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Does the Schumer-Manchin Bill Undercut West Virginia v. EPA? No, But Not For Lack of Trying
This Wednesday on Fox Business with Larry Kudlow and later on Fox News with Sean Hannity, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) warned that buried…
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How to Make Official Time Even Worse
“Official time” is the practice of allowing members of public sector unions to conduct union business while getting paid for the regular government job…
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Think Handouts to Rich Electric Vehicle Buyers Are Unfair? Check Out the Inflation Reduction Act’s Homeowner Tax Breaks
The Manchin-Schumer Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 extends the current tax credits up to $7,500 for electric vehicles (EVs). Among the many flaws with…
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Important NEPA Reform Vote in Senate this Week, with Implications for the Schumer-Manchin Package
The Senate may vote as soon as this week to reinstate Trump administration reforms to the federal permit process under the National Environmental Policy Act…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
GDP shrank, the Federal Reserve increased the federal funds rate, the Senate passed the CHIPS+ Act to subsidize chipmakers, and the Build…
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Net Zero, Joe Manchin, and High Energy Prices
This morning National Review published my article expressing skepticism that the advance of “net-zero” climate policy is inevitable (or even likely). It was written…
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Regulators Going off the Rails on a Crazy Train
One year after a supply chain crisis caused shortages across the nation, the Biden administration is trying to prevent railroads from modernizing and automating.
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As Congress Mulls Stablecoin Law, CEI Shows the Way
Reports sprung last weekend that consensus stablecoin legislation from the House Financial Services Committee was near ready. While Congress is unlikely to debate…
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The Facebook Antitrust Case Is Aging Poorly
Antitrust cases often take years to litigate. While wasteful, this isn’t always a bad thing. The politics surrounding a case might stay the same, but…
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Getting Inflation Wrong and Making It Right
Everyone makes mistakes. Owning up to them is an underrated life skill that is almost non-existent among political pundits. Doubling down when threatened is a…
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Stomping FROGs: An Updated Inventory of Biden’s Elimination of Trump-Era Final Rules on Guidance Document Procedures
Since President Obama unleashed the pen and phone, federal agency guidance documents and the confusion and abuse surrounding them has been covered extensively.
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
President Biden signed the FORMULA Act, which will temporarily suspend baby formula tariffs and other regulatory measures that made the formula shortage worse. Footage emerged…
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Tennessee Corruption Case Raises Questions about Forfeiture and Police Office Culture
On a summer Tennessee night in 2021, Deputy Daniel Jacobs of the Tipton County Sheriff’s Office attempted, essentially, to sell a 2010 Lincoln MKZ to…
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UK Leads on Crypto Privacy
The much-hyped “crypto winter” has emboldened cryptocurrency critics. The usual charges of “Ponzi scheme” (Robert Reich) and “The Big Scam” (Paul Krugman) have…
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Celebrating Pat Michaels: Colleague, Mentor, and Friend
Dr. Patrick Michaels, a leading light of the climate realist movement and cheerful warrior for scientific integrity and individual liberty, died unexpectedly last week. CEI…
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Former Trade Official Opposes Minor Tariff Relief
Now that former President Trump’s China tariffs are four years old, a mandatory review process is underway. President Biden has indicated he might lift…
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Green Politics Leads to Higher Gas Prices
Americans have been plagued by high gas prices in recent months, with recent polls showing fuel costs at the top of the list of…
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The Effect of Transfer Payments on the Labor Force Participation Rate
In the The Wall Street Journal last Thursday, James Piereson of the Manhattan Institute laid out the case for the relationship between a shrinking…
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Financial Regulators’ Climate Fetish
Financial regulators’ attention, both in the United States and globally, seems focused on issues far afield from their core mission at a time when turmoil…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The James Webb Space Telescope sent back its first images, and they are amazing. The Consumer Price Index increased 9.1 percent over the last…
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New CEI Paper Lays Out the Worst in Tech Legislation
Bipartisanship in Congress is rare, but it shouldn’t always be celebrated. Bad ideas, despite consensus, still lead to bad results. And recent congressional efforts to…
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A Closer Look at The Guardian’s “The Uber Files”
On July 11, 2022, The Guardian published an expose of rideshare giant Uber’s business practices, based on a trove of leaked documents it obtained. However,…
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Certification Program Goes Bananas
Private regulation is an excellent alternative to government regulation, if done right. One form it can take is independent certification. For decades, groups like the…
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Inflation Sped Up in June: What’s Going On?
Last month, it had looked like inflation may have peaked. That celebration was likely premature. According to numbers released this morning, the Consumer…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was assassinated while giving a speech. Boris Johnson resigned as UK Prime Minister. Jobs numbers remained strong in the…
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Lack of Air Conditioning, Not Climate Change, Is the Real Summer Heat Wave Threat
Climate change policies often pose a greater risk than climate change itself, and that is especially true during summer heat waves. Each new heat wave…
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DOT’s Doublespeak Carbon Reduction Program
The Department of Transportation (DOT) is proposing to require its state and metropolitan counterparts to reduce on-road carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from portions of…
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European Parliament Gives Final Approval to Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act
The European Parliament yesterday approved the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and the Digital Services Act (DSA), two expansive new laws that will target the…
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China Tariffs: Will Inertia Win?
Former President Trump’s China tariffs came with a safeguard: They expire after four years unless an internal review finds them worth keeping. On trade issues,…
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Some Good News on the Mountain Valley Pipeline
There are a lot of bad federal policies currently blocking American energy. Perhaps worst of all are measures bottling up Appalachia’s abundant natural gas that…
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294 Costliest Rules in Biden’s Spring 2022 Unified Agenda of Federal Regulations
Unelected federal agencies personnel issue over 3,000 rules and regulations every year. That compares to a far lower number of laws passed…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Happy Independence Day, everyone. The Supreme Court issued a major ruling on the separation of powers in the case West Virginia v. EPA. Agencies…
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Supreme Court EPA Ruling A Warning Shot to Agencies like NLRB
The Supreme Court’s ruling in West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency that the EPA exceeded its authority under the Clean Air Act is…
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The FTC vs. the Right to a Fair Trial
The Food and Drug Administration recently proposed capping the nicotine in cigarettes, which will encourage many smokers to smoke more to get the same nicotine…
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A Breakdown of Rules in the White House’s Spring 2022 Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions
Since the early 1980s, federal departments and agencies have highlighted selected regulatory priorities in spring and fall editions of the Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory…
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Supreme Court Reins in the Administrative State in West Virginia v. EPA
The Supreme Court’s decision today in West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency is an important brake on the administrative state that has inexorably grown…
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DAOs: One Answer to Woke Corporations
Imagine a group of mothers upset about Disney’s opposition to a state parental rights bill in Florida. Instead of merely venting in a Facebook group,…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The January 6 hearings continued and the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Agencies issued new regulations ranging from nuclear fees to pelagic resources. On…
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Federal Agency Tries to Extend Reach with Joint Employer Standard
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the federal labor law enforcement agency, is likely planning to vastly expand its reach through a rulemaking on something…
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Crisis Abuse in History
Last week, CEI released Wayne Crews’s paper proposing an Abuse of Crisis Prevention Act. (If you prefer the short version, see Wayne’s and my…
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Current Antitrust Proposals No “Laffing” Matter
A new report by Laffer Associates released today, Read ‘Em and Weep: How the American Innovation and Choice Online Act (S. 2992) and Other…
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FDA’s Juul Ban Part of Deadly War on Nicotine
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today announced that it denied the application of Juul Labs, maker of the Juul e-cigarette, to market its…
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Defeat of Pot Banking Liberalization Will Lead to More Violent Crime and Reduced U.S. Competitiveness
It is beyond disappointing that Congress once again dropped the Secure and Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act—bipartisan legislation that would prevent the federal government from…
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Yellen Proposes Capping Oil Prices? Not Quite
Cable news and Twitter are aflame with outrage today that Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen proposed price caps for oil. Fortunately, the rumors are false.
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Happy Juneteenth, everyone. The January 6 hearings continued. The Federal Reserve raised the federal funds rate by 0.75 percentage points. Agencies issued new regulations ranging…
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The Many Arbitrary and Capricious Aspects of SEC’s Climate Risk Disclosure Rule
Yesterday (June 16), CEI submitted two comment letters to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on its proposed rule: “The Enhancement and Standardization of…
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SEC Climate Rule a Bad Deal for Investors
This Securities and Exchange Commission proposed a new rule on climate change and corporate disclosure earlier this year, and today marks the end…
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Biden Says He Wants to Be the “Most Pro-Union President in the History of the United States”
Flattering the audience is one of the handiest tools a person has when giving a speech. It’s a simple way to establish a positive tone…
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New CEI Paper: Abuse of Crisis Prevention Act
Government always grows during a crisis. And it rarely gives up all of its emergency powers when the crisis passes. This has already happened three…
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The American Data Privacy and Protection Act Fails to Streamline Privacy Laws Nationwide and Promote Technological Innovation
As more states pass state-level data privacy laws, federal privacy law is becoming increasingly necessary to prevent a patchwork of confusing state-level legislation.