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

News Release
Senate votes to rescind the Biden EPA’s California waiver on gas-powered cars
Today, the Senate voted to rescind the Biden EPA’s waiver allowing California to ban the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035. This follows a…

Blog
Free the Economy podcast: Next steps for nuclear with Deric Tilson
In this week’s episode we cover Jamie Dimon on tariff jitters, the Tax Foundation on the One Big Beautiful Bill, Jesse Walker…

News Release
CEI leads coalition backing Senate votes to rescind waivers allowing California to reshape car, truck industry
The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) today sent a letter to the Senate signed by a coalition of over 50 free market and conservative policy…
Studies
Pumping the Brakes on Reform
This report examines Michigan’s recent permitting reforms, highlighting how some productive efforts to enhance accountability and efficiency have largely stalled. While the state took steps…
Powering Intelligence: Meeting AI’s Energy Needs in a Changing Electricity Landscape
Introduction The electric grid is one of the most critical pieces of infrastructure underpinning modern life, yet it faces growing threats from increased demand, regulatory…
Modernizing the EPA: A Blueprint for Congress
Forward Kent Lassman, President of the Competitive Enterprise Institute President Richard Nixon established the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) through the Reorganization Plan No. 3 of…
Blog
CEI’s The Surge: CRA resolutions, IRA reform, 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…
CEI sends letter to Senate regarding California waiver CRA resolutions
The US Senate has a unique opportunity to overturn what may well be the most egregious case of unlawful bureaucratic overreach of the past 50…
Why IRA energy subsidies should be dismantled: A guide
This article is intended to be a useful resource about the Inflation Reduction Act’s (IRA) energy subsidies and is broken into three sections: The first…
News
DOE adopts CEI view on appliance water and energy limits
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) released new rules on appliance energy and water limits Friday that agreed with the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s (CEI)…
Trump executive order restores consumer choice for home appliances
In 2018, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) petitioned the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to adopt regulations allowing dishwashers that complete a full cycle…
House moves to stop California ban on gas-powered cars: CEI statement
The House today overwhelmingly passed a resolution rejecting a Biden-era EPA waiver allowing California to ban the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035. By…
Op-Eds
DC Journal
EPA Should Consider the Harm of Regulating Greenhouse Gases
Even for the least essential choices we make in our daily lives, such as what we should have for dinner, we consider the pros and…
Wall Street Journal
Zero Is the Magic Number for Cutting Red Tape
One of President Trump’s executive orders could transform how the federal government reviews and manages energy regulations that rule and constrain our lives.
Fox News
Biden’s leftover regulations will decide your next light bulb unless Trump stops them
Americans have shown a real dislike for the wave of federal regulations targeting home appliances. Even more infuriating is the fact that our…
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