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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…
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What Exxon Knew: AEI Panel on Recent Climate Change Litigation
The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) this week held a panel discussion titled “What did they know, and when did they know it?” on the growing swirl of…
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City of Boulder and Two Colorado Counties Join Climate Shakedown Racket
Boulder, Colorado and Boulder and San Miguel Counties filed suit in state court this week against ExxonMobil and Suncor Energy. The suit claims that petroleum products…
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Lessons for Congress from ‘10,000 Commandments’: Regulatory Budgets
One of the lessons learned from this year’s “10,000 Commandments” study is that Congress needs to be more involved in the regulatory process. It needs…
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The Changing Face of Selling Liberty Online
We’ve been publishing and promoting the study for many years, and our strategies and methods have changed as the years have gone by. When we…
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‘10,000 Commandments’ at 25: What Have We Learned, What’s to Come?
Wayne Crews has ably documented the regulatory state for twenty-five years and running. But what will the next twenty-five years of “10,000 Commandments” look like?…
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Peter Navarro’s Economic Ignorance on Trade
Trump economic advisor and Death by China author Peter Navarro’s recent column in The Wall Street Journal, “China’s Faux Comparative Advantage,” is a…
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The Cost of Washington’s ‘10,000 Commandments’
Federal regulation cost Americans $1.9 trillion in 2017, or nearly $15,000 per U.S. household—more than Americans spend on any category in their family budget except…
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House Tech Panel Hears Testimony on Paid Prioritization
Yesterday, members of the House Energy & Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Communications and Technology held a hearing on Internet prioritization. Chairman Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) opened…
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AI in the UK: Lords’ Report Makes Startups Less Competitive
The British House of Lords recently published a report on artificial intelligence, which includes policy recommendations that would hamper the development of AI domestically and…
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Massachusetts Court to Exxon: Turn Over All Climate Documents Since 1976
Another day, another investigation in search of a crime. “Massachusetts’s top court on Friday ordered Exxon Mobil, Inc. to turn over company records to the…
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Even without Air Traffic Control Reform, House FAA Bill Improvement to Status Quo
Last week, House Transportation Committee Chairman Bill Shuster (R-PA) introduced his updated Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill, eliminating the air traffic control reform title, and making…
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If Trump Is Serious about Jobs, Embrace AI and Loosen Labor Laws
There is a lot of panic about the implications of artificial intelligence technologies for the future of work. Some scholars, such as Nobel laureate Joseph…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The highlights from this week’s round of 36 proposed regulations and 72 final regulations range from licensing government inventions to the Department of Redundancy Department’s…
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Prof. Rajshree Agarwal on the Rubin Report: The True Value of Free Enterprise
I’ve been interested over the last several years to see Dave Rubin’s metamorphosis from stand-up comedian to podcast co-host to serious public affairs…
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Facebook Privacy Critics Ignore Benefits of Social Media
Facebook is not a tool designed to violate privacy nor fan the flames of hate, but it and other social media platforms have been some…
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Senator Grills Zuckerberg While Gathering His Own Facebook User Data
One of the most glaring moments of hypocrisy during yesterday's Facebook hearing came from Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) telling Zuckerberg that he felt “betrayed”…
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Zuckerberg Testimony Hints at Devil’s Bargain with Big Government
Much of the political class in Washington, D.C. is currently holding its breath for the big event of the week: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s long-awaited…
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Congress Impatient for Zuckerberg Privacy Testimony
With Facebook in Congress’s crosshairs, America’s leading Internet companies—sometimes known as “big tech”—arguably face a greater risk of regulation than at any time in their…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
It may not feel like Spring yet, but regulatory agencies have turned their fancies to rulemaking, with 45 proposed and 70 final regulations ranging from…
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National Labor Relations Board General Counsel Rebukes Board
It seems there is never a slow day over at the National Labor Relations Board. Today, the NLRB General Counsel Peter Robb issued a legal…
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Option for States Dealing with Illegal Teacher Union Strikes
An uptick in teacher union strikes has occurred over past few months. Teachers have abandoned students in West Virginia, Kentucky, and Oklahoma with rumblings of…
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Misfiring on All Cylinders: New York Times’ Attack on Pruitt’s Fuel Economy Reset
Greenhouse gas/fuel economy standards encourage automakers to reduce average vehicle size and weight. That is hardly surprising. It takes less fuel to move smaller, lighter…
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Law Geeks Rejoice: Property Rights on the Big Screen in ‘Little Pink House’
John Stossel discusses the history of eminent domain—the legal power that allows local governments to seize property from owners for supposedly public purposes—and how…
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Acting Director Asks Congress for Reform of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
On Monday, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released its first semi-annual report to Congress under its new Acting Director, Mick Mulvaney. A routine procedure…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
With a full quarter of 2018 in the books, agencies have issued just one economically significant rule—an increase in State Department fees amounting to $115…
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What’s Driving the New Economy: Reviewing ‘Tomorrow 3.0’
We truly do live in amazing times. And according to Michael Munger, who directs Duke University’s multidisciplinary PPE program (it stands for Philosophy, Politics, and…
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Track How Humans Are Making Progress around the World
For several years now, HumanProgress has been an excellent source of data and scholarship on major demographic trends around the word. As longtime fans know,…
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Investigate Labor Relations Board Confidentiality Breach
Earlier this week, the Competitive Enterprise Institute sent a request to the National Labor Relations Board Office of Inspector General to investigate NLRB member…
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Chef Geoff Tracy Fights Virginia’s Happy Hour Ad Ban
Local D.C.-area chef Geoff Tracy is a bacon lover, popular food Instagrammer, and a budding legal activist. This week, aided by his attorneys at the…
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Wayfair Supreme Court Case Could Upend How We Buy and Sell Things Online
In April, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear a case, South Dakota v. Wayfair, Corp, that could have a huge impact on people who sell…
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Hope for Reforming Obama-Era Fuel Economy Mandates at EPA
The Environmental Protection Agency is approaching the April 1st deadline to complete its Midterm Evaluation of the Obama administration’s fuel economy and motor vehicle greenhouse…
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European-Style Tech Regulation Not the Answer to Facebook Privacy Concerns
The fallout at Facebook continues to grow after it was revealed that millions of Facebook users’ data was used by the consulting firm Cambridge…
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Tax Complexity a Major Headache for Small Businesses Online
For a lot of small businesses in America, taxes are not just an expensive hassle but a scary, anxiety-inducing ordeal. Taxes are the…
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Obama Holdovers Work to Save EPA Junk Science
Obama administration holdovers at the Environmental Protection Agency are doing their best undermine efforts to drain EPA’s bureaucratic swamp. And thus far, unfortunately, they’re succeeding.
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Commonwealth Nations Beating America on FinTech Regulation
While the United States continues to have healthy development of financial technologies—thanks predominately to unparalleled access to capital and technology—it is at risk of falling…
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Cracking Down on Automated Vehicles Would Mean More Death and Destruction
Real-life road testing is the best way to continue improving the performance of automated driving systems, thanks in part to the gathering of real-time road…
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Consumers Lose in European Union’s Struggle against Google
Anti-technology hysteria continues to build in the European Union. Margrethe Vestager, the European Commissioner for Competition, confirmed today that she is still considering breaking…
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Arizona Becomes First State to Establish FinTech Sandbox
As the only state where all four North American deserts reside, it’s fitting that Arizona became the first state to establish a “sandbox” for financial…
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California Climate Change Litigation: Will Big Oil Learn How to Fight?
This week, Chevron lawyer Ted Boutrous told federal Judge William Alsup that “There’s no debate about climate science.” His company “accepts the consensus of the scientific…