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Full Court Press on Kigali Amendment Begins
The Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol, which would restrict production of many commonly-used refrigerants on the grounds that they contribute to global warming,…
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Messages of Freedom and Hope from FEEcon
Last week I was in Atlanta enjoying the excitement and intellectual ferment of FEEcon, the annual conference held by the Foundation for Economic Education.
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It’s Magna Carta Day!
In a peaceful English meadow made riotous by armed camps, King John sealed Magna Carta, the Great Charter of English liberty, 803 years ago…
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Last Chance for the 115th: Legislative Action on Labor and Employment
Lawmakers have made little to no progress during the 115th Congress to improve labor and employment policy. U.S. labor law is outdated and in…
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Last Chance for the 115th: Stop the President from Unilaterally Raising Tariffs
Article I, section 8 of the U.S. Constitution gives Congress the exclusive power of the purse. Under no circumstances may the president unilaterally raise taxes.
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Last Chance for the 115th: Bring Accountability to the Financial Regulators
In CEI’s “Free to Prosper: A Pro-Growth Agenda for the 115th Congress,” my colleagues John Berlau and Iain Murray made the enduring recommendation…
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Keep Entrepreneurs Free from Internet Sales Taxes
Today, the Competitive Enterprise Institute released a new video on Internet sales taxes in which Center for Technology and Innovation Associate Director Jessica Melugin…
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Good News for Young Lemonade Stand Entrepreneurs
Every summer there are news stories about local authorities shutting down children’s lemonade stands over lack of licenses, permits, a lack of restaurant-grade kitchen or…
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Last Chance for the 115th: Senate Should Pass AV START Act
Back when CEI published “Free to Prosper: A Pro-Growth Agenda for the 115th Congress” at the end of 2016, we wrote that “[t]o…
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Will Trump’s Tariffs Spell the End of Free Markets?
The president’s threats must be fought, but the good news is America’s fundamental institutions will withstand Trumpian bluster. For one thing, our economy remains a…
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Putting the Net Neutrality Scare Stories to Rest
Today is the first day of the Internet operating under the Federal Communications Commission’s Restoring Internet Freedom Order (RIFO), which was adopted last December but is…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The week’s big headlines were about the G7 meeting and our allies’ efforts to avoid a trade war, and the meeting with north Korea…
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Hydroelectric Hearing Highlights Costs of Federal Permitting Delays
The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s subcommittee on energy held a hearing on June 7th on energy infrastructure licensing reform. Although Improving the Hydropower…
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EPA Asks for Public Comment on Improving Cost-Benefit Analysis of Regulations
On June 7, the Environmental Protection Agency issued an advance notice of proposed rulemaking soliciting information on how the agency estimates costs and benefits in…
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How Socialism Devastated Venezuela
I’m attending FEEcon, the annual conference held by the Foundation for Economic Education, this week, and there’s an overwhelming number of great speakers…
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Surprising Results from the Labor Department’s Alternative Work Arrangements Report
A growing economy helps all workers, both those in the sharing economy and those in traditional employment, as new federal employment data bear out.
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How to Improve Rulemaking at the CFPB
This week, the Competitive Enterprise Institute submitted comments to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, on how it could improve its rulemaking to provide a better…
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It’s Not “Us vs. Them” at the G7 Meeting
Tit-for-tat retaliation for trade tariffs is a losing game for both sides. Exports are the way we pay for imports of the things we want.
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Here We Go Again: Steel and Aluminum Tariffs and Peter Navarro
A new 25 percent steel tariff and a 10 percent aluminum tariff have come into effect. The levies are aimed at our allies, such as Canada,…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Despite a four-day workweek, federal agencies still exceeded the previous week’s Federal Register page count by nearly a hundred pages, pushing the yearly total past…
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Cato Institute Honors Human Rights Work of Cuba’s ‘Ladies in White’
Congratulations are in order to our friends at the Cato Institute on their recent big event in New York, the Friedman Prize Dinner. Every two…
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5 Advantages of Stepping away from the Paris Climate Treaty
This week marks the one-year anniversary of President Trump’s announcement that the United States would be withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement, the…
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Democratic Senators Criticize Labor Rulemaking on Joint Employment
A group of Democratic senators recently took issue with the National Labor Relations Board’s announcement it may initiate a notice and comment rulemaking to clarify…
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Ship Has Sailed on U.S. Engagement with Paris Climate Treaty
My colleague Myron Ebell, in a nod to his collegiate years spent at the London School of Economics and Cambridge University, writes this month for…
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Prop E Win in San Francisco Would Be Loss for Public Health
“Big Tobacco” is pouring millions into a campaign to maintain their ability to keep selling harmful products that target children. At least, that’s the narrative…
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The Constitutional Cure for the Paris Agreement
Today marks the first anniversary of President Trump’s Rose Garden speech announcing his intention to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement. That speech…
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Looking Back on Trump’s Paris Decision: Why It Protected the Constitution and Rule of Law
This week marks the one-year anniversary of President Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the all-pain-no-gain Paris climate treaty. In response to…
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Congress Should Reform Antitrust Law with SMARTER Act
When an American company wishes to merge with or acquire another company, reaching an agreement that satisfies both firms’ owners and managers is not always…
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Despite Trump Repudiation, Paris Climate Treaty Still Needs a Senate Vote
This week will mark the one-year anniversary of President Trump’s speech announcing that the United States would be withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement,…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Agencies took it comparatively easy in the leadup to the long Memorial Day weekend, though the FAA and Coats Guard were busy with rules for…
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Finance Regulators Pave Way for Banks to Reenter Small-Dollar Loan Market
Under the letter of the law, banks can now reenter the small-dollar lending space. On Wednesday, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC)…
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Will Coffee Give You Cancer (in California)?
Our friends over at Reason TV have a new video asking the attention-grabbing headline “Will coffee give you cancer?” As it turns out, no (unless…
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House Committee Examines Union Subsidy
Today the House Subcommittee on Government Operations held a hearing entitled “Union Time on the People’s Dime: A Closer Look at Official Time.” The purpose…
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On Honesty and ‘Honest Brokers’ in Government Science
Today’s E&E News has an interesting article about Richard Yamada, a Ph.D. mathematician who is the key official helping Administrator Scott Pruitt reshape science…
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Debunking the Dilatory Objections to the AV START Act
In September 2017, the House of Representatives passed the SELF DRIVE Act by unanimous voice vote. The bill would for the first time establish…
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Trump Maintains a One-In, Five-Out Pace for Rules and Regulations
How many deregulatory actions have been taken so far in the Trump administration? Along with 16 congressional “resolutions of disapproval” of existing Obama-era regulations—another…
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Wishful Thinking Is No Way to Address Public Pension Shortfalls
More state revenue but less money for public services? That’s the situation in which states with large unfunded pension obligations can find themselves if they…
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Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Reexamines Anti-Discrimination Enforcement
This week President Trump signed a resolution of disapproval overturning one of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s most controversial regulatory actions—the inappropriate application of…
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Supreme Court Ends Sports Betting Prohibition—Now What?
It’s hard to believe it was just last Monday the U.S. Supreme Court ended the federal law that, for 25 years, prevented the states…
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Congress Could Give Desperate Patients ‘Right to Try’ Experimental Medications
The House of Representatives will soon vote on a companion bill to S. 204, the Right to Try Act. This bill would prevent the…
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Federal Deregulation Can Exceed What Gets Reported in Unified Agenda
In tracking the Trump administration’s regulatory vs. deregulatory actions, there can be discrepancy between the official Unified Agenda compilation (the tally that’s been around…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
It was a relatively slow week, with 44 proposed regulations and 62 final regulations, though the Supreme Court did rule the federal ban on…
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UK Climate Campaigners Demand More Market Rigging
Members of Parliament in the United Kingdom “are warning of a ‘dramatic and worrying collapse’ of clean energy investments in Great Britain in the last…
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President Trump Replaces Obama Executive Order on Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions
President Donald Trump on May 17th issued an executive order that replaces a March 19th, 2015 executive order by President Barack Obama requiring all federal departments…
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Justice Department Brief Defends Oil Companies against California City Lawsuits
The Department of Justice last week filed an amicus brief supporting oil companies’ motion to dismiss claims by the cities of Oakland and San Francisco that the firms…
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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.