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Why Is Employee Involvement an Unfair Labor Practice?
U.S. labor law is largely based on the false narrative of an inequality of bargaining power between employees and employers. The theory goes that an…
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CEI Supports Vote to Block Labor Department’s Fiduciary Rule
Today, Congress has the opportunity to block the costly "Fiduciary Rule."…
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CEI Challenges Illegal “Vapes on a Plane” Regulation
Today, CEI, the Consumer Advocates for Smoke-free Alternatives Association (CASAA), and CEI employee Gordon Cummings, as a private individual, filed a lawsuit challenging the…
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Congress Must Pass Email Privacy Act
This week, the U.S. House of Representatives will vote on the Email Privacy Act (H.R. 699) sponsored by Rep. Kevin Yoder (R-Kan.). The Competitive Enterprise…
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Wind Energy Industry Suffers Fuel Shortage in 2015
Wind energy can’t compete. Instead, it exists only by the grace of favorable politics. On the supply side, the industry enjoys the federal production tax…
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FSOC Misunderstands Leverage, Threatens Risk Management
The Financial Stability Oversight Council recently released its “Update on Review of Asset Management Products and Activities,” in which it questions “how certain asset…
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The Proliferation of Federal Agency Guidance Documents
Recently we looked at some prominent recent examples of federal agency guidance—costly to-dos for the private sector. Today I wanted to say just a…
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The Chilling Effect of Dark Matter
Here at CEI, we know all about the chilling effect of executive power. We also know quite a bit about the extent to which…
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Bureaucratic Double Jeopardy: Feds Order University of New Mexico to Restrict “Unwelcome” Speech
Even if you convince one bureaucratic agency to leave you alone, another may come along and harass you. The possibilities are endless in an age…
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When Bureaus Attack: Recent Examples of Federal Regulation by “Guidance Document”
In the recent paper “Why Congress Must End Regulation by Guidance Document,” I described the rise of federal agency regulatory dark matter and…
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RealClear Radio Hour: State Budget Maven & Climate Show Trials
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A Diverse Collection of Stakeholders Oppose the DOL’s Overtime Rule, Really
The Huffington Post recently ran a piece entitled, “Who Opposes Overtime Pay Increase, Really?” The author, Harlan Green, publisher at PopularEconomics.com, says, “That’s a…
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TSCA “Reform”: Consensus May Again Prove Toxic
According to a story in Bloomberg BNA, a final vote on legislation to reform the nation’s chemical law—the Toxic Substances Control Act—may be imminent. The…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
The number of new final regulations in 2016 passed the 1,000 mark on Friday. Last week’s new rules cover everything from semipostal stamps to vapor…
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175 Countries Sign Paris Climate Treaty at UN Headquarters on International Mother Earth Day
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Give Job Seekers a Break: Get Government Out of the Licensing Business
Public policy easing union organizing is not an economic cure-all, and really wouldn’t help at all—no matter how many times union-backed politicians say so (see…
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Labor Department’s “Persuader Rule” Gives Unfair Advantage to Unions
The Department of Labor’s “persuader rule,” which is set to go into effect on Monday, April 25, will give unions a new tool to…
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Easing Union Organizing Won’t Fix the Economy
Most progressive policy makers view labor unions as the panacea that would address the problem of stagnate wages and disappearing middle class. A proposal to…
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The Senate Must Confront the President on the Paris Climate Treaty
On Friday April 22, Earth Day, the White House will purport to commit the United States to the Paris Climate Agreement. The Obama administration claims…
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Free Market Road Show: The Sharing Economy
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CEI to AG Walker: Withdraw Un-American, Unlawful Subpoena or Expect a Fight
Yesterday, the Competitive Enterprise Institute responded to U.S. Virgin Islands Attorney General Claude Walker, who recently sent us a subpoena demanding we turn over…
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The Devil, the Details, and “Consensus” for “TSCA Modernization”
For some reason, there’s always near “consensus” when Congress passes environmental laws that later become controversial (for data, see my study from 2008 on…
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The Treaty Not to Be Called a Treaty
The recent Paris Climate Agreement is clearly a treaty, but like the fable of the emperor’s new clothes, few people are willing to incur…
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Employment Lawsuits for Thee, But Not for Me
The New York Times loves legislation that restricts employment-at-will, and it loves to increase penalties for employers who don’t hire and promote in…
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RealClear Radio Hour: Obamacare & Massachusetts Tax Revolt
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Federal Agency “Guidance Document” Disclosure Gaps Show Congress Is in the Dark on Regulatory Overreach
In “A Quick and Dirty Inventory of Federal Agencies' Significant Guidance Documents,” I provided, well, a quick and dirty table depicting “significant” (usually, not always,…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
As the number of new regulations in 2016 threatens the 1,000 mark, new rules cover everything from rural broadband to flatfish. On to the data:…
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Oregon Court Declines To Dismiss Children’s Crusade Climate Lawsuit
Late last week, Judge Thomas Coffin, U.S. Magistrate for the District of Oregon, rejected motions by industry groups to dismiss a lawsuit by a group of…
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Business Leaders Mount the Barricades
This has been a good week for capitalist backbone. As Kim Strassel discusses in the Wall Street Journal today, we’ve seen two high profile…
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California Court’s Indefensible Defense of Dysfunctional Education Policies
A California appeals court yesterday restored a series of education policies that harm students by making ineffective teachers extremely difficult to fire. The court…
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The Truth about the Trade Deficit
This election cycle the issue of the trade deficit has been a topic of great debate, with front-running candidates suggesting that the deficit is an…
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A Quick and Dirty Inventory of Federal Agencies’ Significant Guidance Documents
Much is written by many on federal agency regulations’ expansion and costs. Beyond those, guidance documents, memoranda, notices, and other regulatory dark matter…
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CEOs Confront Anti-Capitalist Rhetoric
Another CEO of a big American company has spoken up about the charge that he and his employees are “destroying the moral fabric” of…
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NLRB Puts Stamp of Approval on Harassment in the Workplace
Around 80 years ago, Congress created the National Labor Relations Board to bring stability to labor relations in the private sector. The current iteration of…
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Pay Gap Myths Spread Around Equal Pay Day
In the lead up to Equal Pay Day this month, supporters of more federal pay regulations promoted myths about the pay gap between men and…
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Who Died and Made Dodd-Frank Regulators Gods?
Meet the new deities. They apparently sit on the Financial Stability Oversight Council and other regulatory agencies, especially those created by the Dodd-Frank banking “reform”…
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Union Bosses Order Verizon Workers to Strike
Today, union bosses ordered 36,000 Verizon workers on the east coast to strike. Nearly all of these employees, 99 percent, service the Verizon…
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Congress Should Strip the FCC of the Power to Regulate Broadband Prices
The U.S. House of Representatives will soon vote on a bill known as the “No Rate Regulation of Broadband Internet Access Act.” Just as…
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If You Build It, They Won’t Come: The Failure of Field of Dreams Transit Planning
Following decades of excessive local government fare regulation that led to a terminal decline in the private mass transit industry, government began taking over the…
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CEI Will Surmount Crimethink Persecution
Feisty, aggressive, unwavering, and sometimes unconventional—all terms I heard prior to joining CEI last week as president. The descriptions were spot-on. But before the first conversations ended,…
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PBGC’s Perverse Incentives Undermine Multiemployer Pensions
For years, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), the federal agency that insures private sector defined benefit (DB) pension plans, has been severely underfunded below…
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Our Take: The Climate-Related Subpoena
Since CEI was subpoenaed on April 8 for a decade’s worth of work from 20 years ago, many have asked “Why?” and “How?” Here is…
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Obama’s 7 Years of Regulation Easily Outstrip Bush’s 8
Annually, despite ups and downs, the number of federal rules and regulations tops 3,400. While the overall rule counts in the Federal Register and…
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What Others Are Saying about CEI’s Climate Change Subpoena
Since CEI was subpoenaed by the attorney general of the U.S. Virgin Islands on April 8, 2016, for energy and climate work from 20 years…
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Federal Minimum Wage: The Case of Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico is in crisis and drowning in debt. Now it looks like the island’s Development Bank, set up to raise living standards in the…
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Netflix’s Throttling Scandal: Possibly Illegal, But Not an FCC Matter
As one of the chief agitators behind the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) controversial effort to regulate Internet service providers like public utilities, Netflix has long portrayed…
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RealClear Radio Hour: Enterprising Africa & Entrepreneurial Allure
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How to Address Income Inequality
Over at the Foundation for Economic Education, Iain Murray and I give a short preview of our two forthcoming CEI papers on income inequality…
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Ed Snider: Farewell to a Business Legend
Today is a sad day for fans of capitalism and Philadelphia sports alike. Entrepreneur, philanthropist, and sports industry legend Ed Snider passed away over…
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Minimum Wages Tradeoffs: Are They Worth It?
Minimum wages help some workers, but only at other workers’ expense. Whether or not these tradeoffs are worth it is for each individual to decide.
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California Minimum Wage Hike Could Cost State Taxpayers $10 Billion
California’s legislative analyst projects that the recent increase the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour will cost taxpayers $3.6 billion more a year in…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
Another Friday meant another 699-page Federal Register, which now exceeds 20,000 pages on the year. The big news is a fiduciary rule for retirement planning, but…
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Obama Administration Releases New Climate Scare Report
The Obama administration last week released The Impacts of Climate Change on Human Health in the United States: A Scientific Assessment. The 333-page report “significantly…
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Wisconsin Judge Rules that Workers’ Wages are Unions’ Property
On Friday, April 8, a Wisconsin judge handed unions a surprising victory—surprising because of the argument behind his decision.
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Attorney General’s Climate Investigation Subpoenas CEI
The attorney general of the U. S. Virgin Islands, Claude E. Walker, has subpoenaed the Competitive Enterprise Institute for a stunningly wide array of documents…
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RIP Merle Haggard
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State-Sponsored Slavery and the Destruction of Small Businesses
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Attorneys General Launch Intimidation Campaign with Subpoena against CEI
Days after CEI criticized investigations of Exxon by State Attorneys General over its speech related to climate change, CEI was hit with a subpoena demanding…
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Is GE a Capitalist Good Guy or a Corporate Bad Guy?
General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt has an interesting op-ed today in the Washington Post, hitting back against charges that his company is “destroying…
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Air Traffic Control Reforms Will Give Us Modern Technology, Not Union Giveaways
Guest Post by David Grizzle Former Chief Operating Officer and Chief Counsel, FAA As the former chief operating officer and chief counsel at the…
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Building a Better Society with a Better Mousetrap
Last night, the Smithsonian American Art Museum here in Washington hosted a fascinating book event featuring a presentation by Alan Rothschild, co-author of…
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Final Fiduciary Rule: Dave Ramsey May Get Relief, But the Rest of Us Don’t
While the final rule may have been less severe, it still won’t keep middle-class savers from losing access to brokers and insurance agents.
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Illinois Pension Reform that Can Pass State Supreme Court Muster
When you’re in a hole, stop digging. That seems like such a simple concept that it shouldn’t need stating, but in the area of public…
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Senate FAA Bill Betrays Free Market and Fiscally Conservative Principles
Last month, I wrote about why everyone should be disappointed by the Senate’s FAA reauthorization bill: it fails to include key air traffic control reforms contained…
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RealClear Radio Hour: Scandinavian Bliss or Myth?
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Obama Unveils Fiduciary Rule this Week, Putting Middle Class Investors in a Bind
Today, the Labor Department plans to unveil new regulatory restrictions on 401(k)s and IRAs. That means less access to financial advice and fewer options for…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
The week ended with precisely 800 new final regulations on the year, with new rules covering everything from chairs to obesity. On to the data:…
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Obama’s Climate Diplomacy: Bilateralism in the Service of Multilateralism
President Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday issued a joint statement pledging that the United States and China will sign the Paris Agreement on…
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State Attorneys General Conspire To Shake Down Big Oil
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, former Vice President Al Gore, and attorneys general from Massachusetts, Virginia, Connecticut, Maryland, Vermont, and the U. S. Virgin…
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No, the AIRR Act’s Air Traffic Control Reforms Do Not Grant Controllers Strike Powers
Capital Research Center, a conservative policy group in Washington, D.C., recently published an extended essay, “PATCO’s Revenge: Capitol Hill cronyism may give the air…
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Trust in Government: A Bad Strategy for the Chemical Industry
There is a reason why people laugh when you say: “Trust me, I come from the government.” Governments are not particularly trustworthy because bureaucracies are…
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Senators Reward Agency Overreaching with Proposed Budget Increase for Office for Civil Rights
Twenty-two senators are proposing a nearly 30 percent budget increase for the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights. OCR is the agency that has pressured colleges and …
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Federal Government Is Good for U.S. Economy
If you’re a fellow free-market advocate and did not arrive at this page from social media (or missed our #AprilFools joke), don’t…
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Individual Liberty: The Greatest Remedy for Terrorism
USA Today reports that lines at airports are getting longer and people aren’t signing up for the registered traveler program, TSA PreCheck, in sufficient…
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Shady Marketing Claims for “Green” Cleaning Products
Serena Ng of The Wall Street Journal reports today on the murky world of marketing for “green” and “natural” household products. Ads for these…
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President Obama Promotes Myth of Excellent Health Care and Education in Cuba
In his recent remarks in Cuba, President Obama offered glowing praise to institutions in that communist country that did not deserve it. The president called Cuba’s…
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Subway Footlong Sandwich Settlement Now on Appeal
CEI’s Center for Class Action Fairness has appealed the district court’s approval of the Subway Footlong settlement to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. The…
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Haiku: “No Energy Left”
Inspired by SunEdison’s near bankruptcy (among other terrible news for the solar power industry) and infused with the spirit of Japanese culture…
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State Legislatures Can Dampen Friedrichs Ruling’s Blow to Worker Freedom
Today, the Supreme Court announced a 4 to 4 spilt decision in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, a decision that keeps alive the Abood…
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Small Scale Entrepreneurs Are Nothing New
The rise of the sharing economy and related trends, by which individuals are exercising more control over their work schedules and income flow, garners a…
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House Energy and Environment Notes
Both chambers of Congress are in recess now, but there were some goings-on in the House last Wednesday that merit mention. The first was EPA…
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Senators Urge EPA to Burst RFS Blend Wall
A bipartisan group of 19 Senators led by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) is urging EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy to get the Renewable…
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Freedom of Contract at Risk in Carcano v. McCrory
Virginia’s Dillon rule prevents cities and counties from regulating the employment practices of private businesses. That bars them from setting minimum wages higher than…
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Illinois’ Narrow Road to Pension Reform
On March 24, the Illinois Supreme Court struck down a Chicago pension reform bill that sought to address the city’s considerable pension shortfall. In…
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RealClear Radio Hour: Satire, Art, & Politics
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Common Property, Gains from Trade—and Statehood
Historian Staughton Lynd argued that the contemporaneously drafted Constitution and Northwest Ordinance of 1787 were themselves components of a larger implicit package that harmonized the…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
Friday’s Federal Register, the last before the Easter holiday, contained 1,005 pages, 14 final regulations, nine proposed regulations, and an impressive 119 agency notices. New rules…
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Advocates Attempt to Debunk Idea that Any Alcohol Is Beneficial
For most public health advocates, no amount of alcohol is safe. As they see it, any amount of alcohol increases a drinkers risk for certain…
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Glyphosate Saves Lives, Reduces Child Labor, and More
David Zaruk, aka the Risk Monger, has produced an excellent series of blog posts on why the herbicide glyphosate (the active ingredient in “Roundup”) is…
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Free Speech Violation in St. Paul Schools Undermines Anti-Private Ideology
Leftists who seek to ban home schooling and school vouchers, and restrict private schools, argue that is needed to prevent “indoctrination” or “balkanization.” Rather than developing a…
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Doing Away with Government Flammability Standards
During the past several years, there’s been much hype in the news alleging that flame retardant chemicals used on upholstered furniture pose unacceptable health risks. With…
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The Sharing Economy Is More than Just Uber
In an article for The New York Times, columnist Farhad Manjoo worries that the Uber model of app-based service companies has run its course. He points out…
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Judge Orders White House OSTP to Explain Why It Shouldn’t Be Sanctioned for Undisclosed Records
OSTP failed to disclose the existence of some records in response to a FOIA request until after a federal judge had already ruled in the…
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NLRB Case against McDonald’s Shows Need for Labor Law Reform
At the beginning of the month, the National Labor Relations Board and McDonald’s trial began. The case will determine whether McDonald’s is a joint…
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Welcome Kent Lassman, CEI’s New President
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The Public Pays for Union Political Activity
Taxpayer dollars in state and municipal governments across the country are, normally without public knowledge, used to subsidize government union political undertakings. Clearly, this is…
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RealClear Radio Hour: Populism’s Critic & Supranational Heresy
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
Along with nearly four dozen proposed regulations, new final regulations from the last week cover everything from cable boxes to Texas grapefruit. On to the…
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EPA: More Equivocation on SCOTUS Stay of Power Plan
The Supreme Court put a stay on EPA’s so-called Clean Power Plan (CPP) last month partly because five Justices thought there was a reasonable prospect the rule…
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Human Achievement of the Day: Don’t Buy the Hyperloop, Bet on Self-Driving Cars
Futuristic transportation technology often captures the imaginations of the press and public. Sometimes, it’s hype-driven nonsense: think the mysterious “IT” that became the mockery-inducing…