The Competitive Enterprise Institute advocates for free market reforms that ensure abundant and affordable energy and better protect our environment. CEI has been instrumental in fighting decades of climate alarmism and anti-energy policies that constrict energy supplies, raise prices, and stoke unjustified pessimism about human adaptive capabilities.
Conclusions of CEI’s research and analysis include: Abundant, affordable energy is a blessing underpinning the unprecedented improvements of the past two centuries in life expectancy, health, standards of living, food and nutrition, and industrial production. The climate catastrophe narrative is based on global climate models that inflate greenhouse gas emission scenarios and have been falsified by the past four decades of temperature data. The real costs of proposed solutions to the alleged crisis hugely exceed their hypothetical benefits.
Coalitions led by CEI were instrumental in defeating ratification of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, defeating enactment of the 2009 Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill, and convincing President Trump to withdraw from the 2015 Paris climate treaty.
Energy and Environment Issue Areas
Featured Posts
Blog
When solar tax incentives overheated, the residential solar market became scorched
Residential solar has long been sold as a win-win for consumers and the environment. It was marketed as an affordable way for homeowners to reduce…
Blog
DOJ files suit to end California’s unlawful climate and auto power grab
The Trump administration’s rollback of Obama and Biden administration climate policies keeps rolling along. The latest initiative is a lawsuit filed by the Department…
Real Clear Energy
Quibbling Over Carbon Metrics: Senator Cramer’s Ill-Advised, Unauthorized Carbon Tax Trojan Horse
The U.S. may stumble into a carbon taxed future due to a provision furtively inserted into the House committee report accompanying the energy and water…
Studies
Free the Appliances!
Introduction The Department of Energy’s (DOE) appliance efficiency standards program has been in place for decades, subjecting nearly every major home appliance to multiple rounds…
Laboratories of Bureaucracy
Introduction The United States faces significant challenges in modernizing its infrastructure and meeting evolving energy needs. One of the obstacles is the complex and time-consuming…
End IRA Subsidies Now
Introduction “The first lesson of economics is scarcity,” wrote economist Thomas Sowell. By contrast, “The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson…
Blog
CEI’s The Surge: EU forest regulation, power scarcity, and more
If you are interested in analysis and perspective on current energy and environmental issues, then we encourage you to subscribe to this new publication and…
How CEI helped advance sound energy and environmental policy in 2025
When I started at CEI in December 2024, the energy and environment team already had its foot on the gas pedal. As the new administration…
Executive order embraces limited government approach to housing affordability
A March 13 Trump executive order, “Removing Regulatory Barriers to Affordable Home Construction,” offers a number of good ideas for addressing high housing costs.
News
Pacific Legal Foundation
Energy producers join lawsuit supporting repeal of EPA’s 2009 greenhouse gas rule
Washington, DC; March 19, 2026: A group of energy producers filed a motion today to join a lawsuit to support the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision to repeal its 2009 Greenhouse Gas…
Environmental problems deserve free market solutions: Our Words
Today, the Competitive Enterprise Institute is pleased to publish CEI President Kent Lassman’s lecture entitled The Environment, the Law, Markets, and the Path…
Trump EPA revokes endangerment finding, big win for the American people: CEI analysis
On Thursday, the White House and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the revocation of the 2009 endangerment finding regarding greenhouse gas emissions from new…
Op-Eds
The Daily Signal
A Sneaky Effort to Undermine the Fight Against Carbon Taxes
President Donald Trump has shown bold leadership by rejecting the radical global climate agenda. But now some lawmakers, including a handful of Republicans, have set…
Human Progress
Olive Oil Prices Are Falling—So Should Olive Oil Climate Hysteria
Summary: Olive oil prices spiked in 2023 amid heat and drought in Spain, prompting widespread claims that climate change was driving the industry into crisis.
Fox News
Trump successfully turns off crazy Biden era regulations on your home appliances
President Donald Trump has sharply diverged from his predecessor on nearly every issue, perhaps most of all concerning federal home appliance regulations. The Biden administration…
Staff & Scholars
Daren Bakst
Director of the Center for Energy and Environment and Senior Fellow
- Energy and Environment
- Lands and Wildlife
- Property Rights
Ben Lieberman
Senior Fellow
- Climate
- Consumer Freedom
- Energy
Marlo Lewis, Jr.
Senior Fellow
- Climate
- Energy
- Energy and Environment
Myron Ebell
Senior Fellow
- Climate
- Energy
- Energy and Environment
Paige Lambermont
Research Fellow
- Capitalism and Free Enterprise
- Energy
- Energy and Environment