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Fraser Institute Confronts Changing Demographics of Entrepreneurship
As my colleague Christine Hall reported earlier this week, our Canadian think tank friends at the Fraser Institute have a new book out…
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Tell the Energy Department What You Think about Your Dishwasher
Thirty-five years ago, dishwashers cleaned dishes in about an hour. Sadly today, due to federal regulations, there are no dishwashers that do so. This isn’t progress—it’s…
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Did You Hear the One about the Entrepreneur?
When putting together a chapter on entrepreneurship and regulation for the Fraser Institute’s new book “Demographics and Entrepreneurship: Mitigating the Effects of an Aging…
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Debating Employment Flexibility in the Gig Economy
Renowned labor expert and Harvard professor Benjamin Sachs argues over at OnLabor.org that he's had enough with what he calls the “flexibility trope” of worker classification…
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Federal Employees Spend Over 3 Million Hours on Union Business
Federal employee unions enjoy a government subsidy known as “official time” that enables union members to perform union duties while being paid by the taxpayer.
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Red Tape Discourages Entrepreneurs, CEI Expert Explains in Fraser Institute Book
Today, the Fraser Institute, an independent, non-partisan Canadian public policy think-tank, released a new book on worldwide barriers to entrepreneurship, Demographics and Entrepreneurship: Mitigating the…
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Excessive Caution at EPA Produces Absurd Conclusions
In an April 24 blog post, I detailed why a recent National Academies of Sciences review of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Integrated Risk Information…
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Ending Disparate Enforcement at Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
Just last week, Congress voted to overturn one of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s most controversial regulatory actions—a guidance document that was used…
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Congressional Review Act Wrong Way to Legislate on Net Neutrality
On Wednesday, May 16, the Senate is expected to vote on a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution of disapproval that purports to undo…
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Zero Emission Vehicles Can Increase Air Pollution: Study
A new report by economist Jonathan Lesser of the Manhattan Institute challenges the conventional wisdom that zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) are superior to new internal…
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Cut Red Tape So Middle-Class Investors Can Soar with Next Amazon
Today is the 21st anniversary of the initial public offering of a little company called Amazon. Yes, today Amazon is a behemoth, a supposed…
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Friendly Mentions for ‘10,000 Commandments’ Study
Here at the Competitive Enterprise Institute we’re happy to see the attention being received by the 25th anniversary edition of Wayne Crews’ popular study of…
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Supreme Court Sports Betting Decision Big Win for Consumers, Federalism
Today’s Supreme Court opinion in Murphy v. NCAA (formerly Christie v. NCAA) is a big win for consumers, states, and the constitutional principle…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The big news from the last week was the release of the spring edition of the twice-yearly Unified Agenda, which lists all planned agency regulations…
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UN Climate Talks in Bonn Result in More Climate Talks in Bangkok
The annual subsidiary body meetings of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) held in Bonn, Germany over the past two weeks have…
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California to Require Solar Panels on New Homes
“California is set to become the first state to require solar panels on all newly built single-family houses,” the Los Angeles Times reports. Not…
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New York Attorney General and Climate Campaigner Schneiderman Resigns
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman resigned on May 8th within hours of The New Yorker publishing an exposé in which four former girlfriends…
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Charting the Telecom Future with Free State Foundation
Our friends at the Free State Foundation recently held their 10th Annual Telecom Policy Conference here in Washington, D.C., and the proceedings covered the…
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Clearing a Regulatory Path for Automated Trucks and Trains
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is the national safety regulator of heavy trucks and buses, or commercial motor vehicles. It was created in 2000…
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Due Process Concerns Remain in National Labor Relations Board Ethics Inquiry
On March 28, 2018, the Competitive Enterprise Institute sent a letter to the National Labor Relations Board Office of Inspector General to investigate NLRB…
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Trump Administration Regulatory Agenda Released
Today the Trump administration released the Spring 2018 edition of the twice-yearly Regulatory Plan and Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions, accompanied…
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Big Senate Net Neutrality Vote Coming Soon
The debate over net neutrality is heating up again this week, as Democrats in the Senate attempt to overturn new rules adopted by the…
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‘10,000 Commandments’ in the News
The 25th anniversary edition of the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s regulatory reform study “10,000 Commandments” has received a warm welcome since it was released…
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A New Bibliography for the Platform Economy
The future has arrived, and it is a radically different economy. Havas Media’s Tom Goodwin pointed out in 2015, “Uber, the world’s largest taxi…
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Do Tourists Cause Global Warming?
Nature Climate Change yesterday published a study measuring the “carbon footprint of global tourism.” It’s big. Taking into account all tourism-related expenditures for transport, shopping,…
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Post Office Payday Loans: A Stunningly Bad Idea
Like clockwork, every so often a new member of Congress will rehash an old, tired idea: having the United States Postal Service (USPS) make short-term,…
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Win for Government Accountability against New York Attorney General
When the law says that government officials are required to turn over documents to the public, it means that they’re actually required to turn over…
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Congress Should Axe Backdoor Auto Finance Rule
This week, Congress has a unique opportunity to repeal one of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s worst regulatory actions. Using the Congressional Review Act (CRA),…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
It is now May, and still only one economically significant regulation (costing $100 million or more per year) has been issued this year. With the…
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Good News from the United Nations Climate Talks in Bonn
The subsidiary bodies of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) are meeting in Bonn, Germany this week and next to try to draft…
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Sen. Lankford Headlines Mercatus Event on Regulation and Opportunity
Recently the Mercatus Center hosted an excellent panel discussion on the effects of regulation on entrepreneurs and the poor. I was excited to see…
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Dueling Calculations for the Cost of Federal Regulation
Recently here at CEI, we’ve been celebrating the release of the 25th anniversary edition of our major report on the costs of government regulation,…
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Senseless Menu Labeling Rules Go into Effect in May
Within days, chain restaurants and grocery stores nationwide will have to comply with a high-cost, low-value Obamacare menu labeling mandate. Failure to comply with the…
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Multi-State Petition against EPA Vehicle Standards Makes Weak Legal Case
California joined by 16 states and the District of Columbia yesterday petitioned the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to stop Environmental Protection Agency administrator…
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Regulatory Reform in Congress
While the president’s initial flurry of executive orders enacting some regulatory reforms was a pleasant surprise, the next president can undo them with the stroke…
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Long History for ‘10,000 Commandments’ on Capitol Hill
The 25th anniversary of CEI’s flagship study on federal regulation, “10,000 Commandments”, has been getting a lot of attention recently. We’re always happy when…
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How to Encourage Tech Competition: Deregulate Finance
It’s May Day, and in the pages of the New York Times appears a paean to the halcyon days of the 1930s, urging a…
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Steel and Aluminum Tariffs a Massive Net Loss for U.S. Economy
Following in George W. Bush’s footsteps, President Trump increased tariffs on foreign-made steel and aluminum by 25 percent in March. But he exempted U.S. allies…
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Department of Labor Safeguards Worker Retirement Investments
It is well known that Americans do not adequately save for retirement. As such, it is crucial that every dollar American workers put away…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The number of new final regulations passed the 1,000 mark last week, with new rules ranging from sending mail to human reliability programs.
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House Panels Grill Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Pruitt
On April 26th, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt testified in separate hearings before the environment subcommittees of the House Energy and Commerce and…
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Scalise, McKinley Introduce Anti-Carbon Tax Resolution
House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) and Rep. David McKinley (R-WV) on Thursday introduced H. Con. Res. 119, which “Expresses the sense of Congress…
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Cato Institute Experts on NAFTA and the Trump Tariffs
While the administration has made great progress on issues like regulatory reform and energy policy, the current White House has also embraced policies that—and…
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Visualizing the Burden of Federal Regulation
The Competitive Enterprise Institute recently released the 25th anniversary edition of Wayne Crews’ widely-cited study “10,000 Commandments: An Annual Snapshot of the Federal Regulatory State.”…
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Free Market Groups Call for Repeal of Clean Power Plan
Public policy analysts from 20 free-market organizations today filed a joint comment letter in support of EPA administrator Scott Pruitt’s proposal to repeal…
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House Committee Examines How to Modernize Labor Laws
Labor-management relation laws in the United States are in need of an update. Reform is long overdue, with the last major update to statutes governing…
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Some Context for the Astronomical Cost of Government Regulation
Since any number with that many zeroes and commas in it is difficult for the human mind to process, let’s put it in a more…
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Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Targets True Rights Violations with Wells Fargo Fine
After being attacked repeatedly for supposedly being soft on Wall Street and the “big banks,” Acting Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Mick Mulvaney was part…
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Systematic Failures of Chemical Safety Research at Environmental Protection Agency
“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again” could be the motto of one of the key research programs at the U.S. Environmental Protection…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The big news this week was the release of the 2018 edition of Ten Thousand Commandments. Agencies continued to provide fodder for next years edition…