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Questions for Marty Walsh
President Biden’s pick for Labor Secretary, Boston Mayor Marty Walsh will get his first Senate hearing on Thursday. Walsh is a former union head…
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Why Repealing Section 230 Will Hurt Startups and Medium-Sized Online Businesses
As Democrats and Republicans seek to rein in Big Tech, Congress is reviewing legislation to repeal Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act (CDA),…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
As the new administration settles in, it appears they will continue many Trump administration policies, such as “Buy American” provisions and trade protectionism. Meanwhile,…
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Respect, Don’t Restrict, Retail Investors
Watching the wild gyrations of the stock market this week—and some of the reactions to it—brings to mind Ronald Reagan’s observations of the bureaucratic mindset…
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CEOs Join Davos Wonks to Launch New Corporate ESG Disclosures
Axios’ “cheerful iconoclast” Felix Salmon reported earlier this week on an agreement by dozens of major corporations to support a new system of…
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President Biden’s Climate Day: The Entire Federal Government Will Be Focused on the “Climate Crisis”
Climate was the White House’s theme for January 27. President Joe Biden gave a major speech and signed two Executive Orders. Top climate advisers…
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Biden Administration Initiates Steps to Submit Kigali Amendment to Senate for Ratification Vote
While the Biden administration’s reentry into the Paris Accord received most of the attention, another climate-related international measure also got a jump start after stalling…
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BlackRock’s Larry Fink: Fight COVID with Climate Activism
Larry Fink, CEO of mega asset management firm BlackRock, has released his annual pair of letters—one to the CEOs of companies that BlackRock holds…
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Feeding the Hand that Smites: Union Leaders Protesting Biden’s Cancellation of Keystone XL Pipeline Endorsed Him Despite Campaign Pledge to Kill the Project
One of President Biden’s first official acts on Inauguration Day was to rescind the construction permit for the Keystone XL pipeline (KXL). Although canceling the…
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Be Skeptical of Studies that Say Minimum Wage Hikes Are Painless
Do economists downplay the negative findings in their research on the minimum wage? That’s the implication of a new working paper on the issue for…
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New President, Same Bad Policies
The Trump administration’s trade war gave economics teachers countless real-world examples of bad policy they can use in the classroom. A new open letter…
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President Biden Moves Quickly to Unleash Regulatory Juggernaut
Not being distracted by the usual enjoyable folderol of inaugural parades and balls meant that President Joe Biden had time in his first day in…
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Has the Honeymoon Already Ended Between Biden and Trade Unions over Keystone XL?
It didn’t take long. On his first day in office, President Biden revoked the federal permit granted by Donald Trump for the Keystone XL pipeline,…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
President Biden was inaugurated on Wednesday. With the usual end-of-administration midnight rush now over, things will likely slow down. It takes time for new appointees…
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Gensler Agenda at SEC Bears Close Watching
President Biden has chosen former head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission Gary Gensler as his nominee to be chair of the Securities and Exchange…
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D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals Vacates Trump EPA’s Replacement for Clean Power Plan
A panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals voted 2-1 on January 19 to vacate the Trump administration’s Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule,…
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In Memoriam: Jerry Ellig
I was shocked and deeply saddened to learn yesterday that my friend and one-time teacher, Jerry Ellig, passed away on Wednesday night, the victim of a…
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Trump EPA’s January Surprise: Timely New Check on Regulatory Excess
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on January 13 published its long-awaited final rule on New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions…
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A Look at “Modernizing Regulatory Review”
The Biden “Modernizing Regulatory Review” plan is about gutting the restraint of the past four years, and if you read statements from the proponents of…
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The Growing Groupthink Problem in Science and Policy
Government Dietary Guidelines issued jointly by the Departments of Agriculture (USDA) and Health and Human Services (HHS) every five years are meant to provide health…
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Trump DOE Finalizes More Flexible Regulation for Residential Furnaces
In one of the Trump Department of Energy’s (DOE) last regulatory actions, the agency on January 15 revised the energy efficiency standards for residential…
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EPA to Increase Transparency in Regulatory Science—for Now
Not many people know that much of the science used to regulate pollutants and radiation is a mess. To help clear this up, on January…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Happy MLK Day, everyone. The Trump administration’s final full week was an eventful one. The president was impeached for a second time. The usual end-of-administration…
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Treasury, FHFA Reverse ‘Net Worth Sweep” at Fannie and Freddie
The headlines yesterday were that the Trump administration had failed to exit Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from the government-owned conservatorship. This is true…
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Economics Can Help Explain Conspiracy Theorists
There is a lot of conspiracy theory garbage floating around. On January 6, it took a violent turn. Five people died in a coup attempt…
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Most Americans Still Buy Large Gasoline-Powered Vehicles, According to Latest EPA Data
There is a deep divide between the vehicles that climate activists and their political allies prefer and those that the public actually wants and buys,…
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Employers Will Pay Workers to Get a Covid-19 Vaccine
The federal government, through Operation Warp speed, helped develop and bring to market vaccines against the new disease COVID-19 in less than a year, an…
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The Danger in Blurring the Private and Public Boundaries with Government Regulation
The recent decisions of many technology companies to remove users and customers from their platforms have deeply divided Americans. Many Americans feel censored and discriminated…
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Will the Next Labor Secretary Support Job-Killing Climate Measures?
President-elect Biden has selected most of his nominees to head the federal departments, and he has made clear to them that addressing climate change should…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
After last week’s insurrection at the Capitol, the outgoing president, several elected officials, and their supporters have some soul-searching to do. Meanwhile, agencies continued to…