Blog
Regulatory reform in the 118th Congress: The Regulation Reduction Act of 2023
Federal regulations will continue to grow, if the Biden administration’s recently published Unified Agenda is any indication. It lists 3,666 new rules currently in…
Blog
Free the Economy podcast: importing talent with Connor O’Brien
In this week’s episode we talk about the major income tax case going to the Supreme Court, the looming death of ESG…
Blog
Why Washington state has the highest gas prices
The price of gas in Washington State is currently the highest in the nation averaging $4.99 per gallon as of June 28, 2023. This…
Blog
Bidenomics? Here are the 297 costliest rules in the president’s Spring 2023 Unified Agenda
Federal agencies issue thousands of rules, regulations and guidance documents every year compared to the relative handful of laws enacted by Congress.
Blog
Adam Smith on how trade makes us better people
2023 is the 300th anniversary of Adam Smith’s birth. This post is part of a series highlighting aspects of Smith’s thought that continue to influence…
Blog
Allergy sufferers to Congress: Please stop trying to help!
The Law of Unintended Consequences gained another data point recently. A bipartisan bill requiring products with sesame to be specially labeled has resulted in…
Blog
Adam Smith and the wealth of America
2023 is the 300th anniversary of Adam Smith’s birth. This post is part of a series highlighting aspects of Smith’s thought that continue to influence…
Blog
Hey Army Corps, stop delaying wetlands decisions!
Last month in Sackett v. EPA, the U.S. Supreme Court provided some much-needed clarity on what waters are regulated under the Clean Water…
Blog
Regulatory reform in the 118th Congress: The ERASER Act
Our current regulatory state suffocates Americans with high costs. On a micro level, research by CEI Fred L. Smith Fellow in Regulatory Studies…
Blog
No taming inflation without an independent Fed
Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell recently testified before Congress for the semi-annual Monetary Policy Report. The Fed has been under fire from both sides…
Blog
Costlier cars help the poor, according to EPA
There is plenty of controversy surrounding EPA’s proposed new tailpipe and greenhouse gas emissions rules for model year 2027-2032 vehicles, ranging from whether the…
Blog
The lethal impact of rising energy prices
Many of us are all too familiar with the grimace we make when we open our monthly utility bills. The soaring cost of energy is…
Blog
This week in ridiculous regulations: reporting stolen drugs and nuclear tariffs
The 2023 Federal Register is on pace to be the third largest in its 86-year history, behind only Obama and Trump’s midnight rush years in…
Blog
Progress in Congress for real civil forfeiture reform
For the last couple of years, I’ve been monitoring every change in the law in the United States in the area of civil forfeiture. Last…
Blog
Another sustainable energy company is failing to sustain itself
CNBC’s “Sustainable Future” page reports today that “Siemens Energy shares plunge more than 37% as wind turbine worries deepen.” A “sustainable energy” company failing…
Blog
House hearing warns of Biden’s admin’s ‘death by a thousand regulations’
The House Oversight and Accountability Committee held a hearing last week titled “Death by a Thousand Regulations: The Biden Administration’s Campaign to Bury America…
Blog
Fed Chair Powell hearing: more to do on inflation
At his semiannual congressional testimony this week, Federal Reserve Chairman Powell hinted that the Fed likely is not done raising interest rates. This comes…
Blog
Free the Economy podcast: online trust with Taylor Barkley
In this week’s episode we talk about a survey on work trends for finance bros, Delta’s questionable bid to become the first…
Blog
Elephant in the elevator: How government manipulates the social cost of carbon to justify regulations
Four CEI colleagues and I each submitted comments this month on the Office of Management and Budget’s proposed update of Circular A-4—OMB’s…
Blog
European Union says phones and tablets must be easier to break by 2027
The European Parliament agreed on new rules last week that would require smartphone and tablet manufacturers to make it easier for users to remove…
Blog
Businesses flocking to states with lower taxes, better regulations
Experts on U.S. economic policy spend a lot of time looking at competition between states and how good tax and regulatory policy can help…
Blog
Younger workers don’t favor full-remote work
Among people who follow the news on workplace (and workforce) satisfaction, the opinions of younger workers are often considered especially relevant, because we assume that…
Blog
Das Adam Smith problem? Nein!
2023 is the 300th anniversary of Adam Smith’s birth. This post is part of a series highlighting aspects of Smith’s thought that continue to influence…
Blog
America takes Entrepreneurship Index top spot, former Soviet bloc countries close behind
Retail software maker Shopify recently released its “Entrepreneurship Index,” a global ecosystem of entrepreneurial activity. Shopify ranks the top ten countries with economies that…
Blog
This week in ridiculous regulations: tart cherry assessments and big cat safety
The House passed two regulatory reform bills, the REINS Act and the Separation of Powers Restoration Act. The Federal Reserve held interest rates steady. Meanwhile,…
Blog
Here comes state capitalism. There go our liberties.
CEI’s own Wayne Crews told the Washington Examiner recently, “Everything from local tap water to space commercialization is being turned into a government project.”…
Blog
Free the Economy podcast: growth and taxes with Alex Muresianu
In this week’s episode we talk about Gen Z and remote work, businesses moving between states, and inspiring evidence of human…
Blog
Market failure? Let’s talk about government failure
Government interventions in the market are often said to be justified by market failures, which prevent the free market from maximizing social welfare. What is…
Blog
Adam Smith on how to love and be lovely
2023 is the 300th anniversary of Adam Smith’s birth. This post is part of a series highlighting aspects of Smith’s thought that continue to influence…
Blog
Is Biden admin disappearing a red flag for costly regulations?
Is the Biden administration trying to do away with the category of “economically significant” regulations altogether? Before this administration, an “economically significant” regulation was one…
Blog
Court punts to FTC, freezing Microsoft purchase of Activision Blizzard
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) took action Monday to stop Microsoft from purchasing the game developer Activision Blizzard. The FTC filed for both a…
Blog
Adam Smith’s ‘tolerable administration’ vs. America’s increasingly intolerable one
2023 is the 300th anniversary of Adam Smith’s birth. This post is part of a series highlighting aspects of Smith’s thought that continue to influence…
Blog
New Biden White House Agenda shows 3,666 rules in regulatory pipeline
The Spring 2023 Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions has been released. A fall version of this twice-yearly document will also contain a…
Blog
Senate Commerce hearing shows why some junk fees aren’t garbage
In his State of the Union address this February, President Biden reiterated his intent to crack down on so-called junk fees. Biden discussed…
Blog
Time to shine more light on regulators’ ‘shadow boxes’
Accompanying presidential executive orders and memoranda are the numerous sub-regulatory proclamations of departments and agencies we like to call “regulatory dark matter.” Occasionally we…
Blog
The real Adam Smith
2023 is the 300th anniversary of Adam Smith’s birth. This post is part of a series highlighting aspects of Smith’s thought that continue to influence…
Blog
Why Trump and Biden are wrong to sweat a trade deficit
Do trade deficits make American workers worse off? Trade deficits occur when a country imports more goods than it exports, which the U.S. has done…
Blog
This week in ridiculous regulations: fireworks shows and cybersecurity subsidies
Russia destroyed a major dam in Ukraine, putting thousands of homes and a nuclear power plant at risk. Former President Donald Trump was indicted again.
Blog
FTC, or ‘Fundraising Trade Commission,’ tries to shrug off a Supreme Court judgment
If you thought the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) was only coming after “big” business, think again. The FTC is targeting small and family businesses too. …
Blog
Congress should block Biden’s harmful environmental regulations with power of the purse
Congress shouldn’t sit back and watch as the Biden administration proposes and finalizes costly and harmful energy and environmental regulation. Instead, it needs to take…
Blog
SEC just dismissed dozens of cases before its ‘not-quite courts,’ thanks to real court rulings
For over a decade, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has been forcing people into in-house quasi-judicial proceedings that lack the basic constitutional protections of…
Blog
Free the Economy podcast: Immense economic costs with Scott Lincicome
In this week’s episode we talk about central bank digital currencies, bankers backing off of ESG claims, avoiding the mistakes of…
Blog
Biden Labor pick Julie Su claims she cannot recall her Prop 22 vote
Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su claimed multiple times Wednesday that she could not recall how she voted on California’s Proposition 22, the ballot initiate…
Blog
Activist securities regulators should worry as Supreme Court revisits Chevron doctrine
The U.S. Supreme Court recently issued a major announcement that may impose significant changes to agency statutory interpretation. The Court has agreed to hear…
Blog
Rising small business regs may spur Senate to pass REINS Act
In a bid to restore congressional accountability over the regulatory enterprise, the 118th Congress this week is set to vote on the so-called REINS Act,…
Blog
War over gas stoves heats up with two House votes today
President Biden’s administration has declared war on gas stoves, but today the House of Representatives is fighting back Two Biden administration agencies, the Consumer Product…
Blog
Biden administration keeps making it harder to track government ‘guidance’ documents
Federal government “guidance documents” consist of agency memoranda, bulletins, circulars, administrative interpretations, letters, manuals, and so much more. These are not supposed to be regulatory…
Blog
Lina Khan’s whole new level of economic bloodletting
The Biden administration in its Executive Order on Promoting Competition in the American Economy and, more pointedly, the Federal Trade Commission in many of…
Blog
5 myths about Joe Biden’s crackdown on gas stoves
The Biden administration’s craziest idea yet? The assault on gas stoves. Second craziest? The lame attempts to deny it. Now that two bills…
Blog
This week in ridiculous regulations: electric motors and small business loans
Congress and President Biden reached a debt ceiling deal. Texas attorney general and antitrust hawk Ken Paxton was impeached. Meanwhile, agencies issued new regulations ranging…