CEI has fought excessive regulation in the financial sector from laws such as Sarbanes-Oxley and Dodd-Frank. We have scored major bipartisan victories for deregulation. These include the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act, signed by President Obama in 2012, that lifted or relaxed some of the biggest burdens preventing small and midsize firms from raising capital and going public; and the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act, signed by President Trump in 2018, that lifted some of Dodd-Frank’s crushing burden on community banks and credit unions. We continue to fight to remove regulatory barriers that limit choices and increase costs for entrepreneurs, investors, and consumers.
Banking and Finance Issue Areas
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Citation
Newsom Looks To Extend Carbon Cap Policy, Fund Rail Boondoggle As Possible Gas Crisis Looms
Daily Caller cited CEI’s expert on gas prices “California refining capacity is dying, it is dwindling,” Marlo Lewis Jr., a senior fellow at the Competitive…
PYMNTS
Bankers Tell Congress Regulation Hinders M&A and ‘De Novo’ Formation
PYMNTS cited CEI’s expert on bank mergers and de novo banks “In every business sector, new entrants are essential to the functioning of a competitive,…

Blog
Under Biden or Trump, taxing carried interest is stupid and destructive policy
No matter who’s in charge of the presidency or Congress, flawed proposals to close the so-called carried interest loophole just keep coming back. News outlets…
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Newsletter
The Competitive Enterprise Institute Daily Update
Issues in the News 1. CONSUMER The Washington Post reports on CEI’s campaign to protest substandard appliances resulting from energy efficiency mandates. 2.
News Release
Insurance Reform Bill Could Have Big Impact on Consumers
Washington, D.C., May 24, 2007— America has a deeply troubled auto and homeowners’ insurance system. A bill to be introduced today in Congress may…
Blog
Selling Insurance on the Web
Today’s Wall Street Journal (subscription only) features an article about the increasing use of the Web for the sale of insurance policies. I was…
Blog
Wildfires in California: A Growing Residual Market?
We may be seeing the emergence of yet another residual market for insurance, this time against wildfire. Even though fires have declined a great…
Blog
Property Insurance Becomes a Legislative Casualty
The Florida legislature recently passed a bill regulating property insurance rates in response to complaints that premiums in certain hurricane-prone areas were too high.
Newsletter
The Competitive Enterprise Institute Daily Update
Issues in the News 1. ENVIRONMENT The Washington Post celebrates the 100th anniversary of the birth of environmentalist icon…
Comment
Comments Submitted to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners on the Proposed Model Audit Rule
Full Document Available in…
Blog
Charlie Crist: Populist
Florida continues its populist jihad against private insurance companies. On top of last year’s legislation letting the state-owned Citizens Property Insurance Corp. compete outright for…
Blog
The Collapse of Private Insurance: Part XXVII
A federal jury verdict yesterday in Lousiana requiring Allstate to pay several million dollars it didn’t expect to further underlines the inherent problem with…
News Release
Insurance Reform Bill Could Have Big Impact On Consumers
Contact: Christine Hall, 202.331.2258 Washington, D.C., April 10, 2007— America has a deeply troubled auto and homeowners’ insurance system, but a forthcoming bill…
Blog
The Tip of the Iceberg
I have a piece in today’s National Review Online about the new bill that would provide optional federal chartering (OFC) for insurance companies. OFC,…
Blog
Is Bad Regulatory Competition Better than No Regulatory Competition?
I had an interesting conversation about regulatory competition in the context of insurance. A lawyer I was speaking with argued that any regulatory competition structure—even…
Blog
So Where do the Shipping Disasters Take Place?
They take place at home. Let me explain. In studies of regulatory policy, the international flags-of-convenience system for shipping often gets cited as an example…
Blog
An interesting idea for insurance choice
In the next few weeks, I'm going to be writing a good deal about the idea that insurance companies should have the ability to do…
Newsletter
The Competitive Enterprise Institute Daily Update
Issues in the News 1. HEALTH President Bush visits wounded veterans at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
Newsletter
The Competitive Enterprise Institute Daily Update
Issues in the News 1. INSURANCE A major insurer announced this week it will offer a homeowners’ insurance product for customers living in…
Blog
Thoughts about McCarran-Ferguson
Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott, angry with the whole insurance industry over the situation in his home state of Mississippi, has announced that he…
Newsletter
The Competitive Enterprise Institute Daily Update
Issues in the News 1. CONGRESS The Senate refuses to allow the Capitol grounds to be used…
Op-Eds
Caring for Vets: A Healthy Plan
If it wants to fix the appalling mess that medical care has become at Washington D.C.’s Walter Reed hospital, the Department of the Army might…
Newsletter
The Competitive Enterprise Institute Daily Update
Issues in the News 1. HEALTH The Food and Drug Administration announces a plan to speed up access to…
Citation
Democrats Loosening their SOX?
Op-Eds
Schumer’s Way
Senator Schumer is on a roll. After coasting to an easy and well funded re-election in 2004, the senior senator from New York is…
Op-Eds
The war hero vs. the bureaucrats
Pity poor Eddie Rickenbacker. His life so closely resembled the clichéd “American Dream,” that you can't blame him for buying into American mythology.
Products
Let the Internet Grow Up
America has developed a proud paternal bond with the Internet. We’ve watched and cheered the Net’s growth from its awkward, text-heavy infancy into…
Products
Accountability, Power, and Our CAP Project
Violations of the Constitution come in all shapes and sizes. Many of you may be familiar with the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement (MSA), which CEI…
Products
CEI Planet: March – April 2006
Full Document Available in PDF New Era, or ‘Ancien Régime,’…
Newsletter
The Competitive Enterprise Institute Daily Update
Issues in the News 1. LEGAL State attorneys general ask the Supreme Court to step into a dispute over the states’ 1998…
Letters
70% of Americans Say They Don’t Want the Government to Prepare Taxes for Them
Full Document Available in PDF Reps. Melissa Hart and Anna Eshoo have introduced H.R. 5114, the Tax Return Choice Act of 2006,…
Newsletter
The Competitive Enterprise Institute Daily Update
Issues in the News 1. CONGRESS The Senate Finance Committee investigates tax documents from major oil companies. CEI Expert Available to…
Op-Eds
Ex-Im: Boeing’s Bank Once More
The Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im), a federal agency that subsidizes U.S. exports primarily through loan guarantees, dedicated a majority of its guarantee dollars again…
News Release
States Blow Tobacco Funds on Budget Smorgasbord
Contact: <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” /> Christine Hall, 202.331.2258 Jody Clarke, 202.331.2252 …
Study
Antitrust Skeptic’s Bibliography
For more than two decades, the willingness of policy makers to rethink the presumption that economic regulation automatically benefits consumers has driven the deregulation of…
Op-Eds
Congress’ Silk Purse
During the Capitol Hill budget debates, many spectators must have found the use of the term “earmarking” somewhat strange. What does it have…
Products
CEI Planet: January – February 2006
President Concedes Moral High Ground on Energy by Myron Ebell "America is addicted to oil." With these five words in…
Op-Eds
Careful What You Wish For
If you wanted to lower electric energy prices in the US, what would you do? If you answered, “Cripple the domestic railroad industry,” you'd…
Products
The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board
On February 9, the Competitive Enterprise Institute helped file a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), a federal agency…
Op-Eds
Speaking in Tongues
In Monty Python’s classic "Hungarian Phrasebook" sketch, a Hungarian tourist walks into a British tobacconist’s shop, and, consulting a faulty phrasebook, tells…
Newsletter
The Competitive Enterprise Institute Daily Update
Issues in the News 1. ENERGY Executives from major oil companies testify before Congress on industry profits. CEI Expert Available…
Newsletter
The Competitive Enterprise Institute Daily Update
Issues in the News 1. FINANCE The Securities and Exchange Commission may ease corporate accounting regulations on small public…
Op-Eds
Sarbanes-Oxley Accounting Board: An Agency Without Accountability
In 2001, the energy giant Enron unexpectedly filed for bankruptcy, laying off 4,000 of its employees and consuming the life savings of thousands more. In…
News Release
CEI Praises Nancy Pelosi, Others For Recognizing Sarbanes-Oxley’s Burden
<?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags” />Washington, D.C., March 8, 2005—The Competitive Enterprise Institute applauds the House Democrats’ Innovation Agenda…
Op-Eds
The Ideas Marketplace — Sans Market?
WASHINGTON—The Jack Abramoff scandal has many individual players, but it’s also added fuel to an older and broader theme—the quest to purge politics of money.
Newsletter
The Competitive Enterprise Institute Daily Update
Issues in the News 1. BUSINESS Civil rights leader Andrew Young joins the steering committee of the group Working Families for…
Newsletter
The Competitive Enterprise Institute Daily Update
Issues in the News 1. HEALTH The EPA tells people not to throw out their Teflon cookware CEI Expert Available to…
Newsletter
The Competitive Enterprise Institute Daily Update
Issues in the News 1. HURRICANE KATRINA The House of Representatives finds failures in the response to Hurricane Katrina at all levels…
Op-Eds
The top ten reasons to cut corporate welfare
<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” />The federal budget is too big. It's way too big. George W. Bush has called for total…
News Release
Free Enterprise Fund and Competitive Enterprise Institute to Announce Constitutional Legal Challenge to Sarbanes-Oxley
WHAT: Sarbanes-Oxley was rushed into law in 2002 with good intentions following unprecedented corporate scandals. Yet, elements of Sarbanes-Oxley now serve as classic examples…
News Release
Free Enterprise Fund and Competitive Enterprise Institute Launch Constitutional Legal Challenge to Sarbanes-Oxley Act
CONTACT: Christine Hall, 202-331-2258, [email protected] Washington, DC (February 8, 2006)—The Free Enterprise Fund and the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) on Tuesday launched a…
Op-Eds
Pot Calling Kettle Black?
<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” /> In senior editor Dave Astor's article on syndicated columnists and their sources of…
Op-Eds
Open Federalism
The businessman puts the cash in an envelope. He leaves it on the agreed upon restaurant table. Another man, a government bureaucrat, walks over…