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Antitrust Triangulation
Sometimes it’s useful to introduce useless bills. The Prohibiting Anti-Competitive Mergers Act , sponsored by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-NY),…
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White House Confiscatory Tax Proposal Underlines Why CEI Is Challenging Provision of 2017 Tax Reform
Today President Biden previewed his proposed fiscal year 2023 budget. I am in complete agreement with the first five words: “Budgets are statements of values.” …
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Inflation and the Biden Budget
It is good that the Biden administration is beginning to take inflation seriously. Unfortunately, however, there isn’t much that the president and Congress can…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Ukraine continues to hold out against Putin’s unprovoked invasion. Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Jackson Brown had her Senate hearings. Meanwhile, agencies issued new regulations ranging…
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Why Cannabis Banking Liberalization Would Indeed Increase U.S. Competitiveness
As war continues in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, interest by policy makers and the media has spiked in competitiveness bills passed separately…
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Climate Police Occupy Wall Street
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Monday, March 21, released its proposed rule to require every “registrant” (i.e., publicly-traded company) to provide more…
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Edward Scissorhands and Federal Regulatory Disclosure
Recently, President Joe Biden proclaimed before the Business Roundtable’s CEO Quarterly Meeting on March 21 that there’s “going to be new world order”…
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Climate Overreach at the SEC: What Comes Next
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) today voted to recommend new proposed rules by which public companies would be required to disclose additional information about…
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Amazon Antitrust Lawsuit Dismissed
Last year, District of Columbia Attorney General Karl Racine filed an antitrust lawsuit against Amazon over its third-party seller program. On Friday, a judge…
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FDA’s Dysfunctional Regulation of E-cigs Created the Synthetic Nicotine Problem
Winston Churchill once said that “If you destroy a free market you create a black market” and nowhere is the validity of that statement…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The March Madness college basketball tournament began, continuing this month’s theme. Ukrainians continued to fight valiantly against Putin’s army, while ordinary Russian people are showing…
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New Anti-Merger Bill Not Indexed for Inflation
Yesterday, I wrote about four problems with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-NY)’s new antitrust bill, the Prohibiting Anti-Competitive Mergers…
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The Best Thing the Department of Labor Can Do for Freelancers is Keep the Trump-era Rule
In a surprising move, a federal court has thrown out the Biden administration’s attempt to throw out the Trump administration’s new rule to determine…
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Further Thoughts on the Supreme Court’s Clean Power Plan Case
I heartily recommend the reply briefs by petitioners West Virginia and Westmoreland Mining Holdings, LLC in the Supreme Court’s Clean Power Plan case,…
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New Antitrust Merger Bill Is Fatally Flawed
There is yet another antitrust bill in Congress. The Prohibiting Anticompetitive Mergers Act, sponsored by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Rep. Mondaire Jones…
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New Climate Disclosure Rule Coming Soon from SEC
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will soon release a new proposed rule that will likely require climate change disclosures by public companies. Douglas MacMillan…
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Biden Administration Seeks to Redefine Word “Prevailing”
The Biden administration has come up with an innovative way to aid its union allies: redefining the word “prevailing” to mean its opposite. The…
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The Russian Invasion of Ukraine And Energy Prices: Myth vs. Fact
Candidate Joe Biden repeatedly promised to aggressively target new domestic oil and natural gas projects in the U.S. as part of his climate change…
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Correcting a Couple of Inflation Whoppers
Over at National Review’s Capital Matters site, I have a piece pointing out that today’s high gas prices aren’t caused by inflation. They’re caused…
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Antitrust Is Political
Antitrust regulation is just as politicized as other forms of regulation. Arizona attorney general Mark Brnovich’s just-announced investigation into investors whose politics he doesn’t like…
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Biden’s Whole-of-Government Equity Agenda Precludes Limited Government
A 1977 Reason magazine review of Friedrich Hayek’s “Law, Legislation, and Liberty (Vol. 2) noted Hayek’s contention “that the prime public concern should be,…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Putin continued his unprovoked war, and Ukrainians and their allies continued their heroic resistance. Inflation rose from 7.5 percent to 7.9 percent. Gas prices…
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CEI Submits Appeal of Lack of Peer Review for EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding
The Competitive Enterprise Institute is challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s Endangerment Finding for Greenhouse Gases on procedural grounds. This is the document which supposedly…
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Social Cost of Carbon Litigation – Who Will Have the Last Laugh?
The 10-State litigation led by Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry to block the Biden administration’s use of social cost of greenhouse gases (SC-GHG) estimates in…
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Inflation Numbers Show a Minimum Wage Hike Is Still A Bad Idea
Like a slasher movie villain who refuses to die, the push to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour seems to have a…
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Climate Risk, Climate Policy, and the Ukraine Crisis
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) sea-level rise report made a media splash when the agency released it in February. Headlines in the…
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Inflation Sets Another 40-Year High: Relief Is in Sight, with Caveats
Inflation set a new 40-year high in February. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased by 0.8 percent in February, which annualizes to 7.9 percent.
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Biden’s Repudiation of Trump’s Regulatory Streamlining Agenda: An Inventory
The explicit pro-regulatory shift by the Biden White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has entailed abandonment not merely of Trump’s…
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House Subcommittee on Energy and Commerce Hosts Less than Festive Parade for Big Tech Accountability
The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Commerce met on Tuesday, March 1, for a legislative hearing on “Holding Big…
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How Newt Gingrich Laid the Groundwork for Congressional Staff Unionizing
The current effort by congressional staff to unionize builds on a legal groundwork laid decades ago by Republicans. In fact, the idea was…