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Labor Officials Dragging Feet on Union Financial Transparency
The Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS), a division within the Department of Labor (DOL), has been generally inactive during the Trump administration, an unfortunate reality…
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Administration Looks to Make Household-Level Imports More Expensive
One of the consistent problems with the Trump administration’s trade policy is an obsession with reciprocity—if goods aren’t treated exactly the same way as imports…
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Pension Obligation Bonds No Panacea for State Budget Liabilities
Illinois has a new governor and Chicago will soon have a new mayor—and the same old underfunded public pensions. Inheriting a predecessor’s debts is never…
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Warren Buffett Warns about Unfunded Public Pension Liabilities—Again
Would you invest in a state with large unfunded pension liabilities? Warren Buffett likely wouldn’t. In a long interview with CNBC this week, the famed…
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Virginia Legislature Restricts Privately-Funded State Legal Staff
As revealed in detail in “Law Enforcement for Rent: How Special Interests Fund Climate Policy through State Attorneys General,” former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg…
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How Much Will the Green New Deal Cost Your Family?
The American Action Forum (AAF) yesterday posted a preliminary analysis of the scope, implications, and costs of the Green New Deal (GND). I can’t wait…
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Fintech and the Future of Consumer Finance
Everyone understands the need for access to credit. No matter how well we budget, we occasionally come up short due to an unexpected circumstance or expense—a…
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Costs of Regulatory Takings and Property Value Destruction
Takings issues noted here are just the beginning of government neglect of the institution of private property, notable especially in emergent sectors. But the disdain…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The federal government was on a four-day work week in honor of George Washington’s birthday, but agencies still found time to issue regulations ranging from…
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White House to Create President’s Commission on National Climate Security
The Washington Post obtained leaked Trump administration documents this week that reveal that the White House is preparing an executive order to create a President’s…
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More New England Natural Gas Pipelines Needed, But Unlikely
New England continues to struggle with barely-adequate electric reliability, especially during the region’s winter cold spells. This is due in large part to the retirements of…
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Say No to Trump’s Proposed Auto Tariffs
President Trump is mulling a tariff on automobiles. Joining a long list of people urging him against it is the Japanese auto industry. That opposition…
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VIDEO: You’ve Come a Long Way, Regulatory Reform
Our friends at the American Enterprise Institute are doing a great job leveraging their many decades of experience in Washington, D.C. They've been raiding their…
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Confusing Poll Clouds Public Perception of Trump Emergency Declaration
President Trump’s national emergency declaration is constitutional, as I explained in a recent op-ed in the Washington Examiner. That’s an important fact, because we trust…
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Real-World Effects of Pension Debt
Debates over public pension finance often have an abstract quality, taking place outside most people’s immediate concerns. Yet, the real-world effects can be quite tangible.
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Regulatory Costs and the Loss of Liberty
From classical liberal and individual rights perspectives, the administrative state is an affront to liberty almost by definition.
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Congress and President Trump passed a spending bill to avoid another shutdown, but President Trump’s national emergency declaration over a non-emergency provides a troubling precedent…
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California’s Gov. Newsom Slams Brakes on California Bullet Train
California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) on February 12th unexpectedly slammed the brakes on the state’s high-speed rail project. The project “as currently planned, would cost too…
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Sen. McConnell Calls for Senate Vote on Green New Deal, Markey Calls ‘Sabotage’
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said on February 12th that he planned to schedule a vote on the Green New Deal Resolution in the near future using Rule…
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House Republican Committee Leaders Begin Caving on Climate Science and Policies
Reps. Greg Walden (R-OR) and Frank Lucas (R-OK), the ranking Republican members of the two committees with the most jurisdiction over climate science and energy-rationing…
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SEC Should Stop Coercing Brokers to Buy Data From Exchanges
There are many types of burdensome government mandates, but of all the Ten Thousand Commandments, regulations that coerce the purchase of a particular product or…
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Tim Carney on ‘Alienated America’
Our old friend (and former CEI Warren Brookes Journalism Fellow) Tim Carney has a new book out, “Alienated America: Why Some Places Thrive While Others…
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Appalachian Trail Should Not Block New Energy Development
The Department of Justice is pushing back against a federal court decision that could jeopardize the future availability and affordability of natural gas across America’s…
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Carbon Capture and Storage Not ‘Best System’ to Reduce Emissions
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency yesterday held an all-day “listening session” at its Washington, D.C. headquarters on its proposal to revise the Obama administration’s new…
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Economics of Green New Deal: More Red Than Green
My colleagues have written elsewhere about the energy and environmental components of the “Green New Deal” proposals that have been enthusiastically agreed to by most…
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Unions Defend Job-Killing Regulation
A holdover Obama regulation is costing businesses billions of dollars and workers millions of job opportunities. A survey conducted by the International Franchise Association found…
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Setting the Record Straight on IRIS Reform Progress
The Competitive Enterprise Institute published my paper this week on the Environmental Protection Agency’s Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS). This is a research program that…
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Unmeasured Meta-Costs of the Administrative State
In my recent Forbes column “Rule of Flaw and the Costs of Coercion: Charting Undisclosed Burdens of the Administrative State,” I discuss some of the…
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Ominous Parallels: Were AOC and LaRouche Secretly Working Together?
It seems like an odd coincidence that legendary American political cult figure Lyndon LaRouche would pass away the same week that the Green New Deal…
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Financial Services ‘Regulatory Sandbox’ Is Win for Consumers
The comment period on a critical new initiative to promote innovation in financial services from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau closed this Monday. My colleague…
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Conservative Criticisms of Passenger Facility Charge Again Miss Mark
Our friends at the National Taxpayers Union (NTU) recently sent a letter to the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure in advance of a hearing…
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Green New Deal Launched with Support from Democratic Presidential Candidates
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Sen. Edward Markey (D-MA) held a press conference outside the Capitol building on February 7th to introduce their House and Senate resolutions for a…
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Kids Climate Litigants Petition Court to Stop Fossil Fuel Development
Kelsey Juliana and her fellow litigants are the youngsters who, since 2015, have been suing the federal government to “prepare and implement an enforceable national remedial plan to…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The delayed State of the Union speech happened on Tuesday, but contained no surprises on the policy front. The length of the Federal Register doubled…
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Net Neutrality Regulation Still a Bad Idea
The debate at today’s House Committee on Energy and Commerce hearing was largely between making blocking, throttling, and fast lanes illegal and going further to…
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VIDEO: Operation Choke Point Sets Dangerous Precedent
Our friends at the Federalist Society have an interesting new video out on legal businesses being targeted for government harassment because their products have become politically…
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Amazon under Pressure to Accept Union
This week, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said Amazon employees should unionize, and that the company should welcome losing a direct line of…
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House Climate Hearing off to Bad Start
The newly-minted environment and climate change subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee will hold a hearing today titled “Time for Action: Addressing the Environmental…
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Administrative Procedure Act Limitations: Process and Oversight Shortcomings
The Administrative Procedure Act of 1946 (APA) set up the foundation of the public consultation rulemaking procedure. Part one of this two-part glance at APA…
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Fintech: A Bipartisan Priority for the 116th Congress
While the 115th Congress did not achieve all that was hoped for with regards to financial services reform, it did make important progress to achieving…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The Midwest froze, but the Federal Register began to heat up. As I predicted earlier, the first three post-shutdown editions were slow. Then Thursday’s edition…
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EPA’s Andrew Wheeler Appoints John Christy to Science Advisory Board
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler on January 31st announced the appointment of some 29 experts to serve on the agency’s Science Advisory Board…
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Plastic Bag Ban Mania Will Do More Harm than Good
An anti-plastics craze has swept the country and the globe, prompting lawmakers to propose and impose bans on various plastic products—from straws to shopping bags…
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VIDEO: Thanos Was Wrong about Humanity
Our friends at the American Enterprise Institute have a great video series in which they explain important issues, each in only 60 seconds. A very-short format like this…
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Ninth Circuit Strikes Down Soda Labeling Ban for Wrong Reasons
This week the federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held unconstitutional the size requirement in San Francisco’s soda warning labeling regulation. However, there are broader…
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Jobs Numbers Continue Generally Positive Trend
The latest jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics suggest that the economy is continuing on a steady course, at least as far as…
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The Bicameral Congressional Trade Authority Act
This week Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) introduced the Bicameral Congressional Trade Authority Act, which would reduce the president’s authority to unilaterally enact new tariffs by…
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Rep. Waters Reiterates Support for JOBS Act 3.0
In a major speech to a liberal group outlining her priorities as chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) sharply criticized…
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A Brief Outline of Undisclosed Costs of Regulation
In my recent Forbes column “Rule of Flaw and the Costs of Coercion: Charting Undisclosed Burdens of the Administrative State,” I discussed checks on the…
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Administrative Procedure Act Limitations: Cost Measurement and Disclosure
U.S. Circuit Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III noted in a 2017 journal article that regulation sometimes contains “too much detail,” changes too “frequently and capriciously,” creates backlogs and…