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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CEI seeks to protect the right to vote in Wisconsin
CEI filed a Motion for Preliminary Injunction asking a federal court to protect Wisconsinites’ right to vote ahead of the general election on November…
Iowa PBS
USMCA Renewal: Think Tank Urges Changes to North American Trade Deal
CEI Senior Economist Ryan Young was interviewed by Iowa PBS on USMCA recommendations. Ryan Young/Senior Economist, Competitive Enterprise Institute: “Trade policy…
Study
Toward a Renewed and Improved USMCA
Cross-border trade in North America has been an engine of prosperity for the United States, Mexico, and Canada. But the agreement governing…
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Blog
Some things are supposed to be private….
Anti-biotechnology activists managed to leverage sunshine laws in Europe to get the EU government to release research information that was supposed to be confidential.
Op-Eds
No Dice
Anybody who has spent time in Washington knows that Congress often passes bad laws. But even the most widely derided laws — think…
Citation
5 Absurd Product Bans
Citation
Dumb Product Bans
Op-Eds
Sexual Harassment: A Strange, Vague ‘Tort’
On Wednesday, I discussed how the courts can be downright hostile to employers in sexual harassment cases, playing a game of bait-and-switch regarding whether…
Op-Eds
Sexual Harassment Bait and Switch
In sexual harassment cases, many courts play a game of bait and switch with employers. When they want to hold the employer liable, they…
Op-Eds
Prejudice and Double Standards in Sexual Harassment Cases
Earlier, I discussed how judges in the New York area, such as the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, enforce discriminatory double standards in sexual…
Study
The Five Dumbest Product Bans
This paper focuses on five clearly absurd product bans that seem to serve no social good.
Op-Eds
Double Standards at Duke—and in the Courts
Recently, Stuart Taylor wrote about sexual double standards at Duke University. Duke paid $3,500 to finance a performance by strippers and prostitutes…
Blog
Eco-Terrorism leading Britain to decrease transparency
Repeated sabotage attacks by eco-terrorists in Britain have ruined several years’ worth of field trials of plants bred with molecular plant breeding methods. Now the…
Products
CEI Planet: January – February 2008
View the new Montly Planet by downloading the PDF of the issue. Below you’ll find previews of the articles in this issue: Free Trade…
Blog
I can see restaurants doing BMI measures at the door
Mississippi State Representative Ted Mayhall (R-DeSoto) hopes to fuel a debate about obesity by proposing a bill that prohibits restaurants to serve obese people.
Op-Eds
Hillary’s (Video) Gamesmanship
Hillary Clinton's "It Takes a Village" approach means the Village, i.e. the government, ordering parents how to raise their kids through government mandates and regulation.
Blog
Big Mickey is Watching
In today’s DC Examiner, columnist Melanie Scarborough discusses the implications of a disturbing exchange she witnessed recently. While shopping the other day, I was…
Blog
Tate Modern museum — where’s the “precautionary principle”?
Read an article about precaution and risk — in the Arts section of The New York Times today. Seems that the Tate…
Study
Politically Determined Entertainment Ratings and How to Avoid Them
Full Document Available in PDF When they…
Blog
Celebrate the Repeal of Prohibition, YouTube Style
Raise a glass to 21st Amendment!…
Blog
ENDA vs. Free Speech
Earlier, I discussed ENDA, a bill passed by the House of Representatives that would ban most employers from engaging in sexual orientation discrimination. While…
News Release
Smoking Prevention Bill May Backfire
Contact: Jody Clarke, 202.331.2252 Washington, DC, October 2, 2007—As the House Committee on Energy and Commerce prepares to hold a hearing tomorrow…
Letters
Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act
Full Document Available in PDFs Dear Representative: We are writing to express our concerns…
Blog
The chickens come home to roost . . .
The corn-ethanol boom is continuing to spike up costs for food producers. Tyson, the beef and poultry titan, announced yesterday that its costs were up…
Blog
Alarming Waste
Today’s Washington Post includes a story on bisphenol A, a chemical that has been used to make flexible, clear plastic products–including baby bottles–since the…
Blog
Jenkins in the WSJ on the subprime shambles
Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.’s piece in the Wall Street Journal today (“Payback,” subscription required) is a thoughtful and cogent assessment of some aspects of…
Blog
No such thing as a victimless ban
UK Telegraph columnist A.N. Wilson weighs in on a little-noticed pernicious effect of nanny statism. What do the following have in common:…
Blog
Chesapeake Bay Foundation — more corn acreage, more pollution
Growing more corn for ethanol in the mid-Atlantic region will mean increased pollution in rivers, streams and the Chesapeake Bay, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation…
Blog
FDA Tobacco Regulation Bill: A Trojan Horse?
PR Watch has an interesting story on the cynical baptist-bootlegger alliance behind the bill to give the FDA oversight over the tobacco industry, which…
Blog
DDT Deniers Deny Science
DDT-deniers—those who would rather let people die that allow DDT use to fight malaria-carrying mosquitoes—have been critiquing our blog posts on the topic…
Blog
The Uncreative Indestructibility of Modern Farming
Over at the Mises Institute’s website, Dan McLaughlin highlights a little-discussed pernicious effect of U.S. farm policy: the short-circuiting of the market’s creative destruction.
Blog
DDT Saves Africans from Malaria
Donald Roberts has an interesting Op-Ed in the New York Times about the crucial role of DDT in preventing the spread of malaria in…
Blog
Drug lag — precaution or pipelines?
According to a CNN Money article, a report released yesterday shows that the FDA has been cracking down on new drug approvals. Pharmaceutical companies…
Blog
Foreign Aid Kills
Foreign food aid often causes, rather than alleviates, hunger, by destroying the basis of the farm economy in the country that receives the aid, as…
Blog
Getting the Word Out
Good news: Today’s Wall Street Journal highlights the recent study on DDT benefits in repelling mosquitoes and battling resistance issues. This study was highlighted…
Blog
Bad Information = Dangerous Consequences
Anti-DDT activists might read this with glee: Misinformation about DDT risks is undermining its use in Kampala, Uganda. A Ugandan news website reports that…
Blog
New Offense: Walking While Ripped
Nanny says eat healthily, exercise, and grow up big and strong. The Nanny State says don’t look too well-developed or we’ll arrest you. Seriously. It…
Blog
How Dare You Help Out!
The BBC reports that an old woman has “has been told she must stop tending a public flower bed unless she agrees to wear…
Blog
Another case of plastiphobia?
Typical of Reuters' science articles, there's a scare element in an article today titled “Panel worried about baby bottle chemical.” The article was referring…
Blog
No Excuse for Resistance to DDT
Anti-DDT activists in the environmental movement often suggest we should stop using this chemical to save people from malaria and other diseases because mosquitoes will…
Blog
America’s Black Market in Raw Milk
Criminals continue to peddle their illegal wares in America, as heroic law enforcement officers seek to stamp out a dangerous black market. No, the product…
Blog
More on Bad Court Ruling Against Terminally Ill
“Terminally ill patients do not have a constitutional right to be treated with experimental drugs, even if they likely will be dead before the medicine…
Blog
Credit for Codex decision?
In your post commenting on the rejection by Codex of the use of the Precautionary Principle, I’d like to point out that giving the…
Blog
UN Group Rejects Precautionary Principle
The Codex Alimentarius Commission, a joint UN Food and Agricultural Organization-World Health Organization food safety standard-setting body, has apparently agreed to exclude the…
Blog
A Bridge Collapse Too Far
A lot of theories are being floated for what exactly caused the collapse of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis. The real answer, of course,…
Blog
Court Rejects Terminally Ill Patients’ Chance to Live, Upholds FDA Red Tape
The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled 8-to-2 in Abigail Alliance v. Von Eschenbach that terminally ill people cannot challenge the FDA's ban…
Blog
Hatefull to the Nose, Harmefull to the Braine, Dangerous to the Lungs
If you’re looking for early health warnings about tobacco, Richard, you can go a lot further. The title of this post was the judgment of…
Blog
FDA Tobacco Regulation Assailed
In the New York Times, Patrick Basham explains why the bill to give the Food and Drug Administration the duty to regulate tobacco is…
Blog
Goofy’s Coffin Nails
When it comes to the politics of tobacco regulation, one of the most important dates is January 11, 1964, when then-Surgeon General Luther L. Terry…
Blog
Bridge Collapse Falsely Blamed on Low Taxes by Europeans
A Dutch friend of a CEI staffer passed on the fact that some Dutch and German newspapers today are filled with hateful comments online about…
Blog
FDA Tobacco Regulation Clears Senate Committee
A Senate committee has just voted 13-to-8 in favor of the bill to give the FDA jurisdiction over tobacco products and the tobacco industry.
Blog
Nanny State In Montgomery County
Montgomery County, Maryland, is considering a law that would require food chains to post nutritional information about their food. In terms of its intrusion…
Blog
Drug Price Ceilings Overturned
An appeals court ruling today struck down Washington, D.C.’s price ceilings for prescription drugs. In Biotechnology Industry Organization v. District of Columbia, the Court…
