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Obama Administration Attacks ‘Reasonableness’ and ‘Common Sense’ in Sex Harassment Investigations
The Supreme Court has repeatedly said that not all sexual flirtation or interaction constitutes sexual harassment, and that whether conduct is bad enough to amount…
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How a New President Can Roll Back Bureaucracy, Part 1: Freeze Regulations Temporarily
In today’s economy, talk about regulatory liberalization has become a bit more bipartisan.
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Clean Power Plan Litigation: A Giant Ball of Uncertainties
Prognosticating judicial outcomes is a foolish endeavor in general, but trying to predict the fate of the Clean Power Plan in Article III courts is…
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Financial CHOICE Act, Replacement for Dodd-Frank, Passes Out of Committee
The House Financial Services Committee today approved the Financial CHOICE Act (FCA) 30-26 largely along party lines.
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Destroying the Marketplace in Education
The federal government happily subsidizes awful state colleges that graduate few if any of their students.
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Despite a Labor Day-shortened work week, agencies still found time to issue regulations from soap to whales.
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RealClear Radio Hour: Criminal Justice Problems and Solutions
This week, I speak with two advocates for criminal justice reform: 33-year police veteran Jim Bueermann and formerly incarcerated entrepreneur Sharon Richardson.
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Climate Change Already Measurably Harming Society, Study Claims
A UC Berkeley study published online this week in the journal Science purports to quantify the current harmful impacts of anthropogenic climate change. According to…
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Senate EPW Takes Gina McCarthy to Task for Broken Promises
During the summer of 2013, the Senate considered Gina McCarthy’s nomination to become head of the EPA. In the course of this deliberation, Republicans on…
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Three Fast Food Favorites from Franchises
It’s no secret that flexibility and freedom to experiment foster creativity.
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EEOC to Gadsden Flag Lovers: Shut Up or Face Costly Lawsuits
Libertarian think tanks have been known to distribute lapel pins that display the Gadsden flag, reading “Don’t Tread on Me.”…
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Michigan State Legislator Introduces Worker’s Choice Bill
Yesterday, a state representative from Michigan introduced novel legislation that would provide public-sector workers’ choice.
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Work Is Changing, Employment Regulation Needs to Change Too
For many people, the 9 to 5, office- or factory-based, corporate job that Dolly Parton lamented in the 1980s is a thing of the past.
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Precedent on Environmental Pacts: Treaty or “Executive Agreement”?
President Obama claims the global climate pact negotiated in Paris last December—the so-called Paris Agreement—is an executive agreement, not a treaty, hence is not subject…
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Senate Democrats Block Anti-Zika Bill Yet Again
Democrats in the Senate have blocked a bill that would have provided federal funds to combat the spread of the Zika virus, reports The Hill.
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Texas Constitution Bans Taxpayer Subsidies to Private Parties
It may seem obvious, but tax dollars are supposed to be used for purely public purposes, not the private benefit of an individual, corporation, or…
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New Drug Price Proposal Light on Competition, Heavy on Bureaucracy
Last Friday, Hillary Clinton announced a new plan to “respond to unjustified price hikes” on certain pharmaceutical drugs.
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Obamacare Shrinks Economy through Medicaid Expansion and Tax Credit Cliffs
Obamacare’s expansion of Medicaid reduced employment in those states that participated in it by a statistically significant extent, according to a recent study by Georgetown’s…
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Rewards and Risks of a Federal Regulatory Budget (Part 6)
By shedding light on comparative agency activity, budgeting and simultaneous improved congressional oversight could counter agency overreach.
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Contingency Lawyers Undermine Integrity of Government Prosecutions
There’s been a lot of press coverage of the Climate Change subpoenas that were issued and then withdrawn by Virgin Islands Attorney General Claude Walker.
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The 2016 Federal Register broke the 60,000-page mark last week, and became the 25th-largest edition in the Register’s 81-year history before Labor Day.
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RealClear Radio Hour: American Indian, EpiPen, and Free Speech Fiascos
In this episode of RealClear Radio Hour, we discuss the fiascos of government overreach and overregulation—on American Indian reservations, in the EpiPen saga, and with…
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Obama Expected To Ratify Paris Treaty in China
U. S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping will announce that their two countries are officially joining the Paris Climate Treaty when they…
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Rewards and Risks of a Federal Regulatory Budget (Part 5)
Benefits, even more so than costs do not lend themselves to measurement by a third party or external observer, and abuse will result from the…
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Labor Day Highlights Need for Labor Law Reform
Labor Day is a time when we show respect and celebrate the achievements of American workers. However, a better way to respect workers this Labor…
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Reaction to CEI’s Lawsuit against New York Attorney General Schneiderman
Yesterday CEI filed a lawsuit against New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman for refusing to disclose the legal agreements his office made with other state…
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Rewards and Risks of a Federal Regulatory Budget (Part 4)
This week I began by making the case for the idea of a regulatory cost budget but wanted to spend time exploring looming pitfalls and…
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Climate Agreement Signed: What Can The Senate Do?
Reports circulating this week predict that President Obama will unilaterally “Accept” the Paris Climate Treaty on behalf of the United States, breaking from other nations…
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31 Is the Loneliest Number… on the CEI Calendar
We just realized that August 31st is missing from CEI's 2016 Cartoon Calendar.
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Brexit: A Liberal Britain?
There is a great risk in Brexit Britain.
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Rewards and Risks of a Federal Regulatory Budget (Part 3)
Monday in this space, I advocated the idea of a regulatory cost budget but noted there exist looming pitfalls and political traps that could derail…
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Settlement Insurance Shows Need for Court Skepticism in Class Actions
A plaintiffs’ attorney and an insurance executive have created a business, Risk Settlements, that offers a “post-lawsuit settlement insurance product specifically designed to manage settlement…
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Rewards and Risks of a Federal Regulatory Budget (Part 2)
I advocate the idea of a regulatory cost budget but note that there exists looming pitfalls and political traps that could derail it or easily…
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National Right to Work Committee Wrong on Air Traffic Control Reform
The handful of conservative critics of air traffic control reform get the facts all wrong.
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For Affordable Housing, Ditch Prevailing Wage Laws
For residents of some of the nation’s major cities, it’s hardly news that housing costs are high, with little likelihood of their coming down any…
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Rewards and Risks of a Federal Regulatory Budget (Part 1)
Our case for capping and “budgeting” regulatory costs across federal agencies opens by asserting that that, perhaps apart from certain raw compliance and paperwork burdens,…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
In one of their busiest weeks to date, agencies passed more than a hundred new regulations covering everything from rubies to frogs.
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RealClear Radio Hour: Budding CEOs, Women, and Politics
On this week’s episode, Jeff Sandefer tells how children younger than 10 are wowing Shark Tank investors and Sarah Skwire compares the feminism of free…
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New Study Finds Ethanol More Carbon Intensive than Gasoline
A University of Michigan study published in the journal Climatic Change challenges a fundamental assumption of the life cycle analyses underpinning the EPA’s Renewable Fuel…
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Transport Groups Oppose Obama Greenhouse Gas Power Grab
Twenty-three organizations representing highway users, transportation, vehicle, and energy trade associations filed joint comments last weekend opposing any proposal by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA)…
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California Legislature Passes Ambitious Greenhouse Gas Reduction Target, But Cap-n-Tax Program Remains in Limbo
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Brexit: What’s Next for Trade?
At the moment, Britain is still a member of the European Union, and therefore its trade arrangements are subject to the terms of the EU’s…
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Milwaukee: Get Your Pokémon Off My Lawn!
Milwaukee County’s Park Department is not happy about virtual pocket monsters.
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Problems Ahead for Grad Student Unionizing
There seems to be an Obama administration wide dictate to ensure as many individuals as possible are to be considered employees. The reason for this…
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Federal Subsidies Won’t Promote Fair Housing
Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine recently outlined his and Hillary Clinton’s plan to promote fair housing. Basically, they want to throw money at the…
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Brexit: What Next?
In our new and revised version of Cutting the Gordian Knot: A Roadmap for British Exit from the European Union, Rory Broomfield and I set…
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Our Fight against Government Intimidation
Regardless of which policies you support, any assault on free speech is profoundly unjust. And when that assault is coordinated by high-ranking government officials, it’s…
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RealClear Radio Hour: Brexit and Regulatory Rebellion
In this week’s episode, Julian Morris, Iain Murray, and Richard Williams make the case for Britain’s regulatory rebellion and chart the path forward from Brexit.
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Can a New President Cut Regulations Unilaterally?
Both presidential candidates have delivered economic speeches over the past two weeks, and both have at least given a nod to red tape and the…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Friday’s Federal Register was one of the year’s biggest, with 74 agency notices, 4 proposed regulations and 15 final regulations spanning 1,119 pages.