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Environmental Protection Agency Revises Risk Management Program for Industrial Facilities
“First, do no harm,” is good ethical advice for regulators as well as doctors, but the Obama-era Environmental Protection Agency took a risk management program for…
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Trump Regulatory Reform Agenda By the Numbers: End of One-In, Two-Out?
The Trump administration has released the Fall 2019 edition of the twice-yearly Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions. Late and incomplete compared to the last…
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Corporate ‘Social Responsibility’ Must Be Voluntary, Not Mandated
The Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) just wrapped an event on corporate governance titled “The Role of a Corporation: The Shareholder versus Stakeholder Debate,” and it…
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Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Should End Frivolous Student Loan Lawsuit
The efforts of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Director Kathy Kraninger have gone a long way in reversing egregious Obama-era actions that plagued the agency,…
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Remembering Transportation Economist Shirley Ybarra
On November 10th, longtime CEI friend Shirley Ybarra passed away. Shirley was an accomplished transportation economist and a leading thinker on innovative transportation infrastructure finance…
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EPA, Progressives Clash over Transparency Rule
The House Science Committee held a hearing last week titled “Strengthening Transparency or Silencing Science? The Future of Science in EPA Rulemaking.” Most of the witnesses and…
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Congress Breaking Promises, Extending Tax Credits for Electric Vehicles, Wind, and Solar
It is not unusual for Congress to keep extending a supposedly temporary federal program, and that includes the tax credits for electric vehicles and wind…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The 2019 Federal Register has already exceeded its page count during President Trump’s first year in office, with more than a month to spare and…
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Ex-Im Reauthorization Vote Today in the House
The House of Representatives will vote on reauthorizing the Export-Import Bank today. Even if Ex-Im is reauthorized, the fight over it has already yielded a…
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Two New Studies on Economics of Trade
Philip Thompson and Lorenzo Montanari have compiled a Trade Barrier Index, just released by the Property Rights Alliance. The U.S. currently ranks 54th out of…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The number of new regulations this year passed 2,500 last week, and the Federal Register surpassed 60,000 pages. This week could see big news on…
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Trump Administration Begins Withdrawal from Paris Climate Treaty
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced on November 4th that, “Today the United States began the process to withdraw from the Paris Agreement. Per the terms of…
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VIDEO: Growth and Opportunity in the Beehive State
I’ve been interested in the work at the Center for Growth and Opportunity (CGO) at Utah State University for some time now, and I was…
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Will Trump ‘SAFE’ Rule for New Cars Harm Public Health?
Will the Trump administration’s auto rule harm public health? That’s what all five majority witnesses and several Democratic members of the House Oversight Environment Subcommittee…
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Environmental Protection Agency Proposes Appeals Board Reform
The Trump administration has placed a high priority on shortening the delays and cutting the red tape holding back many private sector development projects. The Environmental…
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Trade Developments on Export-Import Bank and NAFTA/USMCA
America’s trade policy landscape has some big events on the horizon. The House of Representatives will vote next week on Rep. Maxine Waters’ (D-CA) Export-Import…
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Tobacco 21: Feel-Good Policy Could Backfire
Amid an outbreak of “vaping-linked” lung illnesses, a campaign of fear against vaping has reached a frenzied peak. For years, the Food and Drug Administration…
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Proposals for and Problems with International Drug Reference Pricing
Healthcare costs remain top of mind in American politics. Polls consistently show that healthcare is one of, if not the top, priority for voters heading into the…
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Free-Market Groups Support Trump Light Bulb Reform
The Bush and Obama administrations imposed a number of restrictions on light bulbs, but the Trump administration is pushing back on behalf of consumers. Today,…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Washington had one of its best weeks in recent memory. The Nationals won the World Series, and Congress is taking the next two weeks off.
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Export-Import Bank Reauthorization Update
It is busy a time right now in the Export-Import Bank reauthorization battle. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) introduced a new bill to reauthorize the Export-Import…
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A Federally Funded Witches’ Brew of Dangerous Advice
Halloween is the one day of the year kids enjoy being a little spooked. But what would you think about a taxpayer-sponsored effort to frighten…
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Twitter’s Ban on Political Ads Has No First Amendment Implications
Twitter Chief Executive Jack Dorsey announced that the social media platform will ban all political advertising. This comes on the heels of Facebook’s recent announcement…
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The Unmeasured Costs of Federal Agency Liberation from Congress, Self-Funding, and Permanence
In considering the overall costs of regulation, little attention is given to the intractability of the administrative state itself. Congress shows little appetite for restraining…
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Major Auto Companies Auto Dealers Back Trump Fuel Economy Rule
On October 29, Marlo Lewis testified before the House Oversight Environment Subcommittee on the Trump administration’s Safer Affordable Fuel-Efficient (SAFE) Vehicles rule. As he noted,…
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Spooky Halloween Regulations
Halloween is this week. That means costumes, spooky decorations, trick-or-treating, and pumpkin spice everything. The Code of Federal Regulations contains several rules to keep everything…
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Just in Time for Halloween: Climate Scares Debunked
Sharing scary stories is Halloween tradition and this time of the year reminds us of some folks who try to strike fear in the hearts…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The Washington Nationals made it to the World Series, and the White House canceled some of its newspaper subscriptions. Meanwhile, rulemaking agencies published new regulations…
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VIDEO: How to Build a Political System to Protect Liberty
Our friends at Learn Liberty have started releasing new videos again, and we couldn’t be more excited. One of the most recent, “3 Different Ways…
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Trump Administration Challenges Constitutionality of California Climate Pacts
Just when I thought the Trump administration could not get any bolder in challenging California’s self-anointed power to determine national climate policy, the Department of…
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CEI Report: Universities Misuse Federal Children’s Environmental Health Grants to Pursue Political Agenda
For more than two decades the federal government has funded a number of “children’s environmental health centers.” Since they are housed in universities, you might…
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Celebrate Consumer Finance Law Modernization
Earlier this month, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced that it will create a taskforce to “harmonize and modernize federal consumer financial laws.” The Taskforce…
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Deep State Guide to Resisting Trump’s Executive Orders on Guidance Document Abuse
Competitive Enterprise Institute founder and “despairing optimist” Fred L. Smith, Jr. lamented to me once: “It’s so hard to centrally plan deregulation!”…
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Cautiously Optimistic about Facebook’s New Approach to Speech
It seems increasingly the case that there is a lot more to like about what Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has to say than not. His…
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House Panel Holds Hearing to Bash Exxon
The House Oversight Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties today held a hearing to examine “the oil industry’s efforts to suppress the truth about climate…
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West Antarctic Ice Sheet Growing As Southern Ocean Warms Slightly
The West Antarctic Ice Sheet is growing, but I bet you didn’t read about it in the news.
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Stop State Government Abuse of Clean Water Act
Today the Competitive Enterprise Institute led a coalition letter in support of the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed rule, “Updating Regulations on Water Quality Certification.” The rule would…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Last week’s big stories included a thickening impeachment plot, Energy Secretary Rick Perry’s resignation, and a letter written to the president of Turkey. In a…
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VIDEO: How Does the Trade War Hurt You?
Our friends over at the Cato Institute are known for their excellent free-market analysis, in particular on hot button issues like trade. They recently released…
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Repeal of Trump Power Plant Rule Fails in Senate
The U.S. Senate today defeated by 53-41 a Democrat-sponsored Congressional Review Act resolution of disapproval that aims to overturn the Trump administration’s Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule,…
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United States, Carbon Tax Laggard?
The United States “lags” other nations’ use of carbon taxes, ClimateWire (subscription required) reports. Specifically, the United States ranks 40th out of 44 countries in…
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Are Hurricanes Becoming Blow-Hards?
Last month, as Tropical Storm Imelda slowly dissipated over south Texas, creating yet another Texas-sized flood, I read an article in Business Insider making the…
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In Praise of Pro-Consumer Tenure of Finance Regulator Kraninger
As she prepares to give her semi-annual testimony to Congress this week—on Wednesday to the House Financial Services Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and on Thursday…
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CEI Leads Coalition Letter Supporting Airport Financing Reform
Today CEI led a coalition letter in support of H.R. 3791, the “Investing in America: Rebuilding America’s Airport Infrastructure Act,” the bipartisan airport financing reform legislation…
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Killing Us with Kindness: Democrats’ War on Vaping Costs Lives
Liberals are supposed to the ones whose hearts “bleed” with concern for others’ welfare. That’s why modern liberals generally reject an abstinence-only approach to regulation.
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The latest Mad Libs-style political feud involves the NBA, the television cartoon South Park, and the Chinese government. President Trump also issued a pair of…
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California Utility Cuts Power to Avoid Fires Caused by Downed Power Lines
Pacific Gas and Electric has intentionally turned off electricity to up to two million people in parts of northern California for hours and days at…
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President Trump Signs Executive Orders to Improve Use of Guidance Documents
President Donald J. Trump on October 9th signed two executive orders (EOs) intended to improve and limit the use of guidance documents. This is good,…
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‘Art of the Deal’ Meets Renewable Fuel Standard
It’s the ultimate dealmaker versus the ultimate dealmaking challenge. President Trump has again sought changes to the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) that he hopes both…
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More Shields and Fewer Swords in Realm of Federal Regulation
Yesterday the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA) held a fascinating event on one of their marquee cases, Baldwin v. United States (read more in my…