The Competitive Enterprise Institute believes the proper role for government is to provide consumers with accurate, unbiased guidance that informs consumer choice. But, whether it is the substances we prefer, how we entertain ourselves, what dietary habits we maintain, or how we pursue personal health, consumers ought to have the right to make decisions for themselves.
Consumer Freedom Issue Areas
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![21 cents worth of stupid in the Department of Energy’s latest stove proposal](https://cei.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/GettyImages-1332985903-578x324-c-default.jpg)
Blog
21 cents worth of stupid in the Department of Energy’s latest stove proposal
The good news is that the Biden Department of Energy’s (DOE) latest proposed efficiency regulation for residential stoves is considerably less damaging to consumers…
![This week in ridiculous regulations: food hazards and powerline permits](https://cei.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Power-lines-578x324-c-default.jpg)
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This week in ridiculous regulations: food hazards and powerline permits
Donald Trump was convicted of 34 felonies in his hush money case. Apparently nothing else of note happened all week, since that was the only…
![California’s $20 fast food worker minimum wage a regressive tax](https://cei.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/GettyImages-688056784-scaled-578x324-c-default.jpg)
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California’s $20 fast food worker minimum wage a regressive tax
California’s new $20 an hour minimum wage for fast food restaurants has turned into a regressive tax on the state’s low-income residents. People who wanted…
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Obama One Year Later — A Legacy of Lies and Broken Promises
It’s been a year since the president was elected, and he’s already piled up an impressive list of lies and broken promises. The broken promises…
Blog
Swine flu “survivor” speaks out on media hysteria
From a letter to the editor of the Washington Post: It is ridiculous that The Post has dedicated so much of the A section…
Blog
Cap-and-Trade Global Warming Bill Is A Scam, Experts Reveal
Two EPA lawyers criticized the cap-and-trade energy bill passed by the House as a scam, noting in The Washington Post that it will be manipulated…
Blog
Flu Watch Oct. 31 – What swine flu ISN’T doing this week
It’s Halloween, and the monster at the door is swine flu. Or so we’re told. Yet again. And people respond accordingly. “I’ve never seen it…
Blog
NY Guv orders state of panic over swine flu
Emulating the Obama Administration, New York Gov. David Paterson has “declared a state of emergency, saying a recent rise in swine flu cases has created…
Orange County Register
Let the State Choose Your TV?
There are many things to consider when choosing a television to buy. Some consumers care about color contrast. Others want high resolution. And still others…
Blog
Why did Obama declared a swine flu “emergency” with no emergency?
As I note in my Investor’s Business Daily article, swine flu cases in the last seven months, according to the CDC, equal about four…
Blog
Obama Signs Hate-Crimes Bill Into Law; Critics Say It Circumvents Constitutional Safeguards Against Double Jeopardy
Today, President Obama signed into law a bill that will dramatically expand the federal hate crimes law, enabling prosecutors to bring federal charges against…
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Regulation of the Day 67: Oysters
A new FDA rule requires oysters harvested between April and October to be sterilized before they are eaten. An unintended consequence is that the state…
Blog
Reps. Maloney and Adler push true bipartisan stimulus — Sarbanes-Oxley relief
After months of talk about solutions that would rev up job growth and the economy, today the House Financial Service Committee may finally adopt a…
Blog
Regulation of the Day 66: Trick or Treating
Trick-or-treating is banned in Dunkard Township, PA. The government will hold a four-hour Halloween party to make up for it.
Blog
“Cities are probably the greenest thing that humans do.”
Environmental guru and author of the Whole Earth Catalog Stewart Brand has a new book out in which he argues that "My fellow environmentalists have…
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Obama Administration’s Pay Caps Reward Failure and Political Connections
The federal government has no problem paying exorbitant sums of money to people who head failed government agencies like Freddie Mac. Its CEO will receive…
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Nanny State: No End in Sight?
It’s not just bottled water. It’s not just soda taxes. It’s not just fast food. There seems to be a never-ending crusade by…
Blog
“Public Option” Is a Gimmick That Won’t Improve Healthcare
In the Washington Post, Robert J. Samuelson explains in the “Public Plan Mirage” how the so-called “public option” contained in congressional health-care reform bills…
Investor's Business Daily
The Administration’s Flu Fear-Mongering
‘In keeping with the administration’s proactive approach” to swine flu, the White House has announced that President Obama has declared the disease “a national emergency.”…
Blog
Obama’s swine flu “emergency” declaration
It’s a bunch of hog droppings. Watch for my upcoming article. In the meantime, read here on why we should not panic.
Blog
More Bad Mortgages on the Way, Thanks to Congressional Committee
Expect to see more bad mortgages as a result of a House committee’s vote Thursday to create the so-called “Consumer Financial Protection Agency.” That…
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Sweden’s CO2 Labeling: Deceptive Advertising?
A quick point to add to Fran Smith's post on Sweden's experiment in labeling food and menus with carbon footprints: don't read too much into…
Blog
Hate Crimes Bill Passes, Eroding Civil Liberties and Double Jeopardy Safeguards
Yesterday, Congress approved a measure to dramatically expand the existing federal hate crimes law, by adding it to an unrelated defense appropriations bill. The…
Blog
Widening a highway is both an environmental AND civil rights issue?
Was a time when “civil rights” meant things like equal opportunities in employment and schooling for racial and ethnic minorities. And “environmental” meant something affecting…
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Regulation of the Day 65: Weighing Animals
If you sell poultry or livestock, it’s a good idea to weigh them first. Makes it easier for buyer and seller to agree on a…
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Net Neutrality at 28 kilobits per second.
Why didn’t the Federal Communications Commission impose net neutrality a decade ago? We don’t need all this multimedia and advanced services. They finally caught…
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Regulation of the Day 64: Starting a Business in Sacramento, California
The human mind is capable of creating limitless, endless wealth. The human mind is nearly as adept at preventing that wealth from being created. Sacramento…
Blog
A Cure Worse than the Disease
As I explain in a new CEI paper, which is out today, most of the alleged cost-cutting measures in the Baucus bill merely shift costs…
Blog
Mortgage Meltdown Was Caused by Government Mandates
The mortgage meltdown was caused partly by the government, which created an artificial market for bad mortgages. The Washington Examiner cites a recent study…
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Fumento yells “Sooo-eeeee!” on Liddy
I bent G. Gordon Liddy’s ears back today on his radio show (easy to find them, given his lack of hair) on my current…
Blog
More Hypocrisy Regarding FTC Blog Regulations
Michael Masnick at Techdirt offers up another incidence of government inconsistency in light of the FTC’s blog-watching rules, reminding us that “…
Blog
Obama Accepts “Blasphemy” Exception to Free Speech
In USA Today, liberal law professor Jonathan Turley is criticizing the Obama administration for endorsing a “blasphemy” exception to free speech: “Around the…
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Banning Bake Sales
The American Enterprise Institute held a panel discussion yesterday on food safety. They discussed congressional proposals aimed at addressing contaminants in our food,…
Blog
Science and the Sustainable Intensification of Agriculture
The UK Royal Society's long-awaited study on improving agricultural productivity and increasing food security was released this morning. it suggests that a healthy concern for…
Blog
Health Insurer Competition and Democratic Saber Rattling
Last week, after the industry association America’s Health Insurance Plans released a study showing that premiums would rise 18 percent under the Senate Finance Committee’s…
Blog
Bill Gates Says Africa Needs GMOs
On Friday, Bill Gates announced at the World Food Summit in Des Moines that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation would be redoubling its efforts…
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Congress Moves to Reinflate the Housing Bubble That Caused the Financial Crisis
Veteran political commentator Michael Barone reports that liberal congressional leaders are pushing policies to “inflate the housing bubble again.”…
Blog
Regulation of the Day 62: Government Employees and Texting while Driving
Executive Order No. 13513 prohibits federal employees and contractors from texting while driving while on duty.
Blog
Weekly Flu Watch IV – What swine flu ISN’T doing
Total deaths since Aug. 30 from “Influenza and Pneumonia-Associated” illness are 2,029 reports the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Web site…
Blog
“The Pandemic Is Political,” my article in Forbes Online
As evidence continues to mount that swine flu is more of a piglet than a raging razorback, why isn’t curiosity mounting as to why the…
Investor's Business Daily
Obamacare May Be Unconstitutional
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Obama administration promotes junky, risky mortgages at taxpayer expense, ignoring history’s lessons
George Mason University Professor Ilya Somin explains how the Obama administration is expanding the awful policies that caused the mortgage crisis, like having taxpayers…
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Regulation Not Worth Its Salt
A recent study by University of California, Davis nutritionists concludes that it may not even be possible to reduce salt intake through regulation.
Blog
Robert Reich Gets It
Some of the consequences of increasing government’s role in health care are easy predict.
Blog
Congressional Conference Committee Attempts to Turn Hate Crimes Law Into a Speech Code
Hate crimes are irrational, and what sets them off is often unpredictable. The hate-criminal whose sentence was upheld in Wisconsin v. Mitchell by a…
Blog
Regulation of the Day 60: Hybrid Car Noise
One advantage of hybrid cars is that they are quiet. Too quiet, some would say. Blind pedestrians may not hear a hybrid coming around the…
Blog
Silencing Criticism through Libel Law
The physicist turned science journalist Simon Singh has been sued in a UK court and, this past summer, found liable for libel for an April…
Blog
Senate Finance Passes Health Reform Bill
Earlier today, Senator Olympia Snowe (R-Me.) announced that she would vote in favor of the health care reform bill authored by Senate Finance Committee Chairman…
Blog
No “Weekly Flu Watch” this week
See instead my article “Swine Flu: the Real Threat Is Panic,” from the New York Post .
Blog
How did the President’s Council swine flu scenario measure up?
Sorta depends on who you ask. The read about the flu in the mainstream media, you would think men are going through the streets with…
Blog
Regulation of the Day 58: Banning Children from Playgrounds
A new regulation in Kensington, Maryland bans children over five years old from using a local playground between 9:00 am and 4:00 pm.
Blog
New ObamaCare Version Claims Not to Increase Federal Deficit, But It Explodes State Deficits, and Relies on Mythical Savings and Unlikely Medicare Cuts
Democrats are cheering a Congressional Budget Office decision to “score” the Senate Finance Committee’s version of ObamaCare as not increasing the federal budget deficit. But…
Blog
CBO report: new taxes will balance Baucus health care bill
Those pushing the Senate health care bill were ecstatic when the Congressional Budget Office reported that the bill “would result in a net…
Blog
Supreme Court Confronts Free Speech, Animal Cruelty, Gun Rights, Violent Crime, and National Sovereignty Issues
The Supreme Court is back in session. Today, it is hearing a challenge to a federal law banning depictions of cruelty to animals…
Blog
Regulation of the Day 56: Kahlua in Ohio
Kahlua contains 20% alcohol in 49 states. But in Ohio, it is 21.5%. Weird, huh? Turns out regulations are the reason.
Blog
Swinenewsflash! 21,000 college students missing!
“Twenty-one thousand college students are sick,” begins a Fox online news report titled: “H1N1 Picks Up Steam One Week Before Vaccine Becomes Available.” Wow!…
Blog
Cutting Off Funds to ACORN Is Constitutional, and Would Protect Against Voter and Financial Fraud
Earlier, ACORN was caught in a scandal, promoting child prostitution. Both Houses of Congress voted to cut off federal funds to ACORN. Rep. Barney…
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Union Blocks Action Against Dangerous Bus Drivers at DC Metro; Obama Expands Union Power at Expense of Airline and Rail Security
Thanks to their union, bus drivers for Washington’s Metro system can be dangerously incompetent and still draw a government paycheck, avoiding discipline for repeated…
Investor's Business Daily
Letter: Treat Corporations Like People?
The Times’s argument that corporations should have “limited” free speech rights, “far less than those of people,” was ironic. If accepted, it would gut…
Blog
Weekly Flu Watch – What Swine Flu ISN’T Doing This Week
Every Friday the CDC website publishes a situation update on swine flu with figures updated through the previous week, though some of the data…
Investor's Business Daily
Meryl’s Mad Green Meanderings about Julia
In the new movie "Julie & Julia," Meryl Streep does well portraying the late Julia Child, but one can say Streep also benefits from…
Blog
Obama Slaps Unconstitutional Gag Order on Critic of His Health Care Plan
While Obama ally ACORN attempts to gag whistleblowers who exposed its role in a recent scandal, the Obama administration is trying to gag…
Blog
Obama Losing Youth on Health Care
The National Journal had an interesting article this week describing the difficulty Democrats have been having getting young adults interested in the health care debate.
Investor's Business Daily
Conservatives Raise Questions About OSHA Nominee
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Slate’s William Saletan vs. the Food Cops
Slate’s William Saletan has had it with the growing overreach of the food police, a reaction which he acknowledges puts him in unusual company.
Blog
Regulation of the Day 55: Home Environmental Inspections
If cap and trade passes, almost all homes for sale would be required to undergo an environmental inspection. The home cannot be sold until it…
Politico
Cap-and-Trade Will Depress Home Prices
Cap and trade is back in the news. By the end of this month, Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) is…
Blog
New Frontier? Hardly
Today in the Washington Examiner, James Jay Carafano of The Heritage Foundation makes a strange case for what he describes as the opening of…
Blog
Public Option Is Not The Worst Aspect Of ObamaCare
"If liberal health-care reform is going to make people better off, why does it require "a very harsh, stiff penalty" to make everyone buy it?…
Blog
NYT Love Letter to FDA
New York Times reporter Gardiner Harris has a front page article in today's paper on the head of the Food and Drug Administration's Office of…
Blog
Regulation of the Day 52: Bar Food
In Arlington County, Virginia, there exist twelve restaurants that are required to sell $350 of food per one gallon of liquor purchased from the Virginia…
Blog
Obama Wants to Extend PATRIOT Act
One may be a Republican and the other a Democrat, but make no mistake. Bush and Obama are two peas in a pod.
Blog
Obama Financial Regulations Make Things Worse, Promote Risky Loans, Destroy Banking and Lending Options
President Obama is now pushing financial regulations that reinforce the worst features of the status quo. They…
Blog
Obama scolds Wall Street, but targets Main Street with regs
One year after the Wall Street meltdown, President Obama…
Blog
Scientist Who Saved a Billion Lives Dies; Congress Blocks Reform of Law Based on Junk Science
Norman Borlaug, the scientist who saved a billion lives by fathering the Green Revolution, died Saturday at the age of 95. His work…
Blog
The Man Who Fed the World
Norman Borlaug was an American agricultural scientist and plant breeder whose work sparked what is now known as the Green Revolution. He was recognized with…
Blog
Obama Administration Undermines Airline Security and Railroad Safety: 9/11 Lessons Ignored
In the aftermath of 9/11, Congress foolishly shifted airline security screening to the inept Transportation Security Administration (TSA), which has failed to detect explosive ingredients…
Politico
9/11 Ignored-Obama Undermines Airline and Train Security
In the aftermath of 9/11, Congress foolishly shifted airline security screening to the inept Transportation Security Administration (TSA), which has failed to detect explosive…
Blog
Prohibition’s Hangover Still with Us
Interesting lectures are a great thing. Good cocktails are a very good thing. But when the two are combined into a single presentation, the effect…
Blog
Inept Liberal Lobbyists Refute Their Own Claims: the bungling Center for American Progress
Many falsehoods were uttered by the President in his health care speech, as even liberal newspapers and Obama advisers have made clear.
Blog
To Heckle the President, or Not?
Politicians make themselves look bad far more effectively than any heckler could. They don’t need the help.
Blog
Regulation of the Day 49: Political Speech
If Congress can’t pass laws abridging the freedom of speech or of the press, maybe they can pass laws abridging the freedom of speech and…
Blog
The New Organic and Out-of-the-Box Thinking
Congratulations to Pamela Ronald, a UC Davis plant pathology professor, on winning one of this year's Science in Society Journalism Awards, sponsored by the National…
Blog
Regulation of the Day 48: Barbers in Nevada
Want to be a barber in Nevada? You’ll need to get a license first. One of the requirements is a chest X-ray, of all things.
Blog
Regulation of the Day 47: Irish Potatoes
It is bad policy to keep perfectly good food off the market because of its shape, especially during times of recession and high food prices.
Blog
‘The Times’ it is a changing
On Saturday, The Times of London published a news article under the headline "Organic food is a waste of money". The hard-0copy print edition of…
Politico
‘Racist, Communist’ Green Jobs Czar Van Jones Resigns
Obama’s racist, communist, America-bashing Green Jobs Czar, Van Jones, has resigned after revelations that he was a 9/11 “Truther,” who believed that George Bush…
Blog
Meryl trash talks Julia on pesticides and fat
In the new movie “Julie & Julia,” Meryl Streep does well portraying the late Julia Child, but one can say Streep also benefits from her subject. …
Blog
Regulation of the Day 45: Wooden Crates
Even the humble wooden crate cannot escape the government’ watchful regulatory eye.
Newsletter
EPA’s Illegal Rule, Junk Food Lawsuits and Hurricane Preparedness
The Environmental Protection Agency moves to limit greenhouse gas restrictions to only large industrial sources. Anti-obesity campaigners agitate for taxes and legal restrictions on foods…
News Release
Dim Bulb, EU gives $7500 fines for light bulb smuggling
Draconian Measures for European Bulb Ban Washington, DC, September 2, 2009- The European Union has made 100-watt incandescent light bulbs illegal,…
Blog
Will Support for Cap-and-Trade Energy Tax Melt Away? It’s Costly and Won’t Help the Environment
In the name of cutting greenhouse gases, the House passed a cap-and-trade carbon tax scheme backed by the Obama Administration in June. But the bill…
Politico
Government as Patron or Regulator in the Student Speech Cases
News Release
Consumer Reports Becomes National Snitch
CONSUMER REPORTS BECOMES NATIONAL SNITCH Turns High-Performing Showerhead Over to EPA for Exceeding Water-Flow Limit Washington, DC, August 31, 2009 – CEI today…
Blog
CEI Weekly: EPA Ponders Axing Whistleblower’s Department
CEI Weekly is a compilation of articles and blogs from CEI's staff. This week’s focus is on reports from InsideEPA.com that the EPA might axe…
Newsletter
The Health Care Mob, Visas for Honduras and Betting on the NFL
Protests against Democrat-sponsored health care legislation leads to charges of a “mob mentality.” The State Department stops issuing travel visas to residents of Honduras as…
News Release
Breaking News: Bill to Give Obama ‘Cybersecurity Emergency’ Powers
Breaking News: Bill to Give Obama ‘Cybersecurity Emergency’ Powers Experts Warned Against Dangers of Gov’t Control of Private Networks Washington, D.C., August 28,…
Blog
Regulation of the Day 41: The Color of Beer Cans
Having already solved all of the country's economics woes, the FTC now has time to threaten to step in and stop Budweiser from selling cans…
Club For Growth
Checked Baggage Regulations
Blog
Nanotech: Innovation or Stagnation?
In the long run, a competitive, cut-throat market process driven by innovation is better for consumers than if government were to fund and direct research.
Blog
Ted Kennedy’s Deregulatory Legacy on Airlines and Trucking
Tributes are pouring in for Edward M. "Ted" Kennedy, who lost his battle with brain cancer late Tuesday evening at the age of 77.
Blog
CEI’s RRM Suggests Additional Questions for Florida Insurance Commissioner
Yesterday in a press release from CEI's Center for Risk, Regulation, and Markets, the Center raised many questions that should be brought to Florida Insurance…
USA Today
NFL Should Stop Cracking Down on Sports Betting
The constitutionally questionable ban on sports gambling that Congress imposed in all but four states — Delaware, Nevada, Montana and Oregon — should be repealed.