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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Inflation reached an annualized rate of 7.5 percent, with prices going up 0.6 percent just in January. This is highest reading in 40 years.
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Judge Orders Administration to Cease Using the Social Cost of Carbon
Today, in a sweeping ruling from the Western District of Louisiana, Judge James D. Cain, Jr. ruled that the Biden administration must shelve its…
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This Week’s Civil Forfeiture Outrage (Eleventh in a Series: Highway Robbery in California)
The bandit is the scourge of the traveler. In less developed parts of the world, travelers risk encountering bandits even today. Sometimes the bandit claims…
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Reciprocal Switching Is a Bad Idea at a Bad Time
The Surface Transportation Board has resurrected a bad idea it considered in 2012 and 2016—mandated reciprocal switching for freight railroads. For background, you can’t do…
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New Export-Import Bank President Has Opportunities for Reform
Reta Jo Lewis is about to become the next president of the Export-Import Bank. The Senate confirmed her nomination yesterday. Called Ex-Im for short,…
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Steel Tariffs against Japan Lifted, Kind of
President Biden is taking a small step toward tariff relief. Japan’s first 1.25 million metric tons per year of steel exports to the U.S.
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New Hampshire Considers Major Forfeiture Reform
The New Hampshire state legislature’s House Committee on Criminal Justice and Public Safety is considering a significant change to the Granite State’s forfeiture laws:…
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Don’t EARN IT
Bad policy made with good intentions still delivers poor results. That is the case with the Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies…
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New Mexico Should Reject Interest Rate Limit Base on Federal Mismeasurement
There is an old saying that “a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.” It has…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The U.S. government’s debt reached $30 trillion last week. Antitrust target Facebook lost users last quarter for the first time in its history,…
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U.S. Geological Survey Study Underscores Extent of Import Dependence for Critical Minerals
The U.S. Geological Survey’s recent report, Mineral Commodity Summaries 2022, documents the significant extent to which America relies on imports of numerous critical minerals,…
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Good News for Facebook Competitors, Bad News for the FTC’s Antitrust Case
Thursday brought some interesting news, none of which were kind to the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) antitrust case against Facebook. First, Facebook’s number of…
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Protect Consumers, Not Competitors
The Open App Markets Act (S. 2710) is the latest in a parade of antitrust legislation aimed at reining in “big tech” companies that…
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The America COMPETES Act’s Outbound Investment Review Framework Threatens U.S. Global Economic Competitiveness
Earlier this week, the House of Representatives introduced a bill, the America COMPETES” Act (H.R. 4521; the backronym is for ‘‘America Creating Opportunities for…
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The COMPETES Act Is a Bad Idea. Here’s What Congress Should Do Instead
The 2,912-page America COMPETES Act (H.R. 4521; the backronym is for ‘‘America Creating Opportunities for Manufacturing, Pre-Eminence in Technology, and Economic Strength’’) is the…
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Even Most Democrats Favor Right to Work Laws
For being so controversial, right to work laws are pretty popular. A majority of states, 27, have them and even Democrats will give…
![Indiana Beverage Bill Helps [Some] Businesses by Harming Consumers](https://cei.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Spirits-GettyImages-1306196045-578x324-c-default.jpg)
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Indiana Beverage Bill Helps [Some] Businesses by Harming Consumers
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
GDP grew 5.7 percent during 2021, giving further evidence of a strong economic rebound from the COVID-19 pandemic. Even so, Congress is now considering…
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Social Cost of Carbon – Pretzel Logic Cannot Save NetZero Agenda
A new paper by economists Nicolas Stern, Joseph Stiglitz, Kristina Karlson, and Charlotte Taylor calls upon the Biden administration to set a “social cost of carbon…
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Rising Pay Undermines Push for Increasing the Minimum Wage
A Department Labor report released Friday shows wages rising 4.5 percent, evidence that the Biden administration’s plan to raise the federal minimum wage…
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This Week’s Outrage (Which, Again, Touches on Civil Asset Forfeiture)
Last week, the Birmingham News published a scorching expose of police practices in the little town of Brookside, Alabama (population 1,253). Brookside has no…
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CEI Leads Coalition Letter to Department of Energy Defending Freedom of Choice for Light Bulbs
As I described in my recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, A Regulatory Burden For Every Room In Your House, the Biden administration has embarked…
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Biden’s Vaccine Mandate Is Still a Bad Idea Even If Properly Enacted
The best that can be said about the Biden administration’s decision to withdraw the executive order for its COVID-19 vaccine mandate and instead try to…
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A Dangerous Antitrust Game for Microsoft and Consumers
Microsoft’s couldn’t have picked a more inauspicious day to announce its planned acquisition of gaming company, Activision Blizzard. The news came concurrently with antitrust regulators…
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Better Ways to Fight Poverty than the Minimum Wage
Every January, states and cities across the country raise their minimum wages. There are also calls to raise the federal minimum wage, which has stayed…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
A major antitrust bill from Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) is poised to hit the Senate floor without a proper hearing. Considering its contents, one…
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Court Enjoins Enforcement of Federal Workforce Vaccine Mandate
The Biden administration has promulgated four COVID-19 vaccination mandates. Two were issued via administration regulations and were recently reviewed by the Supreme Court. For…
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CFPB’s Dodd-Frank Race and Gender Data Collection Mandates Will Harm Financial Inclusion
In mid-2020, on the 10th anniversary of the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul being rammed through Congress and signed by then-President Obama, I catalogued the damage…
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This Week’s Civil Forfeiture Outrage (Tenth in a Series: Baltimore Edition)
This Baltimore Brew news story describes how the Baltimore Police Department (BPD)—like many police departments around the country—seizes millions of dollars, thousands of weapons,…
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As Numbers Stagnate, Unions Continue to Look to Congress For Salvation
The Department of Labor’s latest statistics confirm that the union movement in the U.S. remains stagnant and slowly declining. Only 10.3 percent of U.S.