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FDA Shows Its Bias against E-cigarettes as Deadline Approaches
After years facing the constant threat of extinction, it seemed the vapor industry would finally be vindicated. The evidence on e-cigarettes regarding their safety and effectiveness…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The United States officially ended its military occupation of Afghanistan. Hurricane Ida killed at least 40 people in the Northeastern U.S., while in the New…
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Web 3.0 Requires New Regulatory Thinking
“[A] digital economy isn’t simply an industrial economy on the internet.” The Blockchain Innovation Hub at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia…
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The Cost of Uncertainty in Dealing with the Pandemic
If there is one thing that businesses want more than anything else when it comes to regulations, it is predictability. That’s one case where what’s…
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Fighting Bias and Misinformation, from Pierre Bayle’s 17th Century to the Social Media Age
Many people insist that media bias and misinformation are getting worse in the social media age, and we need to do something about it. Depending…
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UK’s Attempt to Block a Merger Between American Firms Could Cripple Innovation
As I explain in both an op-ed and regulatory comments submitted yesterday, the United Kingdom’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), the UK’s version…
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Deep Dive on Plastics: CEI Launches Series on Benefits to Mankind and Wildlife
Members of Congress have introduced several proposals to regulate plastics, which as I noted here and here, could basically destroy the U.S. plastics…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Congress seems to have reached a deal to combine the trillion-dollar infrastructure bill and the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill. A $6 trillion budget bill remains…
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Landlords Deserve Protection Too
Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Biden administration’s extension of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s nationwide eviction moratorium. While most…
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Non-Binding, Non-Enforceable Paris Agreement Poised to Destroy U.S. Fossil Fuel Industry—as We Warned
For years, the Competitive Enterprise Institute has been making the case that the Paris Agreement is a signed but non-ratified treaty that must win…
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EPA’s Proposed Auto Rule: What We Said at the Agency’s Zoom Meeting Today
Today and tomorrow, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is hosting a public Zoom meeting on the agency’s proposed motor vehicle greenhouse gas emission…
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Capitalism and Corporations: Respect Stakeholders, But Follow the Law
Last week the Law & Economics Center at George Mason University hosted a fascinating event here in Washington, D.C. on the debate over shareholder…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The big story of the week was the United States’ military withdrawal from Afghanistan. Back home, a new school year began and the economic…
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The Progressive Playbook? Thoughts on a Slippery Slope
Is there a master plan behind the blunders of governments? Or are politicians just making it up as they go along? The cabal model…
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No, Crypto Is Not a Criminal Haven
“In 2020, the criminal share of all cryptocurrency activity [was] just 0.34%, or $10.0 billion in transaction volume.” This finding by crypto intelligence firm…
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Mexican Workers Deserve Secret Ballot Elections; So Do U.S. Workers.
Today, U.S. labor leaders applauded Mexican workers for getting rid of an allegedly corrupt union at a General Motors (GM) plant in Silao, in…
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FTC Re-Files Facebook Antitrust Complaint
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) submitted a revised antitrust complaint against Facebook today. In June, a judge threw out the initial complaint for…
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Senate Republicans Revive Kyoto Lite
Bad policy ideas never die; they just get recycled. A prime case in point is the Senate’s recent passage of the Growing Climate Solutions…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The Senate passed the big infrastructure bill in a dramatic marathon vote. It now goes to the House. Up next is a $3.5 trillion spending…
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Washington’s War against the Incandescent Light Bulb Is Back
The Trump administration called a truce in the regulatory war against the incandescent light bulb by declining to target them with additional efficiency standards, but…
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Some Good News on Forest Management
After a grueling deliberative process, the Senate passed the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill on Tuesday. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has threatened to…
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New Inflation Numbers: Still High, Still Fixable
July’s inflation numbers are out. The annualized Consumer Price Index came in at 5.4 percent, compared to a 2 percent target. The month-to-month increase…
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CEI Continues Fight for Cryptocurrency Freedom
Because the Senate failed to adopt the bipartisan Wyden-Lummis-Toomey amendment even after it was watered down, the infrastructure package’s cryptocurrency tax reporting provisions could destroy,…
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Observations Concerning the Newest IPCC Report
View Full Document as PDF The case made for catastrophic climate change in the new “Sixth Assessment Report” by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental…
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CEI’s John Berlau Testifies at House Hearing on Solutions for the Unbanked
On Wednesday, July 21, CEI Senior Fellow John Berlau testified before the House Financial Services Committee, Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Financial Institutions on how…
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Why Government Infrastructure Spending Crowds Out Private Investment and Innovation
Those proclaiming of the Senate infrastructure bill that none of the spending is needed are correct. In embracing this gigantic spending bill, Republicans have helped preclude the…
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Not A Policy Paper, Just A Thought
Years ago, pastor Lon Solomon of the D.C.-based McLean Bible Church popularized a series of radio ads entitled, “Not a Sermon, Just a Thought,”…
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Nasdaq’s Board Diversity Rule Still a Mistake
On Friday the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved a new rule from Nasdaq that will require firms listed on that exchange to comply…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Nearly 1 million jobs were created in July, while Congress put the finishing touches on an infrastructure bill that will add about $250 billion…
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Better Forest Management Needs a New Approach
The rampant wildfires in the west continue to exacerbate and conditions are likely to get worse before they get better. More than 4 percent…
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Senate Should Pass the Wyden-Lummis-Toomey Cryptocurrency Amendment
The Senate must adopt the bipartisan Wyden-Lummis-Toomey amendment to ensure that the infrastructure package’s cryptocurrency tax reporting provisions do not destroy, rather than help build,…
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For CDC to Repair Its Reputation, It Must Get Out of Housing (and Politics)
The Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was once considered one of the most trusted public health institutions in the world, but its handling…
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The Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill Shows Much of What’s Wrong with Congress
Although it now looks unlikely, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D_NY) wants the Infrastructure Investments and Jobs Act, popularly known as the bipartisan infrastructure bill,…
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CDC’s Eviction Moratorium Extension Another Example of Ends-Justify-the-Means Policy
The Constitution requires all of Congress and the president to swear to uphold the Constitution. Yet, too often today, public officials of both parties ignore…
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Weil Is a Poor Choice to Lead Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division
Lawmakers should reject President Biden’s choice to serve as administrator of the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division, a major federal law enforcement…
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Civilian Climate Corps Would Expand Government When We Can Least Afford It
My first post in this series reviewed the history—and basic economics—of government works programs, such as the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). My second…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Second quarter GDP grew at a 6.5 percent annualized pace, although COVID’s delta variant, inflation, and massive deficit spending could dampen growth going forward.
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Has Bitcoin/Crypto Failed as Money?
“[I]t’s not that [cryptocurrencies] didn’t aspire to be a payment mechanism; it’s that they’ve completely failed to become one except for people who desire anonymity…
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Climate Risk Disclosure: SEC’s Next Modest Proposal
An article in the Wall Street Journal this week reports as breaking news something that has been obvious for months: The Securities and Exchange…
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Tobacco Control’s Latest Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
If you want to make something irresistible to teenagers, portray it as a forbidden fruit. That is what has happened in the U.S. with e-cigarettes.
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Do We All Deserve a Share of the World’s Natural Resources?
In early July I wrote an op-ed for Inside Sources, which was subsequently picked up by several newspapers, on why the United States should…
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Big Tech Critic Jonathan Kanter Nominated to Lead Justice Department Antitrust Division
President Biden’s announcement to nominate long-time Big Tech adversary Jonathan Kanter to lead the Department of Justice Antitrust Division follows on the heels of…
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Wisdom on the Interest-Rate Price Control Folly from John Stuart Mill to Thomas Sowell
Today, the Senate held a hearing entitled, “Protecting Americans from Debt Traps by Extending the Military’s 36% Interest Rate Cap to Everyone.” But the…
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The Meaningless Symbolism of Raising the Minimum Wage for Federal Contractors
The Biden administration is planning to increase the minimum wage for federal contractors to $15 an hour, but there is much less to this than…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The Olympic games began in Tokyo, after being delayed a year due to COVID-19. Congress is working its way through a $3.5 trillion spending bill…
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A Civilian Climate Corps Cannot Address a Climate Emergency
In my previous post, I explained that high-profile political figures, including President Biden, are currently pushing for the creation of a Civilian Climate Corps…
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Carbon Tariffs Would Hurt Consumers, Slow Recovery
Over in the Washington Examiner, I take a look at the carbon tariff proposal that will likely be in the $3.5 trillion spending bill…
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War on Natural Gas—End User Edition
No matter that it is clean-burning, domestically plentiful, and affordable, natural gas is demonized by the Biden administration as a fossil fuel and for that…
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The Flawed Arguments for a Civilian Climate Corps
When President Franklin Delano Roosevelt took office in 1933, he was faced with a massive economic crisis. To combat it, he embarked on a plan…
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With PRO Act, Congress Readies National Version of California’s AB5 Fiasco
California’s AB5 law, which was meant to prevent worker misclassification, faced a popular backlash when it disrupted the livelihoods of freelancers and gig…