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EPA Removes One Hurdle to Alaska’s Pebble Mine, but Others Remain
On May 28, the EPA notified the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that it will not challenge its ongoing review of the Pebble Mine in…
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Six Ways the Trump Administration Has Reduced Regulation
Apart from sector-specific executive orders and directives to federal agencies, there are six prominent ways the Trump administration has streamlined regulation that were covered in…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
CEI released the 2020 edition of Wayne Crews’s annual Ten Thousand Commandments report, which gives a big-picture view of the federal regulatory state. Regulatory agencies…
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California Lawmakers Mull Tax on Jobs
California’s lawmakers are nothing if not innovative. They keep coming up with new ways to help the state’s unemployment rate, currently 15.5 percent, nearly a…
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COP-26: U.N Climate Conference Delayed until November 2021
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change announced on May 29 that its 26th Conference of the Parties, originally scheduled for November 9-19, 2020, has been rescheduled for November…
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There Is No Such Thing as “Safe”
Iain Murray has a great essay up at Law & Liberty today on why some groups of Americans are perceiving quarantine policies so differently from…
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IRS Relaxes Requirements for Renewable Energy Tax Credits—Coronavirus Edition
On May 27, the IRS issued a notice expanding the tax relief for renewable energy developers seeking to qualify for tax credits. Ironically, this announcement…
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Executive Order on Social Media Threatens Property Rights and Free Speech
Today’s Executive Order on Section 230 liability protections for online platforms violates the First Amendment and property rights of social media companies, contradicts the most…
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House Democrats Drop Deregulatory Push over Union Opposition
The House of Representatives passed legislation Thursday to modestly reform $670 billion Paycheck Protection Program, scrapping the much broader reform of the PPP program the…
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SAFE Rule Examined Part 5: Statutory Issues
This post examines some legal objections to the Final Safer Affordable Fuel Efficient (SAFE) Vehicles Rule and the Trump agencies’ rebuttals. Previous posts in this…
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Out Now: The 2020 Edition of Ten Thousand Commandments
The 2020 edition of Ten Thousand Commandments is out. Wayne Crews’s annual report gives a big picture view of the federal regulatory state. There has…
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Presidential Panel on Social Media Bias Misfires
Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Trump administration is considering forming a panel to investigate charges of discrimination against right-leaning users and…
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Trump’s Executive Order on #NeverNeeded Regulations
In an op-ed in National Review, CEI Senior Fellow Ryan Young takes a look at President Trump’s new Executive Order directing agencies to get rid…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
President Trump issued an Executive Order encouraging agencies to keep #NeverNeeded regulations waived during the coronavirus permanently off the books. Meanwhile, regulatory agencies issued new…
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Lean on Business Leaders to Defend Markets
One on the main goals of the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Center for Advancing Capitalism is for more business leaders to prioritize the defense of the…
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EPA Receives Comments on Proposed Revisions to Transparency Rule
The comment period on the EPA's proposed revisions to its Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science proposal closed on May 18. The proposal aims to ensure…
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Proposed Reform to Paycheck Protection Program Faces Republican Opposition
The Trump administration and the Republican-led Senate are opposing a pro-business effort by the House Democrats to amend the Paycheck Protection Program. The House Democrats…
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Trump Signs Executive Order to Spur Economic Recovery through Deregulation
President Donald Trump on May 19 signed an executive order titled, Regulatory Relief To Support Economic Recovery. The order gives cabinet secretaries and agency heads emergency powers to suspend or even eliminate regulations…
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Glaring Problems with Latest Right-Wing Attack on Section 230
A recent opinion editorial in Newsweek is the latest salvo from the political right against Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Couched in criticisms…
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Andy Thompson, Rest in Peace
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Retro Reviews: Common Sense Political Economy
This review of Philip Henry Wicksteed’s 1910 textbook The Common Sense of Political Economy was originally published at Inertia Wins. Wicksteed was a leading economic…
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HEROES Act Mostly Grows Government, But Has Redeeming Cannabis Banking Provision
The HEROES Act calls for trillions of dollars in new deficit spending and includes a number of longstanding progressive pet projects unrelated to the COVID-19…
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AB5 Defender: Law Is “Like Taking Way the Lollipop”
It is not often that a defender of a state regulation will concede that they are, figuratively speaking, taking candy from a child, but California…
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Homeschooling Growth Worries Teachers’ Unions
Teachers unions are eager to see the COVID-19 outbreak end and things return normal because the outbreak has turned the U.S. into a nation of…
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Wood Heaters—One Cheer for Trump EPA’s Modest Regulatory Reform
The Trump administration’s reforms of past regulatory excesses range from excellent to little better than no change at all. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA)…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Retail sales declined 16.4 percent in April, setting a new record low for the second month in a row. Congress returned to Washington, putting the…
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Time for a Federal Price Gouging Law?
Amazon’s vice president of public policy calls for a federal price gouging law in a recent post over at Amazon’s in-house blog. This is a…
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Are “Earth-Friendly” New Refrigerants Toxic?
Bills have been introduced in both the House and Senate to restrict hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), the refrigerants currently used in most air conditioning and refrigeration systems.
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Let Local News Outlets Bail Each Other Out
Allowing common ownership of newspapers and broadcast stations would allow them to achieve economies of scale in their sales departments and other keys aspects of…
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Cocktails in Quarantine: How your State Governs Booze Buying during Lockdown
With all the other added stress created by the outbreak of COVID-19, most states have chosen to relax alcohol laws in a pragmatic bid to…
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Senate Bill Introduced to Extend Alternative Fuels Tax Credit
Sens. Lamar Alexander and Tom Carper have introduced Securing America’s Clean Fuels Infrastructure Act, extending and increasing the tax credits for alternative transportation fuels. It…
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SAFE Rule Examined Part 4 Consumer Choice
Ccompared to the 2012 Obama administration CAFE rule it repeals and replaces, the SAFE Rule is deregulatory and pro-choice. And pro-life, too, if, as advertised,…
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AB5 Is Making Unemployment in California Go from Bad to Worse
The most recent numbers for the people on unemployment insurance are out and they are about as grim as anyone could expect, with the California…
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A New Approach to COVID-19 Response
The new coronavirus—SARS-CoV-2, which causes the disease COVID-19—is here to stay until either a vaccine or herd immunity limits the number of people susceptible to…
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Does Uncle Sam Support Single Moms? The Question of Federal Funds for Strip Clubs
Should U.S. taxpayer dollars be loaned to strip clubs? What would have sounded like a joke just a few months ago is now a reality…
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Retro Review: Irving Kristol’s “Two Cheers for Capitalism”
Long before we began debating the wisdom of neoconservative foreign policy, Irving Kristol was writing about domestic economic policy and the future of capitalism. His…
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Will the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report Rely on Increasingly Overheated Models?
In a letter published in Nature, Jiang Zhu and Christopher Poulsen of the University of Michigan and Bette Otto-Bliesner of the National Center for Atmospheric Research caution that…
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SAFE Rule Examined Part 3 Trump Agencies’ Critique of Obama Auto Rule
The Safer Affordable Fuel Efficient Vehicles rule contains a powerful critique of the 2012 Obama administration rule it repeals and replaces. In a nutshell, the…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The first full week of May featured a continuing pandemic, the biggest unemployment increase in U.S. history, a hailstorm in the D.C. area, freezing temperatures…
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Harvard Junk Science Study Claims High Pollution Levels Increase Deaths from COVID-19
Researchers at Harvard University in late April published a draft or preliminary study that concluded, “A small increase in long-term exposure to PM2.5 leads to…
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Trump Administration to Grant One-Year Extension for Wind, Solar Credits
The Trump administration indicated this week it will adjust tax credit deadlines to help renewable energy investors to help their businesses survive the economic crisis.
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A National Interest Rate Cap Has No Place in the Next Coronavirus Relief Package
As the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic continues to wreak havoc, it’s crucial that struggling Americans have access to affordable short-term credit. Congress should reject calls to include a…
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EPA Sends Proposed Aircraft GHG Rule to White House for Review
On May 1, the EPA sent its first-ever proposed rule on aircraft greenhouse gas emissions to OMB for review. Promulgated pursuant to the Clean Air…
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California to Sue Rideshare Firms over Employee Classification
The state of California announced Tuesday that it planned to sue rideshare companies Uber and Lyft for refusing to classify their drivers as employees rather…
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Time for the Postal Service to Enter the 21st Century
U.S. Postal Service boosters re calling for a taxpayer-funded bailout of the agency. Today’s specter of a bailout signals it is time to start thinking…
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New Profile in Capitalism: Ariel Corporation CEO Karen Wright
Some CEOs seem to have more hours in the day than others. Such is the case of Karen Wright, the head of Ariel Corporation, a…
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SAFE Rule Examined Part 2: Air Quality and Auto Safety
Today’s post examines the Final Safer Affordable Fuel Efficient (SAFE) Vehicles Rule’s estimated impacts on air quality and auto safety. Citations to the rule are…
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Delivery Price Caps Threaten New Restaurant Lifeline
Tomorrow, the Washington, D.C. City Council votes on a bill that seeks to impose a price cap on the commission a third-party delivery platform can…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The 2020 Federal Register passed 25,000 pages, and is poised to surpass last year’s page count by more than 1,000 pages. The number of final…
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New Study Finds Much More Global Greening than Previously Estimated
A new study paper on global greening by a team of Australian scientists demonstrates that previous estimates of carbon dioxide-induced global greening since 1900 are too…