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It’s Magna Carta Day!
In a peaceful English meadow made riotous by armed camps, King John sealed Magna Carta, the Great Charter of English liberty, 803 years ago…
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Last Chance for the 115th: Legislative Action on Labor and Employment
Lawmakers have made little to no progress during the 115th Congress to improve labor and employment policy. U.S. labor law is outdated and in…
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Last Chance for the 115th: Stop the President from Unilaterally Raising Tariffs
Article I, section 8 of the U.S. Constitution gives Congress the exclusive power of the purse. Under no circumstances may the president unilaterally raise taxes.
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Last Chance for the 115th: Bring Accountability to the Financial Regulators
In CEI’s “Free to Prosper: A Pro-Growth Agenda for the 115th Congress,” my colleagues John Berlau and Iain Murray made the enduring recommendation…
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Keep Entrepreneurs Free from Internet Sales Taxes
Today, the Competitive Enterprise Institute released a new video on Internet sales taxes in which Center for Technology and Innovation Associate Director Jessica Melugin…
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Good News for Young Lemonade Stand Entrepreneurs
Every summer there are news stories about local authorities shutting down children’s lemonade stands over lack of licenses, permits, a lack of restaurant-grade kitchen or…
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Last Chance for the 115th: Senate Should Pass AV START Act
Back when CEI published “Free to Prosper: A Pro-Growth Agenda for the 115th Congress” at the end of 2016, we wrote that “[t]o…
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Will Trump’s Tariffs Spell the End of Free Markets?
The president’s threats must be fought, but the good news is America’s fundamental institutions will withstand Trumpian bluster. For one thing, our economy remains a…
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Putting the Net Neutrality Scare Stories to Rest
Today is the first day of the Internet operating under the Federal Communications Commission’s Restoring Internet Freedom Order (RIFO), which was adopted last December but is…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The week’s big headlines were about the G7 meeting and our allies’ efforts to avoid a trade war, and the meeting with north Korea…
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Hydroelectric Hearing Highlights Costs of Federal Permitting Delays
The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s subcommittee on energy held a hearing on June 7th on energy infrastructure licensing reform. Although Improving the Hydropower…
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EPA Asks for Public Comment on Improving Cost-Benefit Analysis of Regulations
On June 7, the Environmental Protection Agency issued an advance notice of proposed rulemaking soliciting information on how the agency estimates costs and benefits in…
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How Socialism Devastated Venezuela
I’m attending FEEcon, the annual conference held by the Foundation for Economic Education, this week, and there’s an overwhelming number of great speakers…
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Surprising Results from the Labor Department’s Alternative Work Arrangements Report
A growing economy helps all workers, both those in the sharing economy and those in traditional employment, as new federal employment data bear out.
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How to Improve Rulemaking at the CFPB
This week, the Competitive Enterprise Institute submitted comments to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, on how it could improve its rulemaking to provide a better…
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It’s Not “Us vs. Them” at the G7 Meeting
Tit-for-tat retaliation for trade tariffs is a losing game for both sides. Exports are the way we pay for imports of the things we want.
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Here We Go Again: Steel and Aluminum Tariffs and Peter Navarro
A new 25 percent steel tariff and a 10 percent aluminum tariff have come into effect. The levies are aimed at our allies, such as Canada,…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Despite a four-day workweek, federal agencies still exceeded the previous week’s Federal Register page count by nearly a hundred pages, pushing the yearly total past…
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Cato Institute Honors Human Rights Work of Cuba’s ‘Ladies in White’
Congratulations are in order to our friends at the Cato Institute on their recent big event in New York, the Friedman Prize Dinner. Every two…
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5 Advantages of Stepping away from the Paris Climate Treaty
This week marks the one-year anniversary of President Trump’s announcement that the United States would be withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement, the…
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Democratic Senators Criticize Labor Rulemaking on Joint Employment
A group of Democratic senators recently took issue with the National Labor Relations Board’s announcement it may initiate a notice and comment rulemaking to clarify…
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Ship Has Sailed on U.S. Engagement with Paris Climate Treaty
My colleague Myron Ebell, in a nod to his collegiate years spent at the London School of Economics and Cambridge University, writes this month for…
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Prop E Win in San Francisco Would Be Loss for Public Health
“Big Tobacco” is pouring millions into a campaign to maintain their ability to keep selling harmful products that target children. At least, that’s the narrative…
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The Constitutional Cure for the Paris Agreement
Today marks the first anniversary of President Trump’s Rose Garden speech announcing his intention to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement. That speech…
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Looking Back on Trump’s Paris Decision: Why It Protected the Constitution and Rule of Law
This week marks the one-year anniversary of President Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the all-pain-no-gain Paris climate treaty. In response to…
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Congress Should Reform Antitrust Law with SMARTER Act
When an American company wishes to merge with or acquire another company, reaching an agreement that satisfies both firms’ owners and managers is not always…
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Despite Trump Repudiation, Paris Climate Treaty Still Needs a Senate Vote
This week will mark the one-year anniversary of President Trump’s speech announcing that the United States would be withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement,…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Agencies took it comparatively easy in the leadup to the long Memorial Day weekend, though the FAA and Coats Guard were busy with rules for…
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Finance Regulators Pave Way for Banks to Reenter Small-Dollar Loan Market
Under the letter of the law, banks can now reenter the small-dollar lending space. On Wednesday, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC)…
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Will Coffee Give You Cancer (in California)?
Our friends over at Reason TV have a new video asking the attention-grabbing headline “Will coffee give you cancer?” As it turns out, no (unless…
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House Committee Examines Union Subsidy
Today the House Subcommittee on Government Operations held a hearing entitled “Union Time on the People’s Dime: A Closer Look at Official Time.” The purpose…
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On Honesty and ‘Honest Brokers’ in Government Science
Today’s E&E News has an interesting article about Richard Yamada, a Ph.D. mathematician who is the key official helping Administrator Scott Pruitt reshape science…
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Debunking the Dilatory Objections to the AV START Act
In September 2017, the House of Representatives passed the SELF DRIVE Act by unanimous voice vote. The bill would for the first time establish…
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Trump Maintains a One-In, Five-Out Pace for Rules and Regulations
How many deregulatory actions have been taken so far in the Trump administration? Along with 16 congressional “resolutions of disapproval” of existing Obama-era regulations—another…
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Wishful Thinking Is No Way to Address Public Pension Shortfalls
More state revenue but less money for public services? That’s the situation in which states with large unfunded pension obligations can find themselves if they…
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Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Reexamines Anti-Discrimination Enforcement
This week President Trump signed a resolution of disapproval overturning one of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s most controversial regulatory actions—the inappropriate application of…
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Supreme Court Ends Sports Betting Prohibition—Now What?
It’s hard to believe it was just last Monday the U.S. Supreme Court ended the federal law that, for 25 years, prevented the states…
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Congress Could Give Desperate Patients ‘Right to Try’ Experimental Medications
The House of Representatives will soon vote on a companion bill to S. 204, the Right to Try Act. This bill would prevent the…
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Federal Deregulation Can Exceed What Gets Reported in Unified Agenda
In tracking the Trump administration’s regulatory vs. deregulatory actions, there can be discrepancy between the official Unified Agenda compilation (the tally that’s been around…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
It was a relatively slow week, with 44 proposed regulations and 62 final regulations, though the Supreme Court did rule the federal ban on…
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UK Climate Campaigners Demand More Market Rigging
Members of Parliament in the United Kingdom “are warning of a ‘dramatic and worrying collapse’ of clean energy investments in Great Britain in the last…
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President Trump Replaces Obama Executive Order on Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions
President Donald Trump on May 17th issued an executive order that replaces a March 19th, 2015 executive order by President Barack Obama requiring all federal departments…
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Justice Department Brief Defends Oil Companies against California City Lawsuits
The Department of Justice last week filed an amicus brief supporting oil companies’ motion to dismiss claims by the cities of Oakland and San Francisco that the firms…
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Fraser Institute Confronts Changing Demographics of Entrepreneurship
As my colleague Christine Hall reported earlier this week, our Canadian think tank friends at the Fraser Institute have a new book out…
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Tell the Energy Department What You Think about Your Dishwasher
Thirty-five years ago, dishwashers cleaned dishes in about an hour. Sadly today, due to federal regulations, there are no dishwashers that do so. This isn’t progress—it’s…
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Did You Hear the One about the Entrepreneur?
When putting together a chapter on entrepreneurship and regulation for the Fraser Institute’s new book “Demographics and Entrepreneurship: Mitigating the Effects of an Aging…
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Debating Employment Flexibility in the Gig Economy
Renowned labor expert and Harvard professor Benjamin Sachs argues over at OnLabor.org that he's had enough with what he calls the “flexibility trope” of worker classification…
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Federal Employees Spend Over 3 Million Hours on Union Business
Federal employee unions enjoy a government subsidy known as “official time” that enables union members to perform union duties while being paid by the taxpayer.
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Red Tape Discourages Entrepreneurs, CEI Expert Explains in Fraser Institute Book
Today, the Fraser Institute, an independent, non-partisan Canadian public policy think-tank, released a new book on worldwide barriers to entrepreneurship, Demographics and Entrepreneurship: Mitigating the…
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Excessive Caution at EPA Produces Absurd Conclusions
In an April 24 blog post, I detailed why a recent National Academies of Sciences review of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Integrated Risk Information…
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Ending Disparate Enforcement at Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
Just last week, Congress voted to overturn one of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s most controversial regulatory actions—a guidance document that was used…
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Congressional Review Act Wrong Way to Legislate on Net Neutrality
On Wednesday, May 16, the Senate is expected to vote on a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution of disapproval that purports to undo…
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Zero Emission Vehicles Can Increase Air Pollution: Study
A new report by economist Jonathan Lesser of the Manhattan Institute challenges the conventional wisdom that zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) are superior to new internal…
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Cut Red Tape So Middle-Class Investors Can Soar with Next Amazon
Today is the 21st anniversary of the initial public offering of a little company called Amazon. Yes, today Amazon is a behemoth, a supposed…
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Friendly Mentions for ‘10,000 Commandments’ Study
Here at the Competitive Enterprise Institute we’re happy to see the attention being received by the 25th anniversary edition of Wayne Crews’ popular study of…
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Supreme Court Sports Betting Decision Big Win for Consumers, Federalism
Today’s Supreme Court opinion in Murphy v. NCAA (formerly Christie v. NCAA) is a big win for consumers, states, and the constitutional principle…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The big news from the last week was the release of the spring edition of the twice-yearly Unified Agenda, which lists all planned agency regulations…
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UN Climate Talks in Bonn Result in More Climate Talks in Bangkok
The annual subsidiary body meetings of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) held in Bonn, Germany over the past two weeks have…
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California to Require Solar Panels on New Homes
“California is set to become the first state to require solar panels on all newly built single-family houses,” the Los Angeles Times reports. Not…
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New York Attorney General and Climate Campaigner Schneiderman Resigns
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman resigned on May 8th within hours of The New Yorker publishing an exposé in which four former girlfriends…
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Charting the Telecom Future with Free State Foundation
Our friends at the Free State Foundation recently held their 10th Annual Telecom Policy Conference here in Washington, D.C., and the proceedings covered the…
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Clearing a Regulatory Path for Automated Trucks and Trains
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is the national safety regulator of heavy trucks and buses, or commercial motor vehicles. It was created in 2000…
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Due Process Concerns Remain in National Labor Relations Board Ethics Inquiry
On March 28, 2018, the Competitive Enterprise Institute sent a letter to the National Labor Relations Board Office of Inspector General to investigate NLRB…
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Trump Administration Regulatory Agenda Released
Today the Trump administration released the Spring 2018 edition of the twice-yearly Regulatory Plan and Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions, accompanied…
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Big Senate Net Neutrality Vote Coming Soon
The debate over net neutrality is heating up again this week, as Democrats in the Senate attempt to overturn new rules adopted by the…
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‘10,000 Commandments’ in the News
The 25th anniversary edition of the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s regulatory reform study “10,000 Commandments” has received a warm welcome since it was released…
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A New Bibliography for the Platform Economy
The future has arrived, and it is a radically different economy. Havas Media’s Tom Goodwin pointed out in 2015, “Uber, the world’s largest taxi…
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Do Tourists Cause Global Warming?
Nature Climate Change yesterday published a study measuring the “carbon footprint of global tourism.” It’s big. Taking into account all tourism-related expenditures for transport, shopping,…
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Post Office Payday Loans: A Stunningly Bad Idea
Like clockwork, every so often a new member of Congress will rehash an old, tired idea: having the United States Postal Service (USPS) make short-term,…
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Win for Government Accountability against New York Attorney General
When the law says that government officials are required to turn over documents to the public, it means that they’re actually required to turn over…
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Congress Should Axe Backdoor Auto Finance Rule
This week, Congress has a unique opportunity to repeal one of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s worst regulatory actions. Using the Congressional Review Act (CRA),…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
It is now May, and still only one economically significant regulation (costing $100 million or more per year) has been issued this year. With the…
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Good News from the United Nations Climate Talks in Bonn
The subsidiary bodies of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) are meeting in Bonn, Germany this week and next to try to draft…
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Sen. Lankford Headlines Mercatus Event on Regulation and Opportunity
Recently the Mercatus Center hosted an excellent panel discussion on the effects of regulation on entrepreneurs and the poor. I was excited to see…
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Dueling Calculations for the Cost of Federal Regulation
Recently here at CEI, we’ve been celebrating the release of the 25th anniversary edition of our major report on the costs of government regulation,…
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Senseless Menu Labeling Rules Go into Effect in May
Within days, chain restaurants and grocery stores nationwide will have to comply with a high-cost, low-value Obamacare menu labeling mandate. Failure to comply with the…
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Multi-State Petition against EPA Vehicle Standards Makes Weak Legal Case
California joined by 16 states and the District of Columbia yesterday petitioned the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to stop Environmental Protection Agency administrator…
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Regulatory Reform in Congress
While the president’s initial flurry of executive orders enacting some regulatory reforms was a pleasant surprise, the next president can undo them with the stroke…
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Long History for ‘10,000 Commandments’ on Capitol Hill
The 25th anniversary of CEI’s flagship study on federal regulation, “10,000 Commandments”, has been getting a lot of attention recently. We’re always happy when…
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How to Encourage Tech Competition: Deregulate Finance
It’s May Day, and in the pages of the New York Times appears a paean to the halcyon days of the 1930s, urging a…
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Steel and Aluminum Tariffs a Massive Net Loss for U.S. Economy
Following in George W. Bush’s footsteps, President Trump increased tariffs on foreign-made steel and aluminum by 25 percent in March. But he exempted U.S. allies…
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Department of Labor Safeguards Worker Retirement Investments
It is well known that Americans do not adequately save for retirement. As such, it is crucial that every dollar American workers put away…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The number of new final regulations passed the 1,000 mark last week, with new rules ranging from sending mail to human reliability programs.
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House Panels Grill Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Pruitt
On April 26th, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt testified in separate hearings before the environment subcommittees of the House Energy and Commerce and…
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Scalise, McKinley Introduce Anti-Carbon Tax Resolution
House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) and Rep. David McKinley (R-WV) on Thursday introduced H. Con. Res. 119, which “Expresses the sense of Congress…
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Cato Institute Experts on NAFTA and the Trump Tariffs
While the administration has made great progress on issues like regulatory reform and energy policy, the current White House has also embraced policies that—and…
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Visualizing the Burden of Federal Regulation
The Competitive Enterprise Institute recently released the 25th anniversary edition of Wayne Crews’ widely-cited study “10,000 Commandments: An Annual Snapshot of the Federal Regulatory State.”…
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Free Market Groups Call for Repeal of Clean Power Plan
Public policy analysts from 20 free-market organizations today filed a joint comment letter in support of EPA administrator Scott Pruitt’s proposal to repeal…
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House Committee Examines How to Modernize Labor Laws
Labor-management relation laws in the United States are in need of an update. Reform is long overdue, with the last major update to statutes governing…
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Some Context for the Astronomical Cost of Government Regulation
Since any number with that many zeroes and commas in it is difficult for the human mind to process, let’s put it in a more…
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Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Targets True Rights Violations with Wells Fargo Fine
After being attacked repeatedly for supposedly being soft on Wall Street and the “big banks,” Acting Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Mick Mulvaney was part…
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Systematic Failures of Chemical Safety Research at Environmental Protection Agency
“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again” could be the motto of one of the key research programs at the U.S. Environmental Protection…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The big news this week was the release of the 2018 edition of Ten Thousand Commandments. Agencies continued to provide fodder for next years edition…
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What Exxon Knew: AEI Panel on Recent Climate Change Litigation
The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) this week held a panel discussion titled “What did they know, and when did they know it?” on the growing swirl of…
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City of Boulder and Two Colorado Counties Join Climate Shakedown Racket
Boulder, Colorado and Boulder and San Miguel Counties filed suit in state court this week against ExxonMobil and Suncor Energy. The suit claims that petroleum products…
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Lessons for Congress from ‘10,000 Commandments’: Regulatory Budgets
One of the lessons learned from this year’s “10,000 Commandments” study is that Congress needs to be more involved in the regulatory process. It needs…
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The Changing Face of Selling Liberty Online
We’ve been publishing and promoting the study for many years, and our strategies and methods have changed as the years have gone by. When we…
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‘10,000 Commandments’ at 25: What Have We Learned, What’s to Come?
Wayne Crews has ably documented the regulatory state for twenty-five years and running. But what will the next twenty-five years of “10,000 Commandments” look like?…
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Peter Navarro’s Economic Ignorance on Trade
Trump economic advisor and Death by China author Peter Navarro’s recent column in The Wall Street Journal, “China’s Faux Comparative Advantage,” is a…
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The Cost of Washington’s ‘10,000 Commandments’
Federal regulation cost Americans $1.9 trillion in 2017, or nearly $15,000 per U.S. household—more than Americans spend on any category in their family budget except…