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Supreme Court Nominee Barrett in Senate Testimony Alarms Climate Alarmists
Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett was asked repeatedly about her views on climate change at her Senate confirmation hearing this week. Unsurprisingly, her unwillingness…
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Warming Nights, Longer Growing Seasons, and a Greener Planet
Dozens of recent news stories note newly published research showing that night temperatures are rising faster than daytime readings. Despite this “asymmetric” warming, there…
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A Brief Note on Airplane, Clouds, and Global Warming
We recently linked to a new paper by D.S. Lee of Manchester Metropolitan University (U.K.), along with 20 coauthors, on global aviation and climate…
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New CEI Report: Making Sure a COVID-19 Vaccine Is Used
One or more COVID-19 vaccines will likely be approved in the next few months. But this scientific achievement may prove to be the easy part.
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Fed’s Community Reinvestment Act Reform Proposal Is a Step in the Wrong Direction
Last month, the Federal Reserve released a preliminary proposal to update the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). The Fed’s proposal, spearheaded by Obama-appointed Fed Governor Lael…
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Students Need More Air Conditioning, Not More Climate Policy
There’s a long and growing list of problems activists blame on climate change, including students’ reduced ability to learn due to hotter classroom temperatures. However,…
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Forty Years of Freedom: Rail Deregulation Worked
Forty years ago today, President Carter signed the Staggers Act, which deregulated the American freight rail industry. As CEI has long maintained, this…
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Fans of California’s AB5 Are Drunk with Power, MADD Warns
Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) is urging Californians to abolish AB5, the state law supposedly meant to prevent worker misclassification by employers. The nonprofit public…
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Tit-for-Tat Tariffs Don’t Work: Boeing and Airbus Show Why
A 16 year-long aerospace subsidies dispute between the United States and the European Union began another round this week. The U.S. claims that the EU’s…
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Labor Department Proposes Letting Rank and File Union Members Watch over their Organizations
The Department of Labor (DOL) announced today that it wants to update rules to require private sector unions to be more transparent in…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
It was another volatile pre-election week. A still-symptomatic President Trump returned to the White House from Walter Reed hospital during prime time. More key staffers…
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The House Judiciary’s Antitrust Reports and Predatory Pricing
It is human nature to fear what we do not understand. And if there is anything politicians do not understand, it is markets. This is…
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Jean-Baptiste Say on Manufacturing Nostalgia and Industrial Policy
In his 1803 A Treatise on Political Economy, Jean-Baptiste Say writes: "Production is the creation, not of matter, but of utility." That captures one of…
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Court-Packing Isn’t the Left’s Only Threat to the Supreme Court
The Left’s threat to the pack the Court by expanding the number of justices seems to be unpopular. But they have proposed other policies that…
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Pension Managers Must Focus on Retiree Security, Not Politics
A new proposed rule from the Department of Labor on pension funds would clarify the responsibilities of pension fund fiduciaries covered under the Employee Retirement…
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Louisiana Frog Feud Illustrates Regulatory Threat to Property Rights and Economic Freedom
The dusky gopher frog doesn’t grow very large—only to about three inches long, on average. But despite its diminutive size, this little frog has had…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
President Trump’s COVID-19 diagnosis marked the first of what will likely be many October surprises. Congress agreed on one spending bill to avoid another shutdown,…
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Up to 75 Percent of Uber Drivers Would Lose Work If They Were Classified as Employees
If organized labor and its allies in government are successful in their bid to force so-called gig economy companies like Uber and Lyft to treat…
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EPA Encourages Innovation, Levels Playing Field for Sources Reducing Hazardous Air Emissions
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on October 1 finalized a rule to implement the clear language of Section 112 of the…
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New CFPB Reports Find Consumer Credit Resiliency During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Recent research from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has found that consumers have not experienced significant increases in negative credit outcomes as a result…
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In Debate, Biden Confirms That He Is for and Against the Green New Deal
Climate science and energy policy made a surprise appearance during the first presidential debate on September 29 in Cleveland. Moderator Chris Wallace had not included climate…
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Amazon Claims Worker COVID-19 Infection Rates below Norm
Amazon’s critics have made a point of saying the company is endangering its employees by keeping its fulfillment centers active during the COVID-19…
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EPA Chooses Scientific Approach on Chlorpyrifos: Supports Transparency, Rejects Junk Science
Green groups are upset because the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) decided to rely on science, rather than environmentalist hype, in its draft risk assessment…
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Closing the Loop on Sea Level Rise
Sea level rise is potentially the most important consequence of manmade climate change. The global mean sea level has been rising since the great continental ice-age…
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CEI Presents the 2020 Julian L. Simon Award to Dr. Steven Horwitz
On September 30, the Competitive Enterprise Institute presented its 2020 Julian L. Simon Memorial Award to Dr. Steven Horwitz, Director of the Institute for the…
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FCC Approves More Critical Mid-Band Spectrum for 5G
Today, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) held a meeting where the commissioners voted to adopt two orders that will make more spectrum available for…
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Finally, a Fix for Fannie and Freddie
In my recent blog post on the 10th anniversary of Dodd-Frank, I lamented that while “this supposed ‘financial reform’ has caused harmful and sometimes…
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New Junk Food Ordinance: Another “Feel Good” California Law that Does No Good
California is a tough place to live. Ranked as the state with the nation’s worst quality of life, Californians have the biggest debt-to-income ratio, suffer…
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New York’s School Principals Try to Flunk the Mayor
The problem with public sector unions is that they represent not just the workers for a government entity but also the elected leaders’ constituents. That…
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California’s Proposed Mini-CFPB Is Cronyist and Ill-Conceived
Earlier this month, the California Legislature passed the California Consumer Financial Protection Law (CCFPL) to create a new state-based regulatory agency modeled after the federal Consumer…
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Yes, Ridesharing Is Mainly a Part-Time Gig
The vast majority of people who drive for rideshare company Uber in California do so for less than 40 hours or less a week. That’s…
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House Oversight Subcommittee Holds Climate Policy Hearing
On September 24, 2020, the House Oversight Subcommittee on Environment held a hearing titled “Climate Change Part IV: Moving Towards a…
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Senators Introduce Regulatory Commission Bill
CEI’s approach to regulatory reform has an overarching theme: It is not enough to get rid of this or that harmful regulation. For the benefits…
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Federally Commissioned Climate Report Defies Reality
Earlier this month, The New York Times reported at length about an ominous report on climate change that was commissioned by the Commodities…
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Labor Department Trying to Rewrite Definition of “Employer”
In the credit where credit is due department, the Trump administration deserves a cheer for attempting to save an emerging part of the economy: gig…
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CEI Event with Hester Peirce and Paul Atkins: ESG, Crypto, and other SEC Hot Topics
Yesterday, in the most recent installment of the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s “Repeal for Resilience” event series, CEI President Kent Lassman welcomed Securities and Exchange Commission…
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New Paper: Antitrust Regulation is #NeverNeeded
My colleague Jessica Melugin and I, along with our former colleague Patrick Hedger, have a new paper out today, “Repeal #NeverNeeded Antitrust Laws that…
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Climate Cronyism: Big Businesses Tailor Policy to Benefit Themselves
A shorter version of this post was published as an op-ed in the Washington Examiner last week. The Business Roundtable (BRT), an association of…
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School Closures to Offer a Lesson in Economics
The U.S. got some good news that the employment rate had fallen to 8.4 percent in July, but it is possible that that could jump back…
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SAFE DATA Act a Risk for Consumers
Republican members of the Senate Commerce Committee recently introduced the SAFE DATA Act. While the bill includes much needed federal preemption of state privacy laws,…
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Brother, Can You Spare Two Weeks?
Last year, California passed AB5, which was intended to go after rideshare companies Uber and Lyft. The law requires “gig economy” companies to classify all…
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Regulatory Waiver Clears the Sky for Private Partnership, Innovation, and Competition
Three months have passed since the Federal Aviation Administration granted a special waiver to the drone delivery company Zipline International. Early last week, Walmart announced…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Scientists may have found potential chemical evidence of life on Venus—phosphine gas, which in Venusian conditions may well have been produced by anaerobic (non-oxygen-using)…
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Government Is Asking if We Want Faster and More Effective Appliances. Say Yes!
For more than 50 years, Americans have used washing machines to clean their clothes and dryers to dry them. Manufacturers built highly effective products that…
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Fuel Economy: DOJ Defends One National Program Rule
The Department of Justice (DOJ) last week filed its initial reply brief in Union of Concerned Scientists v. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, a case…
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Appointment of Climate Realist David Legates at NOAA Sparks Protest by Representatives Grijalva and Huffman
Two Democratic leaders of the House Natural Resources Committee are demanding that the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) explain why it hired a “climate…
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Trade News: WTO Rules China Tariffs Violate Rules, Aluminum Tariffs Dropped, No Trade Deal with EU
Usually policy-related news slows down near elections; nobody wants to rock the boat. This has not been the case with trade policy. Three important stories…
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Trump’s Drug Price Controls are a Lousy Deal for Patients
Prescription drug prices are popular targets for lawmakers—especially in an election year. Still, it came as quite a surprise when President Trump issued an…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
It was a four-day work week due to Labor Day. There were massive fires along the West coast, and Congress declined to pass a $500…
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Don’t Panic Over Ad Tech
The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold an antitrust hearing on September 15 to examine Google’s 90 percent market share in online advertising. Senators who would…