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Questions for CFPB Director Richard Cordray
Tomorrow, Richard Cordray, director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, will face questions from the House Financial Services Committee. Here are some of the questions…
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RealClear Radio Hour: Free the Market: Ending the Corporate Welfare Racket
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Oversight Hearing Will Find Federal Regulatory Transparency Quite Opaque
The 2015 edition of White House Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) annual Draft Report to Congress on the Benefits and Costs of Federal Regulations was latest we’ve seen…
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USA Act Increases Accountability, Restores Congress’ Power of the Purse
Separation of powers is one of the United States government’s most basic principles. But for several decades, presidents from both parties have gradually concentrated more…
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DOT Compromises Safety and Efficiency for Union Favoritism
Today, a draft proposed rule from the Department of Transportation’s Federal Railroad Administration has been making the rounds. It will be published in the…
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Collusive Deals with Class Action Lawyers before the Supreme Court
Class-action lawsuits are commonly settled for things that benefit the lawyers bringing them, not the class of allegedly victimized people they are supposedly suing on…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
It was just another week in the world of federal regulation, with new rules covering everything from Nixon’s archives to black bears. On to the…
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Advancing Capitalism at the New Intellectual Forum
Yesterday, my colleague Fred Smith and I co-hosted the New Intellectual Forum, an exciting event that brought business leaders and free market intellectuals together for…
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FCC’s New Privacy Mandates – What’s Next, Internet Czar?
Today, the Federal Communications Commission unveiled a proposal to regulate how broadband providers may collect and use their customers’ information. If the FCC’s impending privacy…
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Bashing Trade Is a Popular Election Year Target
Pundits are opining that Bernie Sanders’ significant win in the Democratic primaries in Michigan was primarily due to his vehement anti-trade stance. Donald Trump’s surge…
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NLRB vs. McDonald’s: The Trial Begins
The long awaited McDonald’s trial in National Labor Relations Board joint employer case begins today. In RealClearPolicy, I discuss the less-than-transparent proceedings leading up…
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Beware of Misleading CBO Score of the AIRR Act
The AIRR Act (H.R. 4441), the FAA reauthorization bill in the House, contains badly needed reforms of U.S. air traffic control. See my FAQ on what…
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In Memoriam: Giancarlo Ibarguen
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Not Much Business Sense on Capitol Hill
Members of Congress, even some Democrats, are finally coming to terms that the Department of Labor’s proposed overtime rule may be bad for business. Why…
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RealClear Radio Hour: Unauthorized Climate Treaty & Biofuel Scandal
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Regulation Poses Biggest Threat to Monarch Butterflies
Like many nature lovers and gardeners, last year I launched a milkweed garden for monarch butterflies, starting from seed. After a long summer of manually picking pesky…
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Obama Administration Policy Threatens Youth Job Opportunities
The National Labor Relations Board’s long-awaited trial involving McDonald’s will begin this week on March 10. The case puts the franchise model in the…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
After several years and multiple lawsuits, the TSA deigned to issue a formal rule for its use of full-body scanners. CEI’s Marc Scribner finds that the…
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Oregon Legislature Approves Aggressive Renewable Power Law
Oregon lawmakers this week approved a bill (S.B. 1457) to increase the state’s renewable portfolio standard from the current target of 25% by 2025…
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Chairman Smith Turns Spotlight on RICO20 Ringleader
Who says climate politics is a battle between greedy corporations and idealistic scientists? In “The Climate Change 1%,” the Wall Street Journal reports that…
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Is Conservative Opposition to the Passenger Facility Charge Softening?
CEI is a strong supporter of transportation user fees. We prefer tolls over fuel taxes, and local airport user fees over tax-funded federal…
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Australian Bank Devalues Rewards Scheme in Anticipation of Interchange Fee Cap
I fear I am beginning to sound like a broken record on the subject of payments card interchange fees, with the needle stuck on “We…
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Uber Publishes Core Principles to Guide Seattle’s Union Election Procedures
Uber maintains that Seattle’s recent ordinance that extends collective bargaining privileges to ridesharing drivers is illegal. However, to cover its bases, Uber issued a letter…
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Barack Obama as FCC Chairman
The saga of executive branch overreach continues, and we got a twofer today. The House Judiciary Task Force on Executive Overreach held a hearing this…
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RealClear Radio Hour: Millennial Politics & Choice
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DC Streetcar Opens as a Monument to Morally Bankrupt Urban Planning
On Saturday, February 27, the DC Streetcar finally opened its 2.2-mile stretch on H Street and Benning Road N.E. Years delayed and for a cost…
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UnChartered Cronyism: The FCC’s Attempts to Block Cable Merger
When you hear about “crony capitalism,” what comes to mind? The Export-Import Bank? The ethanol mandate? Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? Tax credits and loan…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
As the 2016 Federal Register passed the 10,000-page mark, new regulations cover everything from salmon to wine. On to the data: Last week, 67 new final regulations…
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Opening Briefs Filed in Case Challenging EPA Greenhouse Gas Rules for Existing Power Plants
The opening briefs (here and here) for the petitioners in West Virginia et al v. EPA—the lawsuit challenging the EPA’s greenhouse gas rule for existing power…
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Ethanol Mandate Is Immortal Unless Congress Repeals It
In last week’s Texas presidential primary debate, one of the candidates opined that he did not need to call for repeal of the Renewable Fuel…
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Minimum Wage: The End of Teenage Work Experience?
A new report from JP Morgan Chase & Co. finds that the summer employment rate for teenagers is nearing a record low at 34 percent. The…
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The One Year Anniversary of Net Neutrality
In the pen and phone era, one of the many examples of the descent into arbitrary lawmaking influencing an entire sector of the economy is…
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NLRB Undercuts its Own Employees’ Rights
If the NLRB cannot respect the rights of its own employees, is it really capable of governing all private-sector labor relation disputes?…
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The Supreme Court Should Hear the Appeal of EPA’s Chesapeake Bay TMDL Rule
The Supreme Court will soon decide whether it will hear an appeal to overturn the latest outrageous power grab by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
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New Poll Numbers Paint a Fascinating “Portrait of America”
During a presidential campaign, pollsters ride high. Despite perennial criticism, “horse race”–style campaign reporting nevertheless keeps political junkies glued to Twitter, awaiting the latest…
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The Speech Sen. McConnell Should Give about Supreme Court Vacancies
In a Washington Post op-ed, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) staked out an early position against…
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Up in the AIRR, Part 2: Unmanned Aircraft Systems
To date, CEI’s analysis of the Aviation Innovation, Reform, and Reauthorization (AIRR) Act (H.R. 4441) has largely focused on proposed air traffic control reforms, which CEI…
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Why and How Congress Should Fight the President’s Climate Treaty Power Grab
President Obama claims the recently adopted Paris Agreement on climate change is not a treaty but rather an executive agreement—a pact he can approve…
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Sharing Economy in the AFL-CIO’s Crosshairs
The AFL-CIO is meeting in San Diego to shape its policy initiatives for the upcoming year. One increasingly popular type of work arrangement is…
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Utah’s Disastrous War on Electronic Cigarettes
Despite the fact that tobacco products kill nearly half a million Americans each year, it is vaping products—which help people quit smoking—that have become a…
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Up in the AIRR, Part 1: Passenger Facility Charge Modernization
To date, CEI’s analysis of the Aviation Innovation, Reform, and Reauthorization (AIRR) Act (H.R. 4441) has focused on proposed air traffic control reforms, which CEI strongly…
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RealClear Radio Hour: Ed Latimore & Ted Frank
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OCR’s Evasive Letter to Sen. Lankford about Colleges and Title IX
An agency can disregard logic and jump to conclusions when it imposes legal mandates outside the notice-and-comment rulemaking process, since it never has to address…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
It was a short work week in Washington due to George Washington’s Birthday, also known as President’s Day. Even so, federal agencies still published new…
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Is EPA Trying to Centrally Plan the Auto Sector (in Addition to the Electric Sector)?
With the Clean Power Plan, President Obama’s marquee climate policy, the Environmental Protection Agency is trying to run the electricity sector. Of course, the agency…
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Justice Scalia’s Death Scrambles EPA Power Plant Litigation
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Todd Stern Reassures Europeans That Republicans Won’t Undo Paris Commitments
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CEI Remembers Justice Antonin Scalia
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House Oversight Committee Demands Agencies Reveal Union Subsidy Data
On February 12, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee sent out letters to federal agency heads to provide more information on union “official…
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IBL’s Trovato Presents Latest Index of Liberalization
The Cato Institute in Washington, D.C., recently hosted Massimiliano Trovato for a policy forum discussing whether the European Union is a friend or foe of economic…
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Save the Date – 2016 Annual Dinner and Reception
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Regulatory Threats to Flexible Employment & Worker Freedom: What Can Congress Do?
The Competitive Enterprise Institute hosted a panel of experts last week to discuss the regulatory threats to flexible employment and worker freedom. The panel also…
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Congress Gets Some Common Sense on Nutritional Disclosure
Last week, members of the House approved a bill that giving customers the nutrition information they want while minimizing harm and cost. Now it's up…
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Spinning the Stay
A few days before the start of the COP-21 meeting in Paris, U.S. climate negotiator Todd Stern filed a declaration urging the D.C. Circuit Court of…
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Overregulation Turns Sydney into International “Laughing Stock”
American city officials, take note: Sometimes the remedy to a purported problem is worse than the disease. This is a lesson fans of Sydney’s once…
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Presidential Candidates Neglect Regulatory Bureaucracy
Allowing a $19 trillion federal debt when it was obvious that interest rates couldn’t remain zero forever is Exhibit A that legislatures rarely control spending.
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News Cycle Contradicts Green Energy Revolution
Last Thursday, The Wall Street Journal’s Jeff Bennet and Christina Rogers reported that auto dealers “are telling auto makers to limit production of passenger cars in…
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NYT Editorial Board Repeats Falsehoods on Air Traffic Control Reform
The New York Times editorial board has staked out a position on proposed air traffic control reform legislation, and it doesn’t like it. To anyone…
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RealClear Radio Hour: Government Monopoly & Public Parks
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
The big regulatory news this week is the Supreme Court’s decision to delay the EPA’s big power plant emission regulation. Other than that, agencies issued…
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A Majority of States Now Right to Work
Today's historic vote in West Virginia means that now in a majority of states, workers can’t be fired from their job if they choose not…
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Democrats’ Debate Further Demonstrates Illegitimacy of Obama’s Climate Pivot
In the wake of Tuesday’s unexpected decision by the Supreme Court to stay the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan, politicians and commentators are…
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How George Washington Propelled First Great Disruptive Technology
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The Improvisational Fed, and Unpredictable Regulations
Improvisation can be a wonderful thing when performed by talented hands—Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, and the like. The Federal Reserve, especially for the past several…
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House Committee Narrowly Approves Eleanor Holmes Norton’s Deadly E-Cigarette Science Denialism
Following three government reports in the 1980s highlighting the low cabin air quality caused by cigarette smoking and the health risks of passive smoke,…
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Permanent Moratorium on Internet Taxation in Customs Bill
Today the Senate voted 75-20 in favor of the conference report accompanying H.R. 644, the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015, the so-called customs…
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A Banner Day for Rule of Law, Constitution, and Common Sense
In an unexpected and unprecedented decision, the Supreme Court last evening granted an application by more than two dozen states to stay implementation of the…
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FOIA Production on Clinton Email Scandal and Security Training
The following documents were produced in response to CEI's FOIA requests seeking records of IT training by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her aids…
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In Defending Clean Power Plan before the Supreme Court, EPA/DOJ Misrepresent Clean Air Act with Lame Editing Tricks
Lawyers for the EPA and the Department of Justice (DOJ) are trying to pull a fast one on the Supreme Court. Through creative formatting, they…
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RealClear Radio Hour: Budding CEOs and PC University
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PITFA a Poor Hostage for Internet Sales Taxes
Despite the premise of many a political cartoon, U.S. senators aren’t stupid. But a few of them are hoping to bamboozle at least 60 of their…
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House Votes This Week on Common Sense Nutritional Disclosure Bill
Many, if not most proposals that make their way through Congress seem to have comically unsuitable names. However, at the end of this week the…
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CDC Alcohol and Pregnancy Scare Tactics Backfire
Are you a woman of childbearing age? Do you binge drink constantly and have unprotected sex on the reg? Well, the CDC wants you to…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
Back to business as usual this week, with new regulations covering everything from Taiwanese orchids to student pilots. On to the data: Last week, 58…
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Senate Energy Bill Stalled by Wrangling
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Dr. Christy Rebuts Alarmist Spin on Satellite Data
The divergence between satellite data and climate model warming predictions has long been too large for “consensus” scientists to ignore, and it keeps growing despite…
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President Obama Will Propose $10 a Barrel Tax on Oil To Pay For $32 Billion Green Transit Slush Fund
The White House has begun to release details of President Barack Obama’s budget request for Fiscal Year 2017. Most interesting so far is the announcement that…
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Don’t Put Eco-Finance Measures in Energy Bill
Cronyism and boondoggles in an energy bill is nothing new in the U.S. Congress. But this week, senators of both parties are taking the process…
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Trans-Pacific Partnership Signed, Provisions a Mixed Bag
U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman signed the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) in Auckland, New Zealand, yesterday, together with ministers from 11 other Pacific-rim…
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Zika Wake-Up Call
The spread of the mosquito-transmitted Zika virus should be yet another wake-up call for public officials around the world. As a relatively new threat, Zika has…
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Overtime Rule Is a Threat to Workers and Small Business
By statute, Congress delegated to the Secretary of Labor “the authority to define and delimit the terms of the [overtime] exemptions.” But that doesn’t mean it…
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White House Threatens Veto to Choke Point Reform Bill
As has been demonstrated time and again, this administration is opposed to any change in the law that will reduce its powers. We see this…
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How to Get Rid of Obsolete Regulations
The House this week is considering H.R. 1675, the Encouraging Employee Ownership Act, sponsored by Rep. Randy Hultgren (R-Ill.). I’ll leave it to my colleague…
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West Virginia Set to Enact Major Labor Reform with Prevailing Wage Repeal
West Virginia, which appears poised to become the nation’s 26th right to work state, may soon enact another major labor law reform. The state Senate is…
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Bill Aims to Stop Operation Choke Point Happening Again
Operation Choke Point is a major abuse of executive authority. As we have detailed over the last couple of years, Choke Point is an…
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CEI Joins Coalition Supporting Bill to Curb Abusive Lawsuits Targeting Free Speech
Today, the Competitive Enterprise Institute joined seven other free market organizations in a coalition letter expressing our strong support for the SPEAK FREE Act, which would…
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Interchange Fee Warnings Coming True in EU
We have often warned about the negative effects of interchange fee regulation and specifically a cap on interchange fees. Last year we warned the European Parliament that…
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West Virginia: Prospect for a Right to Work Majority
West Virginia may soon become the nation’s 26th right to work state—making the number of right to work states a majority for the first time.
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RealClear Radio Hour: Greek Goodbye & Cuban Revolutionary
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
The big Snowzilla storm came and went, but still made its presence known in the Federal Register. For many documents, there is a lag of a…
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Revisiting Gore’s Katrina Innuendo
In An Inconvenient Truth (pp. 94-95), Al Gore blamed global warming for Hurricane Katrina and the devastation of New Orleans. Not in so many words but through…
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Twenty-Six States Appeal to Supreme Court To Stay EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Rule for New Power Plants
West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on 26th January filed on behalf of twenty-six States an appeal of the…
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Lyft Drivers Remain Independent Contractors
A California class-action lawsuit against ridesharing company Lyft has been settled without trial. In the settlement, Lyft agreed to pay its drivers, their lawyers, and…
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In FERC Ruling, Supreme Court Announces Dangerous New “No Man’s Land” Principle
On January 26, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the federal government in a high profile case, FERC v. Electric Power Supply Association. Media…
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Doomsday Clockamamie
“It is still three minutes to midnight,” proclaims The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in their latest “Doomsday Clock” report. The Atomic Scientists welcome the Iran…
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War on Logging Claims another Casualty
Sierra Pacific Industries is permanently closing its Arcata, California, sawmill, a third-generation family-owned forest products company and one of largest landowners…
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State Attorney General Climate Change Investigations Are Unconstitutional
Should government officials be able to cut off donations to groups because they employ people disparaged as “climate change deniers,” even if the group in…
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Is Any Component of Obama’s Energy Policy Not Shrouded in Obfuscation?
Last week, Bloomberg News’s Toluse Olorunnipa tweeted from a Detroit auto show that President Obama “slammed” Republicans for having predicted high gas prices during his administration. …
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RealClear Radio Hour: Endangered Fishermen & Hudson Valley Extinction
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NLRB’s Joint Employer Ruling Challenged in Court
CEI applauds Browning-Ferris’ stand against the National Labor Relations Board's upending of employment liability and flexibility, otherwise known as the new joint employment standard. The…