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First Amendment Forbids Ideological Discrimination in Protecting Rallies
Anti-Trump demonstrators beat up Trump supporters outside a Trump rally in San Jose, California this week, while police initially did nothing but watch. As Buzzfeed…
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Attorney General Lynch Refuses to Defend Law to Speedily Terminate Wrongdoers
Attorney General refuses to defend law passed by Congress to speedily terminate wrongdoers One of an Attorney General’s fundamental duties is to defend laws passed…
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Administration’s War on Work Reflected in Jobs Numbers
The administration and its allies are currently engaged in a regulatory onslaught on employers that can only be described as a war on work. Today’s…
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Six People You’ll See at the CEI Dinner
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The Seventh Circuit Considers a Costly But Useless Shareholder Settlement in the Walgreens Merger
OK, that’s a slight exaggeration. In recent years, about 97 percent of sizable mergers (those valued at $100 million or more) have been hit by…
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One Enlightened Statesman: Sen. Rand Paul Pauses TSCA Bill
Three cheers to Senator Rand Paul for actually caring enough to read legislation before voting on its passage. Last week, he held up legislation…
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Inequality: Policies That Work, and Policies That Don’t
CEI recently released a pair of papers by Iain Murray and me about economic inequality. The first encourages activists to ask the right questions: think…
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RealClear Radio Hour: Latin American Politics, Jazz, and Freedom
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
The Congressional Review Act deadline for the possible midnight regulation rush has now likely passed, though the Federal Register once again topped 2,000 pages last week. That…
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Federal Regulations Affecting Small Business
It is often said that there is no such thing as a free lunch, something particularly true for the small businessperson. The “Small Business…
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NLRB Downplays Pro-Union Threats
Union bias permeates the actions of the current National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). This is hardly surprising since a former union lawyer, Richard Griffin,…
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Court Will Soon Decide Fate of FCC’s Ill-Conceived Internet Regulations
Any day now, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit is expected to release its decision in U.S. Telecom Association v. FCC.
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More on “Inequality”
In serendipitous timing, the Institute of Economic Affairs in London released a new study this week entitled “Never Mind The Gap: Why we…
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Unions and Environmentalists Oppose Plan to Address California’s Rising Housing Costs
Everyone’s for affordable housing—except, it seems, some unions and environmentalists. On May 18, a coalition of unions and environmental advocacy groups—including the State Building &…
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Raise, Don’t Level: New CEI Papers on Inequality and Poverty Relief
Economic inequality is one of today’s defining issues. How to address it? Iain Murray and I offer an unconventional approach in a new two-part CEI…
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Obama Administration Harms Students in Many Ways
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CEI Asks Court to Sanction U.S. Virgin Islands AG for Baseless, Retaliatory Subpoena
On Monday, U.S. Virgin Islands Attorney General Claude Walker agreed to revoke a subpoena he obtained from the D.C. Superior Court last month,…
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Bulletin of The Atomic Scientists: No Illusions about Germany’s “Energy Turnaround”
In a previous post I poked fun at the “Doomsday Clock” of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. For 60 years, the Bulletin has…
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RealClear Radio Hour: On-Demand Internet Service & Medical Testing
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Appeals Court: Students Qualify for FOIA Fee Waivers
Under the Freedom of Information Act, you can obtain government records, but usually you have to pay for them. But the law limits the fees…
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White House Supports Bill that Exempts Puerto Rico from New Overtime Regulation
Progressives praised the Department of Labor’s new overtime rule as a way to fatten workers’ pockets and a means to strengthen the middle class. If…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
As mentioned earlier, something of a regulatory midnight rush is happening right now. The Federal Register topped 2,000 pages for the third time in four weeks—a rare…
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CFPB Moves to Cut Off Any Loans to People with Bad Credit
According to the federal government, people may have to live on the streets, but at least they aren’t being “exploited” by companies who are willing…
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Muggles for Free Speech
J. K. Rowling made international headlines this week by defending free speech in an address to the PEN Literary Gala in New York. She…
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Regulation: A 28 Percent Hidden Tax For The Family
When corporations pay taxes, you pay taxes. That is, while it’s popular to tax rich corporations, and even if they write the check to the…
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How the Overtime Rule Hopes to Design Higher Salaries, But Can’t
The Labor Department has just issued a new regulation for overtime pay for salaried employees. Under the new rule, all salaried workers earning less than…
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New York Times Ad Attacks AGs’ Abuse of Power, Defends Free Speech
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Deadline for Major New Regulations This Week?
An early midnight rush of controversial new regulations might be on the way over the next week or so. Why now instead of the very…
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Free Market Organizations Call on Congress to Block the DOL Overtime Rule
Today, the Competitive Enterprise Institute along with 16 other organizations sent a letter to Congress in support of the Protecting Workplace Advancement and Opportunity…
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RICO 20 Ringleader’s Implausible Denial of Intent to Silence Skeptics
After a recent victory in a FOIA lawsuit, Horner and CEI v. GMU, a Richmond court allowed the Competitive Enterprise Institute to release records on…
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Air Traffic Control Reform Opponents Still Miss the Big Picture, Repeat Errors
Air traffic control is in dire need of reform and modernization, and there is a great plan in the House FAA bill to do just…
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Members-Only Unions Benefits Unions and Individual Workers
There has been a surge in right-to-work laws over the past couple of years. Since 2012, four states (Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, and West Virginia) revoked…
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RealClear Radio Hour: Middle East & Panamanian Renaissance
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Leave DFS Regulation to the States, But Don’t Kneecap Skilled Players
Congress is abuzz with the issue of gambling. Last month, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) inserted language from his failed online gambling ban into the…
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Crowdfunding Rules: Four Years Late and Millions Short
Today, Monday, May 16, more than four years and one month after Congress passed and President Obama signed the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
The Federal Register broke the 30,000-page barrier last week, with new regulations covering everything from baked beans to e-cigarettes. On to the data: Last week, 58 new…
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Senator Vitter Introduces Bill To Enforce Law and Stop Funding of UNFCCC and Green Climate Fund
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EPA Finalizes Methane Rule for New Gas and Oil Production
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Virginia Court Releases RICO 20 Documents from George Mason University
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Obama Administration Decree Usurps Control over Locker Rooms and Bathrooms
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Unpopular Online Gambling Ban Sneaked Into Spending Bill
For more than two years a cadre of congressmen have worked, without any luck, to enact a bill that would create a de facto national…
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Air Traffic Control in Urgent Need of Reform… If Only Critics Could See That
CEI has for years called for air traffic control reforms now being considered in the House. It is critical for the future health of the…
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Small Businesses and Nonprofits Ill-Equipped to Handle DOL’s Overtime Rule
The Department of Labor's overtime rule may be published as early as next week. The rule's "one-size-fits-all" nature is set to harm small businesses the…
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Thomas Piketty’s False Argument for Expanding the Government
Left-wing economist Thomas Piketty is treated like a “rock star” by many progressives for giving a veneer of legitimacy to the economic myths they…
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Regulatory Cost Blowout: Burden Is Triple the Deficit, Greater than Personal and Corporate Income Taxes Combined
The last time the federal government balanced the budget was between 1998 and 2001. But those were days when a $2 trillion federal budget…
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Facebook’s Alleged “Curation” of Conservative News Isn’t the Government’s Business
Facebook is under fire for allegedly manipulating its “Trending Topics” section to reduce the visibility of conservative topics and stories about the social media platform,…
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CEI’s Marc Scribner Discusses TSA Lawsuit on Cato Daily Podcast
CEI Fellow Marc Scribner, one of the petitioners in CEI’s lawsuit against the Transportation Security Administration’s final rule on airport body scanners, joined Cato’s…
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Conservatives for Big Government: Air Traffic Control Reform Opponents Have Lost Their Minds or Principles
UPDATE: Diana Furchtgott-Roth has responded. I offer my reply. Right now in Congress, there is a proposal to end a government monopoly, replace…
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RealClear Radio Hour: Dodd-Frank Star Chamber & Fighting Forced Unionism
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Seattle Regulators Go After Rideshare Driver Privacy
Today, I have a column up at FEE.org on the need for classical liberals to make financial privacy as important an aspect of their…
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Ten Thousand Commandments
The brand new 2016 edition of Clyde Wayne Crews, Jr.’s Ten Thousand Commandments report is out now. You can read it here. If you…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
After a slow start, 2016 is back to a normal regulatory pace. The Federal Register is on a nearly 80,000-page pace, and the number of new rules…
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FDA’s Attack on E-Cigarette Will Cost Lives
While the public health goals of protecting consumers from possibly harmful vaping products and preventing kids from becoming addicted to nicotine are laudable goals, this…
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FCC’s Cable Box Mandate: Costly, Illegal, and Unnecessary
Regulators at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) want to dictate how cable and satellite television providers design their so-called “set-top boxes”—a fancy term for…
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The Barack Obama Regulatory State Towers over that of Bush
A glance at the overall count of rules and regulations leads one to suppose regulatory burdens are decreasing. After all, since Obama took office the…
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George Mason University Should Obey Court, Release Public RICO-20 Records
Today, the Virginia Circuit Court in Richmond issued a ruling in our case under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act (VFOIA), Christopher Horner and…
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NYT’s Sensationally Incorrect Headline and Other Climate Notes
The silliest news items are those that belie their headlines, as is the case with a sensational front-page story in today’s New York Times, titled…
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Companies May Scrutinize Employee Activity More under DOL’s Proposed Overtime Rule
The battle over the Department of Labor’s proposed overtime rule is heating up. A number of business groups, labor unions, and progressive organizations have met…
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Burning Ivory Is Not the Solution
A few days ago, Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta set fire to giant pile after giant pile of elephant ivory confiscated from poachers. Some 105…
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Reason’s Bob Poole Sets Record Straight on Air Traffic Control Reform
Reason Foundation Director of Transportation Policy Bob Poole has an excellent article in National Review debunking the myths peddled by a handful of conservatives on the House’s AIRR Act…
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Congress Needs to Halt DOL Regulatory Onslaught
Last week, Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) called out recent Department of Labor policies as having a “chilling effect” on the economy. Ryan’s statements were…
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RealClear Radio Hour: Criminal Justice Reform
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EPA Tries to Cover Its Tracks in Texas by Sending 17 Years of History Down the Memory Hole
Background: The Regional Haze rule is a Clean Air Act regulation whose purpose is to improve the view at National Parks. Because it is…
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CEI Sues over TSA’s Body Scanners
Today, CEI, The Rutherford Institute, CEI Vice President Iain Murray, and yours truly filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security in the U.S. Court…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
As the Federal Register passed the 25,000-page mark, new rules for the week ranged from fluorescent lamps to disaffected youth. On to the data: Last week, 65…
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State Department Tells 28 Senators To Go Pound Sand
The U. S. State Department replied this week to the 18th April letter to Secretary John Kerry from 28 Senators that pointed out that Palestine…
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Power Plant Rule: EPA Defies Stay to Develop Legally Dubious Incentive Program
The EPA yesterday took another step to advance the Obama administration’s flagship domestic climate policy, the so-called Clean Power Plan (CPP). As Politico…
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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…