Blog
Biden Administration to Impose Wave of Costly Regulations on Home Appliances
The spring 2021 Unified Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions (Unified Agenda) has been released. It’s the roadmap of federal regulatory priorities, and being…
Blog
Platform Competition and Opportunity Act Is An Innovation Killer That Won’t Serve Consumers
One of five antitrust bills introduced last week, The Platform Competition and Opportunity Act, would prohibit leading tech platforms from acquiring companies that are…
Blog
Digital Yuan Threatens Global Freedom
“[Bitcoin] is an escape hatch from tyranny and nothing less than freedom money.” – Alex Gladstein, Human Rights Foundation The world is recognizing…
Blog
ACCESS Bill Would Increase Consumer Privacy Risks and Stifle Innovation
One of five antitrust bills introduced last week, the Augmenting Compatibility and Competition by Enabling Service Switching Act (they did a lot of heavy…
Blog
Reviewing SEC Climate Disclosure Comments
Earlier this week, I wrote a short summary of the comments from myself and my colleague Marlo Lewis to the Securities and…
Blog
The PRO Act Would Erode Individual Workers’ Rights
Suppose a piece of legislation was presented as an expansion of rights, when in fact it narrowed those rights. That ought to stir up some…
Blog
What Do We Want from Our Platforms?
Two recently introduced House bills seek to restructure antitrust law, supposedly to tackle purported abuses by “big tech” firms. They aim to change how the…
Blog
Exposed: Bloomberg’s Anti-Tobacco Meddling in Developing Countries
Back in February I wrote a piece for Inside Sources titled “Bloomberg’s Philanthro-Colonialism: A Threat to Global Health and Science,” criticizing the behavior of…
Blog
PRO-SPEECH Act Seeks to Reintroduce Problem Solved 25 Years Ago
For those generally skeptical of Congress’ ability to make good policy, the existence of Section 230 in the 1996 Communications Decency Act evokes a…
Blog
Boeing-Airbus Dispute Remains Unsolved: Tariffs Gone, Subsidies Stay
The European Union and the United States eagerly announced today that they had resolved their 17-year dispute over aerospace subsidies. They exaggerate their claims.
Blog
CEI Submits Comments to the SEC on Climate Risk Disclosure, Part 2
On Friday, June 11, CEI, joined by nine other free market organizations, submitted two comment letters in response to Securities and Exchange (SEC) Commissioner Allison…
Blog
CEI Submits Comments on Biden Administration Proposal to Repeal Trump Auto Rule Enforcing Preemption of California Motor Vehicle CO2 Regulations
On Friday, June 11, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), joined by eight other free market organizations, submitted comments on the National Highway Traffic Safety…
Blog
It’s up to Drug Reformers to Stop the War on Nicotine
In recent years, a growing number of Americans have been waking up to the failure of the War on Drugs. Officially initiated by President…
Blog
Climate Disclosure Comments to the SEC
The Securities and Exchange Commission’s Allison Herren Lee solicited comments on climate change from the public back on March 15, and the deadline for…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The economic recovery continues, but Congress is still intent on passing unneeded stimulus and infrastructure spending. Inflation is also up, and five antitrust bills are…
Blog
Biden’s Spring 2021 Unified Agenda of Federal Regulation, by the Numbers
The Biden administration released the Spring 2021 edition of the twice-yearly Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions today. The purpose…
Blog
Lessons from the Demise of ANWR and Keystone XL
Two iconic North American oil projects, federal leasing in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and the Keystone XL pipeline carrying Canadian crude to U.S.
Blog
The Paycheck Fairness Act’s Solution to the Gender Pay Gap: Make It Impossible to Defend Against Claims of Discrimination
Congress hit a wall this week on the Paycheck Fairness Act, which narrowly failed 49-50 on a Senate vote on Tuesday to break…
Blog
CPI Inflation Indicator Hits 5 Percent: Not Stagflation, But a Useful Warning
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) for May came out this morning. At 5 percent, it was higher than expected. CPI has its flaws…
Blog
Junk Science Gains Traction at the Biden EPA
The Biden administration has begun to reverse a host of policies that could have substantially improved the quality of science produced by government agencies. One…
Blog
Stimulating the COVID Recovery without Trillions in Spending
Over at Inside Sources, I make the case that deregulation, freer trade, and continued vaccinations will do more to open up the economy than…
Blog
Why Republicans Should Abandon the Infrastructure Compromise with the White House
The GOP should go nowhere near any trillion-dollar infrastructure deal with the White House. Reasons include the already enacted stratospheric COVID spending that couldn’t…
Blog
Consumers May Lose Access to Herbicide Roundup Thanks to Junk Science Lawsuits
Agrochemical company Bayer’s quest to continue selling the herbicide known as Roundup to consumers may soon come to and end. The company is considering…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Unemployment is back under 6 percent, and it’s looking more and more like the economy is reverting back to trend. We’re not there yet, but…
Blog
Michigan Civil Forfeiture Appeal Declined by U.S. Supreme Court, but Underlying Problem Remains
In July 2015, Stephen Nichols presented a counterfeit insurance certificate during a traffic stop in Lincoln Park, Michigan. He was not arrested or charged with…
Blog
New Job Numbers Show a Positive Trend
The Department of Labor’s (DOL) new jobs report is the latest proof that rolling back the restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 outbreak remains the…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The Endless Frontiers Act remains the big story in Congress. After an 850-page trade was added via amendment in the Senate, the bill has been…
Blog
Should the SEC Require More Climate Data from Public Companies?
This week, Case Western Reserve University law professor (and CEI alum) Jonathan Adler hosted a fascinating event titled “Climate Change, Financial Markets &…
Blog
Biden’s $6 Trillion Budget Should Warn Republicans to Drop Infrastructure Compromise
The release of the Biden $6 trillion, biggest-ever and latest-in-a-century fiscal year 2022 budget proposal is a good time to reflect upon…
Blog
Does Joe Biden Want to Do to Car Prices What California Has Done to Gas Prices?
Most Americans taking to the roads this Memorial Day weekend will be paying around $3 per gallon of gasoline, but in California the number…
Blog
Alabama Enacts New Civil Forfeiture Reforms
On Tuesday, May 25, Alabama Governor Kay Ivey enacted SB210, which reforms state laws that allow law enforcement agencies to seize cars, homes, money,…
Blog
Lawmakers Break Free from Logic with Anti-Plastic, “Climate” Legislation
In an effort to address the so-called “climate crisis,” members of Congress have proposed legislation so extreme that it could destroy the entire U.S. plastics…
Blog
Railway Unions Want Minimum Crew Numbers
Cars are learning to drive themselves on U.S. highways. Unmanned aerial drones are fueling the expansion of e-commerce. Railways have been trying to…
Blog
Federal Interest Rate Cap and Overturning of “True Lender” Rule Threaten Credit Innovation
On May 11, the U.S. Senate passed a measure, which, though sold as stopping “predatory lenders,” would greatly limit access to credit from solid lenders…
Blog
Steel Companies Lobby for Steel Tariffs, Biden to Double Lumber Tariffs
One of the first things President Biden should have done upon taking office was to eliminate the Trump tariffs. This would have provided potent economic…
Blog
Biden Administration’s Net-Zero Climate Agenda Is a Loser for Americans, International Energy Agency Confirms
The International Energy Agency (IEA) has just released two major reports that destroy the plausibility and advisability of the Biden administration’s net-zero climate agenda.
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
CEI’s Wayne Crews looked at the Biden administration’s dismantling transparency reforms for guidance documents and warned that political spending on scientific research would…
Blog
Microsoft to Retire Internet Explorer: Lessons for Today’s Antitrust Cases
Microsoft just announced it will retire its Internet Explorer browser next year. This is the same program that was at the heart of an…
Blog
The Endless Frontier Act to Boost Science and Tech Can Mean Endless Regulation
Related to regulatory effects of mass spending on national plans and the deadweight costs of spending, are the distortions, diversion of resources, and…
Blog
EPA Follows Through on Biden Directive to Hide Guidance Documents from the Public
Before President Joe Biden signed an executive order called Revocation of Certain Executive Orders Concerning Federal Regulation that, among much else, instructed federal agencies…
Blog
The Colonial Pipeline Shutdown May Shift Infrastructure Debate in a More Useful Direction
If there is a silver lining to the cyberattack that shut down the Colonial Pipeline and left many East Coast drivers waiting in line for…
Blog
NHTSA Proposes to Repeal Preemption of California’s GHG Vehicle Regulations
The comment period opens today for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) to repeal portions of the Trump…
Blog
What Inflation Is, and What It Isn’t
It looks like we’re in for a bit of inflation. After decades of stable 2 percent inflation, the latest indicators say it’s moving up…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The best news of the week was the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advising that vaccinated people can safely go mask-free pretty much anywhere.
Blog
California App Drivers Seem Happy that Proposition 22 Passed
Ever since Proposition 22’s lopsided November victory in California, critics of that ballot initiative have pushed the narrative that voters were confused by it…
Blog
One of Google’s Antitrust Cases Dismissed, for Now
A District judge on Thursday dismissed a private antitrust case against Google brought by a group of advertisers. It does not affect separate cases…
Blog
The CDC Finally Does the Obvious
Calling Captain Obvious. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has now stated what has been clear to anyone following the scientific literature for…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The Facebook Oversight Board conditionally upheld former President Trump’s Facebook ban. Many Republican responses showed that they either do not understand the First Amendment or…
Blog
EPA Proposes Rule Cracking Down on Refrigerants
On April 30, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a notice of proposed rulemaking to create a rationing scheme for hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), a widely…
Blog
Latest Jobs Report Shows – Again – that Economy Can Heal Itself
The Department of Labor’s (DOL) latest job numbers are being treated as gloomy news because overall unemployment marginally increased to 6.1 percent…