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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.
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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IEA Study Quantifies the Need for More Mined Materials in Transitioning to a Low-Carbon Economy
CEI and others have noted the substantial need for mined materials to transition away from fossil fuels. Now a May 5 International Energy Agency…
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Arizona Adopts Landmark Civil Forfeiture Reform Legislation
On May 6, Arizona Governor Greg Ducey signed into law House Bill 2810, which reforms the state’s civil forfeiture law and strengthens due process…
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Why Policy Makers Should Consider Expanding Financing and Exit Options for Startups
Last month, the online chat startup Discord halted accepting bids for a potential acquisition. Suitors included Microsoft, which had offered to acquire the company…
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Overboard over the Oversight Board
Yesterday’s decision by Facebook’s Oversight Board that the company was correct in restricting then-President Trump’s ability to post on January 7, 2021 and that…
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House Hearing Spells out Extent of Proposed Subsidies for Electric Vehicles
Democrats in the House of Representatives really want Americans to ditch their gasoline-powered cars and trucks for electric vehicles (EVs). A May 5 hearing…
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Biden Administration Says Lets Keep the Rules for Contract Work Vague and Confusing
In a move that surprised no one, the Biden administration announced today it was officially rolling back the Trump administration’s rule under the…
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New Study: Defusing the ESG Threat to Shareholder Rights
Today the Competitive Enterprise Institute published my new study on theories of enlightened investing, Environmental, Social, and Governance Theory: Defusing a Major Threat to…
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Universal Basic Income and the Custodial Administrative State
The American Families Plan (EFP), touted both before and during President Biden’s address to Congress, is still a work in progress, with…
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Biden’s Carried Interest Tax Would Force All Partnerships to Carry Big Burden
“The Biden administration and its allies excel at leveraging crises to expand government,” observes my CEI colleague Wayne Crews on the Biden “infrastructure” plan.
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The economy bounced back in a big way, according to numbers released on Thursday. Things are not quite back where they were, but the trend…
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Is the Biden Administration Socialist?
One of the points I make in The Socialist Temptation is that today’s “democratic socialists” don’t really know what they mean by socialism. Nor…
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Is Biden Planning New Payroll Taxes?
President Biden will reportedly use address to Congress tonight to tout his American Families Plan, a major part of which is paid family leave.
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CDC Says It Is Safe for Vaccinated People to Unmask Outdoors
After much anticipation, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has finally relaxed its guidelines on mask wearing—people who have been vaccinated need…
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CEI Submits Comments on Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Consideration of Greenhouse Gases in Natural Gas Facility Permitting
CEI submitted comments yesterday addressing seven questions posed by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on how the Commission should consider environmental impacts…
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A Menthol Cigarette Ban Would Perpetuate the Racist War on Drugs
In April the White House announced an apparently historic shift in the U.S. War on Drugs—away from strict prohibition to an approach emphasizing harm…
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Don’t Fear Crypto Dip; Fear Regulations that Will Harm America’s Cryptocurrency Lead
After a massive runup for the past few months, the cryptocurrency market experienced a slight dip over the past week and a half. This dip…
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Democrats’ Drug Price Control Bill Is a Prescription for Disaster
Last Thursday, House Democrats reintroduced a bill from the last Congress, which they claim will protect Medicare from excessive prescription drug prices. Sadly, it…
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Expect Search for Corporate Virtue to Get Increasingly Expensive
Last week I wrote about a video from the Financial Times that was meant to explain environmental social, and governance (ESG) investing. Despite…
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Biden’s Leaders Climate Summit: China 2, U. S. 0
I was only able to watch part of the Biden administration’s global Leaders Climate Summit, but expect there will be opportunities for repeated viewings…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The big news of the week was the guilty verdicts in the Derek Chauvin murder trial. Senate Republicans continued their longtime strategy of bargaining with…
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Don’t Believe the Hype: ESG Investing Advice Hides Serious Flaws
In a recent video for the “Moral Money” section of the Financial Times, reporter Brooke Fox took on the question “What does ESG-friendly really…
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Which Way Forward on Energy and the Environment
This Earth Day, we are likely to once again hear the too-common predictions of climate catastrophe and calls for ambitious—and costly—policies to address the problem.
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John Kerry, an Unlikely Truth-Teller?
John Kerry, America’s special presidential envoy for climate, will be on the world stage during the Biden administration’s online global Leaders Summit on Climate.
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EPA Inspector General Releases Report on Trump Auto Rule Process Concerns
The Washington Post today reviews a report released yesterday by the Inspector General (IG) of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regarding claims that…
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Runaway Spending and Regulation Call for an Abuse-of-Crisis Prevention Act
The escalation of spending and regulation in the face of economic shock—by means of “resets,” “New New Deals,” “new social contracts,” and “Build…
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Will China Play the U.S. on Climate?
President Biden’s 40-nation “virtual climate summit” is scheduled to begin on Earth Day, April 22. Even at this late date, it’s not clear that…
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Minimal Environmental Benefits in the Infrastructure Plan’s Spending Spree on Electric Vehicles
As discussed in a previous post, the $174 billion for electric vehicles (EVs) in the Biden administration’s recently proposed $2.3 trillion dollar infrastructure…
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The One Place Progressives Want the Vote Suppressed: Union Elections
Big business has a new weapon to use against organized labor: mailboxes. That is what the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union (RWDSU) claims is…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Congress played a round of good idea-bad idea last week. Rep. Bob Good (R-VA) introduced a bill for a regulatory budget, similar to the…
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Can Money Buy Love When It Comes to Electric Vehicles? The Biden Administration Wants to Try with Its Infrastructure Package
There is a long history of Washington declaring gasoline-powered cars a thing of the past and subsidizing alternatives to replace them. It has never worked,…
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DOL On Independent Contractor Rule: We Were Wrong but We Cannot Explain Why
The Biden administration put the Department of Labor (DOL) in the awkward position of having to withdraw its new rule regarding when workers…
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Can Biden End the Current War on Drugs without Starting a New One?
This president is not your Grandad’s Joe Biden. At least, that seems to be the message of a new White House plan on the…
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Maybe Workers Just Aren’t That into You, Unions
Labor unions are second only to Donald Trump when it comes to crying foul over election outcomes they don’t like. The National Labor Relations Board…
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LBRY Cryptocurrency Prosecution Shows SEC’s Misplaced Priorities
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), without authorization from Congress or from formal rulemaking, continues its punitive push against blockchain-based companies that sell native tokens…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen floated the idea of a global minimum corporate tax and Amazon workers in Alabama voted against unionizing. The Biden…
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The UK Should Beware of Future Restrictions against UK-EU Data Flows
The British government must beware of future challenges to the United Kingdom’s ability to transfer data to and from the European Economic Area (EEA) due…
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Americans Ambivalent about Billionaire Influence, Reject Left-Wing Hostility
New polling, recently written up at Reason, shows that the American public isn’t nearly as hostile to capitalism, and the leaders of big…
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New CEI Paper Revisits Viral Exchange on Payday Loan Rates by Katie Porter and Kathy Kraninger.
It’s not every day an exchange about a technical measurement for loans goes viral on social media. During a 2019 House Committee on Financial…
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Who Pays Corporate Taxes?
Congress is considering increasing the corporate tax rate from 21 percent to 28 percent to help pay for the big infrastructure bill it is currently…
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The London Stock Exchange Needs Dual-Class Ownership to Compete with New York and Amsterdam
Notwithstanding London’s status as a global financial center, the London Stock Exchange’s (LSE) inflexible listing rules constrain the city’s ability to attract high-growth tech…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Washington’s attention flitted back and forth between beginning work on a multi-trillion-dollar infrastructure bill and a brewing sex scandal allegedly involving Rep. Matt Gaetz and…
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Let Private Markets Assess the Financial Risks of Climate Change
In her opening remarks this week to the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC), Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen identified climate change as the “big” “emerging…
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More Good News on the Road to Ending the Pandemic
A new study from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, which shows that a single dose of either the Pfizer-BioNTech or the Moderna…