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Unintended Consequences of Price Gouging
Price gouging legislation routinely backfires. Price controls make shortages worse. In a crisis, this is especially harmful. And even if price gouging legislation were to…
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We Don’t Need No Stinking Badges; Left Pushes Labor Leaders to Dump Police Unions
The progressive left’s calls to “defund the police” have extended to attacking the right of law enforcement officers to have unions. This has put organized…
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Calls to “Reform” Section 230 of Communications Decency Act Are Misguided—and Thankfully Unlikely to Succeed
This week, four U.S. Senators asked the FCC to “take a fresh look at Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act .” Real changes…
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#NeverNeed Regulations and the Coronavirus
What is the appropriate public policy response to COVID-19 crisis? In a new short video, Kent Lassman makes the case for lifting government barriers that…
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Administration Rewrites Congress’ Paycheck Protection Program Loan Requirements
The Trump administration is rewriting the rules on the Paycheck Protection Program, saying that the stipulation that the program’s business loans must be used to…
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Anti-Corporate Author: Get Over Your Vanity and Just Read “Impeccable” New York Times
Are you struggling to stay informed in an Internet landscape full of conflicting sources and analysis? Good news—a New York Times bestselling author (and former…
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Fedcoin and FedNow are Dangerous and Unnecessary Expansions of Federal Reserve Power
To counter the financial damage from America’s national lockdown, the Federal Reserve has taken unprecedented stepsy. Most of these moves received grudging acceptance even from…
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Green Activists Make Highly Dubious Claims about CPSC Nominee Nancy Beck
Left-of-center activists are opposing toxicologist Nancy Beck's nomination to head up the Consumer Product Safety Commission. They suggest that since she once worked for the…
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Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids: Anti-Drug Warriors’ Crocodile Tears
There is a lot to say about the heinous killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police and no shortage of opinions being offered. Many have…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Friday’s 13.3 percent unemployment rate announcement was actually good news, and says much about the more than 600 regulations waived so far at various levels…
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EPA Proposes Rule to Increase Consistency and Transparency of Benefit-Cost Analysis
The Environmental Protection Agency on June 4 released a proposed rule to increase the “consistency and transparency” of benefit-cost analysis (BCA) in Clean Air Act (CAA)…
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White House Reaction to Job Numbers: Reopen Economy but Keep Tax Dollars Ready
The White House’s thinking appears to be that the economy is recovering just by letting people get back to work. Therefore, we should wait and…
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Trump Executive Order to Expedite Project Approvals
President Trump on June 4 issued an Executive Order intended to expedite the federal approval process for major infrastructure projects. “Economic Recovery from the COVID-19…
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Value of Employee Benefits in Eye of Beholder
Advocates of “social responsibility” and environmental, social, and governance standards for companies have little interest in their proposed requirements being voluntary, despite frequent protestations to…
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Unexpectedly Positive Jobs Report Is a Testament to American Ingenuity
The unexpectedly good news of Friday’s jobs report that 2.5 million jobs were added in the last month is a rather inspiring testament to American…
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Pandemics, #NeverNeeded Regulations, and Ten Thousand Commandments
At Inside Sources, Wayne Crews and Ryan Young have an op-ed summarizing the main findings of Wayne’s new 2020 edition of Ten Thousand Commandments, plus…
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“Social Responsibility” Expectations for Business Pivot from Voluntary to Mandatory
The Financial Times reported that many companies have cut dividends to shareholders because they are struggling with the current economic downturn. But even after we’ve…
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Time to Permanently Sunset Waived #NeverNeeded Regulations
Many regulations have proven especially harmful during the COVID-19 crisis. But many of those waivers are temporary. Those temporary waivers should be made permanent. One…
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Navient Files for Summary Judgement in Meritless CFPB Case
On May 19, student loan servicer Navient filed for summary judgement on a CFPB lawsuit started over three years ago. In the filing, Navient urged…
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Green Activists’ Unwarranted Attacks on CPSC Nominee Nancy Beck
Left-of-center environmental activists are at it again, maligning the reputation of one of President Trump’s nominees—with little regard for the truth. One of their latest…
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How Many Unions Are Still Charging Dues to Unemployed Workers?
How many unions are still charging dues to their unemployed members during the COVID-19 outbreak? While unions have been aggressively presenting themselves as the workers’…
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My Answer to J.K. Rowling on What Cryptocurrency Is
To paraphrase a famous financial services commercial from the 1970s and 1980s, when J.K. Rowling asks, people answer. When the famed author of the Harry…
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DOL IG says “at least” $26 billion of CARES Act funds being wasted, most to fraud
At least $26 billion taxpayer dollars are going to be wasted through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) ACT, with “a large portion…
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EPA Finalizes Rule Limiting State Abuses of Clean Water Act to Block Fossil Energy Projects
On June 1, the EPA issued a final rule clarifying that the Clean Water Act cannot be used by states to block energy projects based…
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EPA Removes One Hurdle to Alaska’s Pebble Mine, but Others Remain
On May 28, the EPA notified the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that it will not challenge its ongoing review of the Pebble Mine in…
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Six Ways the Trump Administration Has Reduced Regulation
Apart from sector-specific executive orders and directives to federal agencies, there are six prominent ways the Trump administration has streamlined regulation that were covered in…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
CEI released the 2020 edition of Wayne Crews’s annual Ten Thousand Commandments report, which gives a big-picture view of the federal regulatory state. Regulatory agencies…
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California Lawmakers Mull Tax on Jobs
California’s lawmakers are nothing if not innovative. They keep coming up with new ways to help the state’s unemployment rate, currently 15.5 percent, nearly a…
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COP-26: U.N Climate Conference Delayed until November 2021
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change announced on May 29 that its 26th Conference of the Parties, originally scheduled for November 9-19, 2020, has been rescheduled for November…
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There Is No Such Thing as “Safe”
Iain Murray has a great essay up at Law & Liberty today on why some groups of Americans are perceiving quarantine policies so differently from…
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IRS Relaxes Requirements for Renewable Energy Tax Credits—Coronavirus Edition
On May 27, the IRS issued a notice expanding the tax relief for renewable energy developers seeking to qualify for tax credits. Ironically, this announcement…
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Executive Order on Social Media Threatens Property Rights and Free Speech
Today’s Executive Order on Section 230 liability protections for online platforms violates the First Amendment and property rights of social media companies, contradicts the most…
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House Democrats Drop Deregulatory Push over Union Opposition
The House of Representatives passed legislation Thursday to modestly reform $670 billion Paycheck Protection Program, scrapping the much broader reform of the PPP program the…
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SAFE Rule Examined Part 5: Statutory Issues
This post examines some legal objections to the Final Safer Affordable Fuel Efficient (SAFE) Vehicles Rule and the Trump agencies’ rebuttals. Previous posts in this…
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Out Now: The 2020 Edition of Ten Thousand Commandments
The 2020 edition of Ten Thousand Commandments is out. Wayne Crews’s annual report gives a big picture view of the federal regulatory state. There has…
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Presidential Panel on Social Media Bias Misfires
Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Trump administration is considering forming a panel to investigate charges of discrimination against right-leaning users and…
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Trump’s Executive Order on #NeverNeeded Regulations
In an op-ed in National Review, CEI Senior Fellow Ryan Young takes a look at President Trump’s new Executive Order directing agencies to get rid…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
President Trump issued an Executive Order encouraging agencies to keep #NeverNeeded regulations waived during the coronavirus permanently off the books. Meanwhile, regulatory agencies issued new…
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Lean on Business Leaders to Defend Markets
One on the main goals of the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Center for Advancing Capitalism is for more business leaders to prioritize the defense of the…
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EPA Receives Comments on Proposed Revisions to Transparency Rule
The comment period on the EPA's proposed revisions to its Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science proposal closed on May 18. The proposal aims to ensure…
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Proposed Reform to Paycheck Protection Program Faces Republican Opposition
The Trump administration and the Republican-led Senate are opposing a pro-business effort by the House Democrats to amend the Paycheck Protection Program. The House Democrats…
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Trump Signs Executive Order to Spur Economic Recovery through Deregulation
President Donald Trump on May 19 signed an executive order titled, Regulatory Relief To Support Economic Recovery. The order gives cabinet secretaries and agency heads emergency powers to suspend or even eliminate regulations…
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Glaring Problems with Latest Right-Wing Attack on Section 230
A recent opinion editorial in Newsweek is the latest salvo from the political right against Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Couched in criticisms…
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Andy Thompson, Rest in Peace
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Retro Reviews: Common Sense Political Economy
This review of Philip Henry Wicksteed’s 1910 textbook The Common Sense of Political Economy was originally published at Inertia Wins. Wicksteed was a leading economic…
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HEROES Act Mostly Grows Government, But Has Redeeming Cannabis Banking Provision
The HEROES Act calls for trillions of dollars in new deficit spending and includes a number of longstanding progressive pet projects unrelated to the COVID-19…
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AB5 Defender: Law Is “Like Taking Way the Lollipop”
It is not often that a defender of a state regulation will concede that they are, figuratively speaking, taking candy from a child, but California…
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Homeschooling Growth Worries Teachers’ Unions
Teachers unions are eager to see the COVID-19 outbreak end and things return normal because the outbreak has turned the U.S. into a nation of…
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Wood Heaters—One Cheer for Trump EPA’s Modest Regulatory Reform
The Trump administration’s reforms of past regulatory excesses range from excellent to little better than no change at all. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA)…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Retail sales declined 16.4 percent in April, setting a new record low for the second month in a row. Congress returned to Washington, putting the…
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Time for a Federal Price Gouging Law?
Amazon’s vice president of public policy calls for a federal price gouging law in a recent post over at Amazon’s in-house blog. This is a…
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Are “Earth-Friendly” New Refrigerants Toxic?
Bills have been introduced in both the House and Senate to restrict hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), the refrigerants currently used in most air conditioning and refrigeration systems.
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Let Local News Outlets Bail Each Other Out
Allowing common ownership of newspapers and broadcast stations would allow them to achieve economies of scale in their sales departments and other keys aspects of…
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Cocktails in Quarantine: How your State Governs Booze Buying during Lockdown
With all the other added stress created by the outbreak of COVID-19, most states have chosen to relax alcohol laws in a pragmatic bid to…
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Senate Bill Introduced to Extend Alternative Fuels Tax Credit
Sens. Lamar Alexander and Tom Carper have introduced Securing America’s Clean Fuels Infrastructure Act, extending and increasing the tax credits for alternative transportation fuels. It…
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SAFE Rule Examined Part 4 Consumer Choice
Ccompared to the 2012 Obama administration CAFE rule it repeals and replaces, the SAFE Rule is deregulatory and pro-choice. And pro-life, too, if, as advertised,…
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AB5 Is Making Unemployment in California Go from Bad to Worse
The most recent numbers for the people on unemployment insurance are out and they are about as grim as anyone could expect, with the California…
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A New Approach to COVID-19 Response
The new coronavirus—SARS-CoV-2, which causes the disease COVID-19—is here to stay until either a vaccine or herd immunity limits the number of people susceptible to…
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Does Uncle Sam Support Single Moms? The Question of Federal Funds for Strip Clubs
Should U.S. taxpayer dollars be loaned to strip clubs? What would have sounded like a joke just a few months ago is now a reality…
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Retro Review: Irving Kristol’s “Two Cheers for Capitalism”
Long before we began debating the wisdom of neoconservative foreign policy, Irving Kristol was writing about domestic economic policy and the future of capitalism. His…
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Will the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report Rely on Increasingly Overheated Models?
In a letter published in Nature, Jiang Zhu and Christopher Poulsen of the University of Michigan and Bette Otto-Bliesner of the National Center for Atmospheric Research caution that…
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SAFE Rule Examined Part 3 Trump Agencies’ Critique of Obama Auto Rule
The Safer Affordable Fuel Efficient Vehicles rule contains a powerful critique of the 2012 Obama administration rule it repeals and replaces. In a nutshell, the…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The first full week of May featured a continuing pandemic, the biggest unemployment increase in U.S. history, a hailstorm in the D.C. area, freezing temperatures…
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Harvard Junk Science Study Claims High Pollution Levels Increase Deaths from COVID-19
Researchers at Harvard University in late April published a draft or preliminary study that concluded, “A small increase in long-term exposure to PM2.5 leads to…
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Trump Administration to Grant One-Year Extension for Wind, Solar Credits
The Trump administration indicated this week it will adjust tax credit deadlines to help renewable energy investors to help their businesses survive the economic crisis.
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A National Interest Rate Cap Has No Place in the Next Coronavirus Relief Package
As the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic continues to wreak havoc, it’s crucial that struggling Americans have access to affordable short-term credit. Congress should reject calls to include a…
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EPA Sends Proposed Aircraft GHG Rule to White House for Review
On May 1, the EPA sent its first-ever proposed rule on aircraft greenhouse gas emissions to OMB for review. Promulgated pursuant to the Clean Air…
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California to Sue Rideshare Firms over Employee Classification
The state of California announced Tuesday that it planned to sue rideshare companies Uber and Lyft for refusing to classify their drivers as employees rather…
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Time for the Postal Service to Enter the 21st Century
U.S. Postal Service boosters re calling for a taxpayer-funded bailout of the agency. Today’s specter of a bailout signals it is time to start thinking…
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New Profile in Capitalism: Ariel Corporation CEO Karen Wright
Some CEOs seem to have more hours in the day than others. Such is the case of Karen Wright, the head of Ariel Corporation, a…
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SAFE Rule Examined Part 2: Air Quality and Auto Safety
Today’s post examines the Final Safer Affordable Fuel Efficient (SAFE) Vehicles Rule’s estimated impacts on air quality and auto safety. Citations to the rule are…
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Delivery Price Caps Threaten New Restaurant Lifeline
Tomorrow, the Washington, D.C. City Council votes on a bill that seeks to impose a price cap on the commission a third-party delivery platform can…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The 2020 Federal Register passed 25,000 pages, and is poised to surpass last year’s page count by more than 1,000 pages. The number of final…
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New Study Finds Much More Global Greening than Previously Estimated
A new study paper on global greening by a team of Australian scientists demonstrates that previous estimates of carbon dioxide-induced global greening since 1900 are too…
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CEI Files New Challenge to the Administration’s Fuel Economy Standards
CEI General Counsel Sam Kazman discusses the issue with Walter Kreucher, one of the petitioners in the case, Walter Kreucher, a retired automotive engineer who…
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Coronavirus Emergency Is No Reason for Delaying Energy Project Approvals
On April 29, five members of Congress sent a letter to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that nicely summarizes why the energy infrastructure approval and…
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The Economy after COVID-19 Will Be Different from Before, Part One
As governors begin to lift restrictions on economic activity, polling data show that Americans are generally still afraid of the virus and have changed their…
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Shield Employers from COVID-19 Liabilities Created by Government
Now that government officials and business owners are planning for a “semi-normal” phase of post-quarantine reopening, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s recent “Implementing a National…
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Like the Sun Not Rising in the East?
The Federal Register, the official daily government publication of regulations, proposed rules, and similar items did not go online today. We were awaiting today’s Federal…
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SAFE Rule Examined Part 1 Climate Change and the Great Lockdown
It’s been almost a month since the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released the Final Safer Affordable Fuel Efficient…
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Antitrust Investigation of Amazon Won’t Benefit Consumers
Launching another antitrust investigation into Amazon won’t benefit consumers. The U.S. antitrust law standard is consumer harm. To stretch antitrust investigations to include data, privacy,…
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SEC’s Shuttering of Fund Fees – #NeverNeeded and Never Authorized
Over the past month, CEI and others have pointed to #NeverNeeded regulations that are hindering our response to the COVID-19 pandemic and to economic dislocation.
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Fred Singer, RIP
S. Fred Singer, distinguished scientist and leading climate skeptic, died on April 6 in Rockville, Maryland, at age 95. He had a long and varied…
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The Coronavirus Outbreak Highlights Importance of the Artificial Intelligence Debate
Tracing of individuals and other measures involving artificial intelligence are in the news with respect to managing individuals’ reentry into the economy in the wake…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
New unemployment applications were down to 4.4 million last week. This is still more than an order of magnitude greater than the pre-coronavirus record. With…
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Hurry, See “Planet of the Humans,” Before It’s Banned
Planet of the Humans, the new documentary film from director Jeff Gibbs and executive producer Michael Moore, contains a stunning evisceration of so-called green energy and the people profiting from it.
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Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division Publishes Accomplishments Report
The Department of Justice’s Energy and Natural Resources Division published a report on Earth Day detailing its accomplishments to enforce the nation’s environmental, public lands, and…
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West Virginia AFL-CIO Reacts to State Supreme Court Ruling Upholding Right to Work
Supporting the rights of individual workers has cost a pro-union West Virginia Supreme Court justice the backing of the state’s AFL-CIO. That’s because the judge…
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Trump Defers Tariff Payments for Struggling Businesses: A Good Start, More Needed
President Trump has deferred selected tariff payments for companies experiencing coronavirus-related hardship. It came after more than two weeks of starts, stops, denials, and reversals.
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CEI Submits Comments to DOT on Aviation Consumer Protection Authority Modernization
Today, CEI submitted comments in response to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s notice of proposed rulemaking in the matter of Defining Unfair or Deceptive Practices.
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DEREGULATION IN AN EMERGENCY: The President’s Emergency Powers Include Not Just Imposing Regulations on Industry, but also Suspending Regulations
Across the country, governors have suspended harmful regulations on an emergency basis due to the COVID-19 crisis. The improvements that have resulted have got people…
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VIDEO: Cato Experts on Coronavirus and the Constitution
Recently three legal experts from the Cato Institute hosted a fascinating discussion of recent pandemic-related legal enactments, “Coronavirus and the Constitution.” Ilya Shapiro, Trevor Burrus,…
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Retro Review: Vlad Tarko’s Biography of Elinor Ostrom
Elinor Ostrom’s pioneering work on “polycentrism,” the existence of multiple sources of government authority or power within a single political system, is especially relevant during…
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Decades of Internet Freedom Left America Better Suited for the Pandemic
Broadband investment has rebounded since the FCC rolled back public utility-style rules for Internet service providers. The decades-long trend of more significant Internet usage, enabled…
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Congress Has Already Introduced Bills to Reform #NeverNeeded Regulations
Policy makers have already waived more than 350 regulations and counting that were slowing the pandemic response and harming economic recovery. But with a 185,000-page…
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The Man Who Fed the World, And the Film that Condemned Him for It
The first indication that PBS’s new documentary on agronomist Norman Borlaug will not be overly laudatory is its title. Anti-hunger activist Leon Hesser called his…
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West Virginia Supreme Court Upholds Right to Work
The Supreme Court of Appeals for West Virginia ruled that if a worker says, “No, thank you, I’d rather not be a union member,” he…
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Modified Libra Cryptocurrency Still an Innovation, but Clear away Regulatory Barriers for More
Libra and other cryptocurrencies could serve functions other than initially imagined. The potential for faster payments from Libra and other cryptocurrencies, at a time when…
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Newsom Doubles Down on AB5
California Governor Gavin Newsom said there was no chance that he would suspend, even temporarily, Assembly Bill 5, the state law that strictly limits contractors…
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Market Dynamics Will Force Zoom to Reform Faster and More effectively than Government Regulation
The videoconferencing service Zoom recently ran into some privacy concerns with leaked videos and hacked online meetings. Reaction has been swift and flawed from many…