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Energy and Commerce Committee Holds Contentious Hearing on Trump Auto Rule
The House Energy and Commerce Committee held a hearing on June 20th on the Trump administration’s Safer Affordable Fuel-Efficient (SAFE) motor vehicle rule. The rule proposes to freeze Corporate Average…
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EPA Releases Final Rule to Replace ‘Clean Power’ Plan
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler on June 19th signed the final rule to replace the so-called Clean Power Plan (CPP). The new rule to regulate greenhouse gas…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Wednesday, the day before the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s 35th anniversary gala dinner, saw no new final regulations published in the Federal Register. This may be…
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Search for the Hand: 2019 CEI Dinner Movie
Last night was the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s 35th anniversary dinner and gala here in Washington, D.C., and a crowd of several hundred friends and supporters…
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Australia Needs an Administrative Procedure Act
In the United States, there is an intellectual movement going on the likes of which have not been seen in nearly a century. The administrative…
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Political Realignment Is Big Problem for Free-Market Supporters
Angela Nagle, an economic nationalist and author of “Kill All Normies,” recently argued on a podcast that, “Conservatives are starting to have these interesting debates…
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ACE Rule Massive Improvement over ‘Clean Power’ Plan
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) yesterday finalized its Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from existing coal power plants under Section 111(d)…
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Commonsense New Debt Collection Rule from Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) was passed in 1977, over forty years ago, at a time when telecommunication technology was in its infancy…
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For Better Policy, Congress Should Stop Punting to Executive Agencies
Yesterday the Federalist Society’s Regulatory Transparency Project and Article I Initiative hosted a fascinating panel discussion here in Washington, D.C. about the dynamic relationship between…
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Facebook Libra Highlights Flaws of Fed Foray into Real-Time Payments
More than ten years after the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto published the source code for Bitcoin, and after hundreds of other cryptocurrencies have been introduced, Facebook…
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Overhaul Internal Operations at Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
One of the most important, yet least visible, changes a new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau director could make is to reform the internal operations of…
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Introducing Antitrust Basics
Often, a drips-and-drabs approach to learning an issue over a period of time is as effective as a single intense cram session. To that end,…
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Regulators Should Foster Financial Innovation
It is becoming increasingly apparent that financial technology, or “fintech,” like other forms of technology, can drastically improve consumers’ lives. Yet one of the most…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Last week, a Canadian team won the NBA championship for the first time, while an American team won the Stanley Cup. This week brings us…
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Electric Vehicle Tax Credits Not Popular with Americans: Poll
A recent survey conducted for the American Energy Alliance clearly shows that the public does not support congressional efforts to extend or expand federal tax credits for purchasers of…
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VIDEO: How to Become a Federal Criminal
Have you ever made an unreasonable gesture to a passing horse in a national park? If so, you are already a federal criminal. For the…
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Democrats’ Criticism of Department of Labor Overtime Rule Misguided
Overtime regulation has been a hot topic since the Obama administration proposed and finalized a rule that radically overhauled such requirements. Before this rule, which…
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This Summer, Celebrate Lemonade Freedom
There is good news for young entrepreneurs coming out of the Lone Star State, as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) recently signed a bill allowing…
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State Officials, Department of Justice Should Green-Light Sprint-T-Mobile Merger
Yesterday’s filing by ten state attorneys general to block the proposed merger of wireless carriers T-Mobile and Sprint is the latest threat to the innovations…
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Department of Health and Human Services Needs to Correct Record on Marijuana
Regulators at the federal Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) had an opportunity in 2016 to move marijuana into a less restrictive category of controlled substances. This…
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Does Capitalism Destroy Culture?
Capitalism’s critics claim that the pursuit of profit can become like a black hole, consuming all of our attention and energy at the expense of culture.
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Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Should Acknowledge Its Unconstitutional Structure
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s structure is unconstitutional. The agency’s leadership should recognize it as such.
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‘Citizen’s Guide to Climate Change’ Exposes Activist Falsehoods
Climate change is not a hoax, but as a political matter, it is a perpetual pretext for expanding government control over the economy, redistributing wealth,…
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Congress Should Authorize Longer Trailers When Reforming National Highway Policy
In 1982, when Congress designated the National Network—the approximately 200,000 miles of truck corridors that crisscross the U.S.—it also set a 28.5-foot minimum limit on tandem…
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Remove Government Barriers to Promote Efficient Highway Investment
Today the Competitive Enterprise Institute released my new report, “Transforming Surface Transportation Reauthorization: A 21st Century Approach to Address America’s Greatest Infrastructure Challenge.” In it, I…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
While the administration is so far keeping to its one-in, two-out policy for proposed rules, new trade and antitrust policies are likely to increase net…
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Automakers to Trump: Keep Us Captive to California Bureaucrats
Seventeen automakers, including Ford, General Motors, and Toyota Motor North America sent a letter on 6th June to President Donald J. Trump urging him not to challenge California’s…
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Union Gets Nasty over Natural Gas Pipeline Rejection
Friction between the trade unions that build energy infrastructure and the politicians who routinely block these projects has been growing for the last decade—especially as…
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VIDEO: Free Trade for Economic Development in Developing World
The Cato Institute here in Washington, D.C. recently sponsored a discussion of trade and economic development, emphasizing the role that robust trade has in raising…
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EPA Streamlines Infrastructure Approval Process under Clean Water Act
Making good on its promise in Executive Order 13868 to combat the abuse of section 401 of the Clean Water Act by states seeking to block…
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Bjorn Lomborg and John Christy Shred Climate Alarmism
The latest talking point of progressive politicians, pundits, and activists is that America cannot afford not to spend trillions of dollars to “solve the climate…
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National Donut Day: Eat One for Yourself and One for Freedom
The Competitive Enterprise Institute first started its two-donut campaign back in 2010. There were some formidable issues back then, from childhood obesity to international tensions to the…
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Venezuela and Rwanda: A Tale of Two Countries, Different Paths
The 21st century Venezuela is a failure. It failed because it adopted socialism. Paul Larkin, Senior Legal Research Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, remarked in…
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Corporate ‘Power’ Is Limited and Temporary—Government Power Is the Real Threat
An Axios article today examines for-profit companies taking public positions on controversial political issues, carrying the headline “When companies act like governments.” Reporter Erica Pandey…
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Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Should Define ‘Abusive’
The Dodd–Frank Act was a mammoth overhaul of financial services regulation. Along with creating an entire new consumer protection agency, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau,…
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SEC’s ‘Regulation Best Interest’ Respects Investor Choice
Today, the Securities and Exchange Commission approved final rules that comprise “Regulation Best Interest,” which will govern conduct of broker-dealers in their transactions with retail investors. Any…
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VIDEO: Just Say No to a Carbon Tax
The Competitive Enterprise Institute has a new video out today featuring Senior Fellow Marlo Lewis which explains why adopting a carbon tax in the United…
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Prevent Another Mortgage Crisis: Let Qualified Mortgage ‘Patch’ Expire
Last month, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released its rulemaking agenda for Spring 2019. While there weren’t too many surprises in the agenda, which mainly…
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Regulations Trump Administration Has Eliminated So Far in 2019
The Trump administration promised to roll back red tape. So how goes 2019? The 2019 Spring Unified Agenda of Deregulatory and Regulatory Actions released by the…
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This Month, Take Pride in Abundance and Opportunities of Capitalism
June is Pride Month, when gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and other not-straight people celebrate with a variety of events, including activism, parades, and concerts. As…
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Will Antitrust End Trump’s Deregulatory Push?
Revelations that antitrust enforcers have conspired to divide jurisdiction and initiate antitrust investigations into Google and Apple (the U.S. Department of Justice) and Amazon and…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
President Trump threatened a new tariff on all Mexican goods, potentially scuttling the NAFTA/USMCA agreement. My colleague Wayne Crews went through the new Spring 2019…
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Study Confirms China Cheating on United Nations Environmental Agreement
A study published in the journal Nature provides further confirmation of illegal production of trichlorofluoromethane (CFC-11) from China.
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California Leads Nation in Gas Prices, Climate Policies a Growing Contributor
The large gasoline price disparity between California and the rest of the country has jumped to nearly $1.20 per gallon. High fuel taxes and stringent clean…
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Addressing the Gender Pay Gap: Culture, Not Legislation
Gender discrimination is a complex problem with a complex solution.
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VIDEO: Ending Police Harassment of Small Business in India
Our friends at the Atlas Network have an excellent new video out about legal reform in India that is helping small businesspeople stand up to…
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Markets, Not Mandates, Best Way to Manage Trash Disposal
Governments around the world often mandate recycling when there’s no market for the materials collected. Oftentimes, markets don’t exist simply because recycling certain materials requires…
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Don’t Let Credit Scoring Kerfuffle Compromise GSE Reform
Just when it seemed that reforming the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was becoming a “third rail” that politicians did not want…
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Trump Threatens up to 25 Percent Tariff on Mexican Goods, Jeopardizes NAFTA/USMCA
Things have been moving quickly on President Trump’s top legislative priority, the NAFTA/USMCA trade agreement. The key was rescinding steel and aluminum tariffs against Canada…
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Corporate Virtue in Eye of Beholder
The main impression I’ve gotten from much recent reporting on the ethical behavior and social responsibility of business is that its value depends greatly on…