting on approval from…
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MtGox is Dead, Long Live MtGox!
MtGox, once a pillar of the Bitcoin exchange market, filed for bankruptcy on March 10. In February, the website had ceased withdrawals before ceasing…
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Car Dealership Takes Advantage of Union Tactics
A common practice of labor unions is to use myriad tactics -- protests, picketing, intimidation, and coordinating with progressive allies -- to apply pressure on…
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New Data: Code of Federal Regulations Expanding, Faster Pace under Obama
The annual Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) is the "codification of the general and permanent rules published in the Federal Register…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
67 new regulations, from reformulated gasoline to vitamin D2.
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Bureaucrats Line Up to Regulate Bitcoin
The regulators are tasting blood around bitcoin, and like sharks they are positioning for the kill. The blood that they taste was not actually shed…
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CEI Podcast for March 12, 2014: CEI Turns 30
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Supreme Court Overwhelmingly Votes to Uphold Rights of Private Property Owners
The Supreme Court has decided an important property rights case in favor of the private property owners and against the claim of the federal government…
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Reining in the Executive Branch Bureaucracy, Part 11: Sunset Regulations and Implement a “One In, One Out” Procedure
Since the Federalist Papers, America has debated “Energy in the Executive.” But President Obama’s 2014 agenda framed by his…
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More Unfunded Mandates for Private Colleges: Activists Seek Restrictions on Campus Sex in California
Legislators impose all sorts of misguided or costly mandates on colleges and schools that harm young people directly or indirectly. California activists are now seeking…
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Minimum Wage Increase Is Still Bad Policy
For the past two years, President Obama has proposed raising the federal minimum wage in his State of the Union address. The main…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
84 new regulations, from soybean referendums to jaguars.
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“Muscle Milk Magnificence”
A former CCAF intern files an entertaining objection to a bad lawyer-driven settlement that doesn’t comply with Ninth Circuit Law, and Above the…
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The “California Rule” and the “The Fall of Pacific Grove”
In my previous post, I described the "California rule," which puts state governments in a legal straitjacket when trying to reform underfunded public pensions.
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Reining in the Executive Branch Bureaucracy, Part 10: Congress Should Create an Annual Regulatory Reduction Commission
Since the Federalist Papers, America has debated “Energy in the Executive.” But President Obama’s 2014 agenda framed by his…
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CEI Podcast for March 6, 2014: The ALERT Act and Regulatory Transparency
Last week was Stop Government Abuse Week in Congress, and the House passed a number of reform bills that would increase government transparency. One of…
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The Law Should Not Enable Union Violence
A general contractor is approached by a representative of a local union and told he “needed to hire a certain number of his guys.” When…
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How the “California Rule” Holds Back Pension Reform
These days, local governments announcing bankruptcy seems like routine in California. Since the onset of the 2008 financial crisis, many state and local governments have…
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To Enact Pension Reform, Make Good Policy Good Politics
In my previous post, I looked at some basic principles that should guide state policy makers when tackling pension reform. Now, we turn to the…
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Who Wants to See Their State Go Broke?
Few people would raise their hands when asked that question. But actually putting a state's financing on sound footing is difficult in practice. That makes…
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Obama and Camp’s “Carried Interest” Canard Adds Cost and Complexity to Code
Once again, according to a White House summary of his 2015 budget to be unveiled later today, President Obama will call for "closing loopholes"…
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Obama FY 2015 Budget: Aviation Funding Recommendation Not Great, But a Step in the Right Direction
President Obama released his Fy 2015 budget today. Like his past budgets, as I noted in a previous post discussing the highway and…
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“The bill doesn’t come due until well after the legislators who wrote the check have left office”
Thus describes an Illinois state Senator the challenge states face in reforming their public employee pension systems. Given that reality, it's astounding reform would ever…
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JAMA’s Dangerous Hype: BPA and Cash Register Receipt Research Letter
This month’s issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) contains a “research letter” on a “study” conducted by researchers at Harvard…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
81 new regulations, from grading grapefruit to detaining journalists.
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Michigan Unions Intimidate Workers Who Take Advantage of Right-to-Work
It seems ever time union privilege is threatened, unions turn to intimidation.
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Bad Highway Policy Is a Bipartisan Affair
Two major pieces of surface transportation policy news dropped this week. President Obama is readying the release of his budget, which will contain over $300…
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CEI Files Comments against IRS Proposed Rules That Would Illegally Restrict 501(C)(4) Speech
Today, CEI filed comments against the IRS’s proposed rules restricting speech by 501(c)(4) groups (which the IRS has suggested could be expanded in…
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CEI Podcast for February 27, 2014: Can the EPA Regulate Greenhouse Gas Emissions?
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments this week in a case that could determine whether or not the EPA has the authority to regulate greenhouse…
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The Bizarre, Slanted Coverage of Arizona’s SB 1062
Yesterday, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer vetoed a bill that would have made clear that the state's Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) applied not…
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Missouri Constitution Protects Workers’ Paychecks
Legislators in Missouri are attempting to enact paycheck protection legislation that would end the practice of using government resources to collect dues from government union…
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Reining in the Executive Branch Bureaucracy, Part 9: Congress Must Affirm Final Agency Rules before They Are Law
Since the Federalist Papers, America has debated “Energy in the Executive.” But President Obama’s 2014 agenda framed by his…