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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The USMCA trade agreement came into effect on July 1, and three states increased their minimum wages. The unemployment rate went down to 11.1 percent.
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Seila Law Leaves More Questions than Answers over the Constitutionality of Past CFPB Actions
On June 29, the Supreme Court ruled the structure of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to be unconstitutional. Chief Justice John Roberts delivered the majority opinion,…
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Unemployment Drops to 11 Percent, Showing the Economy Can Recover If We Let It
The Labor Department’s announcement Thursday that the unemployment rate fell to 11.1 percent after the economy added 4.8 million jobs in July proves the previous…
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Air Conditioning Can Help Fight COVID-19—If Federal Policy Allows It To
COVID-19 persists into the time of year when most Americans rely on air conditioning, so many are asking whether cranking up the cold air helps…
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For Small Businesses, Hiking Minimum Wages Now Is Like Throwing an Anchor to a Drowning Man
Three states and three major cities hiked up their minimum wages Wednesday, resisting calls by the business community to hold off until the COVID-19 crisis…
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Managed Trade: USMCA Comes into Effect Today
The United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) comes into effect today. USMCA’s policy changes are modest, and its economic impact will be small. But it sets a…
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A Bright Spot for Tech on USMCA Day
Today the new U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement goes into effect. Despite its many flaws, it contains a beneficial provision related to the tech sector. The language of…
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Infrastructure Bill’s Non-Serious Nature Is a Serious Problem
America’s current surface transportation authorization, the FAST Act, expires at the end of September. Rather than reauthorizing it, however, House Democrats have introduced the INVEST…
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Trump’s Regulatory Reform Agenda by the Numbers, Summer 2020 Update
The administration released the Spring 2020 Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions. Its purpose is to lay out regulatory priorities of the federal…
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George Washington’s Fight (and Ours) against Regulation without Representation
Those who have followed CEI over the years know that one of our main grievances is “Regulation Without Representation.” The phrase—an apt description of laws…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Consumer spending rose 8.2 percent in May, a new record that gives hope for a quicker economic recovery. On the other hand, new coronavirus cases…
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Axios Spins IEA CO2 Report
Axios Generate on June 26 concludes its first article with a “bonus chart” from the International Energy Agency’s recent report, Global CO2 emissions in 2019.
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Tax Breaks for Wind and Solar—Bad Energy Policy, Bad Post-Coronavirus Recovery Policy
The House of Representatives’ $1.5 trillion dollar infrastructure package is being sold to the public as a post-coronavirus job creation bill. It now includes the…
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Podcast: Reforming #NeverNeeded Regulations
The John Locke Foundation has released a Rebound Plan for North Carolina, where it is based—the basketball reference is a nice touch. It contains reform…
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Why George Washington Shouldn’t Be Canceled
The father of our country is making news, but for disappointing reasons. Washington was trending on Twitter after his statue was toppled in Portland. A private…
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Will Senator Udall Accept the Blame for Methylene Chloride Deaths?
Hearings for Nancy Beck’s nomination to chair the Consumer Product Safety Commission took place last week at which several Senate Democrats launched outrageous and unfair attacks.
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A Cellular Network or a Jobs Program? Sprint/T-Mobile Critics Launch Misguided Attacks
The recently-approved Sprint/T-Mobile merger is already coming under fire after layoffs were announced. But even the harshest critics begrudgingly acknowledge that the jobs being eliminated…
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Secretary Scalia to Pension Funds: Manage for Returns, Not Virtue Signaling
In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, Labor Secretary Scalia explains the reasoning behind a proposed rule reaffirming that pension funds should focus on providing benefits…
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The Flawed EARN IT Act: Rights and Common Sense Should Not Have to Be Earned
The EARN IT Act is set for a markup in the Senate Judiciary Committee as early as this Thursday. Essentially the bill conditions intermediary liability…
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Supreme Court Declines to Hear Steel Tariff Case: Time for Congress to Act
President Trump’s steel tariffs were intended to boost U.S. manufacturing. They backfired to the point where a group of steel-using industries sued to stop the…
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Is Apple a Bad Antitrust Apple?
The European Union announced last week that it is pursuing two antitrust probes against the tech giant. EU authorities are investigating whether Apple violated European…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Trade protectionists have taken to calling free traders soft on China. According to John Bolton’s forthcoming book, it turns out to be the other way…
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Webinar Panel: Thoughts on the HEROES Act and Regulation of the Debt Collection Industry
Debt collection firms play a vital role in a market economy, as part of the "plumbing"—the underlying architecture—that makes modern credit markets possible. Legislation to…
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Has Trump Been a Net Deregulator?
Pierre Lemieux, in Regulation magazine, draws from the new 2020 edition of Ten Thousand Commandments to estimate the Trump administration's net impact on regulation. Trump’s…
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Emergencies and the Project Manager’s Dilemma
Government agencies’ initial responses to the COVID-19 crisis were notable for one particular characteristic: incompetence. From basic errors in data collection, through failed lab safety…
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You’ve Been Volunteered—San Francisco’s Lawsuit against DoorDash
San Francisco has sued DoorDash for allegedly misclassifying its employees as contractors, but concedes in its own lawsuit that the “gig economy” company’s drivers work…
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A Look At Trump’s Deregulatory Record and How More of the Same Can Anchor the Next Coronavirus Recovery Package
I remembered wondering in 2017 whether the federal government would be larger or smaller after four years of Trump. The debt has now topped $25 trillion and the deficit alone…
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Perverse Psychology: How Anti-Vaping Campaigns Backfired
We have spent years and countless billions trying to deal with the supposed epidemic of youth vaping. It has only gotten worse. A new CEI…
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House Judiciary Setting up Political Theater Disguised as Tech Antitrust Hearing
Sometime next month, the House Judiciary Committee is expected to hold a hearing on competition and antitrust featuring the CEOs of Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple,…
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What Would Scalia Do? Conservative Justices Debate Each Other on Workplace Discrimination
The Supreme Court's conservative justices split three ways in yesterday’s decision to extend the 1964 Civil Rights Act to cover discrimination by sexual orientation. The…
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Supreme Court Decision Big Win for Energy—and America
Today the Supreme Court handed down a 7-2 decision allowing the construction of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, a 600-mile project bringing natural gas produced in…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The rate of new coronavirus cases increased last week, adding a note of caution to tentative efforts at reopening. Regulatory agencies issued new final regulations…
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Criteria Pollutant Emissions and Precursors Decline 7 Percent Under Trump
The EPA today released its annual report on air quality, tracking the nation’s progress through 2019. The EPA reports that under President Trump (2017-2019), combined…
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Unintended Consequences of Price Gouging
Price gouging legislation routinely backfires. Price controls make shortages worse. In a crisis, this is especially harmful. And even if price gouging legislation were to…
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We Don’t Need No Stinking Badges; Left Pushes Labor Leaders to Dump Police Unions
The progressive left’s calls to “defund the police” have extended to attacking the right of law enforcement officers to have unions. This has put organized…
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Calls to “Reform” Section 230 of Communications Decency Act Are Misguided—and Thankfully Unlikely to Succeed
This week, four U.S. Senators asked the FCC to “take a fresh look at Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act .” Real changes…
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#NeverNeed Regulations and the Coronavirus
What is the appropriate public policy response to COVID-19 crisis? In a new short video, Kent Lassman makes the case for lifting government barriers that…
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Administration Rewrites Congress’ Paycheck Protection Program Loan Requirements
The Trump administration is rewriting the rules on the Paycheck Protection Program, saying that the stipulation that the program’s business loans must be used to…
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Anti-Corporate Author: Get Over Your Vanity and Just Read “Impeccable” New York Times
Are you struggling to stay informed in an Internet landscape full of conflicting sources and analysis? Good news—a New York Times bestselling author (and former…
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Fedcoin and FedNow are Dangerous and Unnecessary Expansions of Federal Reserve Power
To counter the financial damage from America’s national lockdown, the Federal Reserve has taken unprecedented stepsy. Most of these moves received grudging acceptance even from…
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Green Activists Make Highly Dubious Claims about CPSC Nominee Nancy Beck
Left-of-center activists are opposing toxicologist Nancy Beck's nomination to head up the Consumer Product Safety Commission. They suggest that since she once worked for the…
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Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids: Anti-Drug Warriors’ Crocodile Tears
There is a lot to say about the heinous killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police and no shortage of opinions being offered. Many have…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Friday’s 13.3 percent unemployment rate announcement was actually good news, and says much about the more than 600 regulations waived so far at various levels…
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EPA Proposes Rule to Increase Consistency and Transparency of Benefit-Cost Analysis
The Environmental Protection Agency on June 4 released a proposed rule to increase the “consistency and transparency” of benefit-cost analysis (BCA) in Clean Air Act (CAA)…
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White House Reaction to Job Numbers: Reopen Economy but Keep Tax Dollars Ready
The White House’s thinking appears to be that the economy is recovering just by letting people get back to work. Therefore, we should wait and…
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Trump Executive Order to Expedite Project Approvals
President Trump on June 4 issued an Executive Order intended to expedite the federal approval process for major infrastructure projects. “Economic Recovery from the COVID-19…
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Value of Employee Benefits in Eye of Beholder
Advocates of “social responsibility” and environmental, social, and governance standards for companies have little interest in their proposed requirements being voluntary, despite frequent protestations to…
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Unexpectedly Positive Jobs Report Is a Testament to American Ingenuity
The unexpectedly good news of Friday’s jobs report that 2.5 million jobs were added in the last month is a rather inspiring testament to American…
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Pandemics, #NeverNeeded Regulations, and Ten Thousand Commandments
At Inside Sources, Wayne Crews and Ryan Young have an op-ed summarizing the main findings of Wayne’s new 2020 edition of Ten Thousand Commandments, plus…
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“Social Responsibility” Expectations for Business Pivot from Voluntary to Mandatory
The Financial Times reported that many companies have cut dividends to shareholders because they are struggling with the current economic downturn. But even after we’ve…