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
45Q tax credit could help kill off power plants and reliable electricity
The 45Q tax credit serves as an incentive for power plants and industrial facilities to invest in carbon capture and sequestration/storage.The Inflation Reduction Act…
Fox News
Trump’s Energy Department is taking back our home appliances from berserk bureaucrats
In quite possibly the sharpest regulatory U-turn thus far in 2025, the Trump Department of Energy (DOE) is proposing to roll back home appliance regulations…
Blog
CEI’s The Surge: Clean Power Plan repeal, CRA resolutions 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…
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
Trump, Congress overturn California’s gas-car ban
President Trump today signed three Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolutions of disapproval to overturn Biden administration Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) waivers greenlighting California’s plans…
UN report says tree planting can result in more greenhouse gas emissions
It is common knowledge that trees act as carbon sinks. Through the process of photosynthesis, trees take in carbon dioxide and release oxygen that we…
New nuclear executive orders come at a time when power demand is rising
On Friday, May 23, President Trump signed four executive orders related to nuclear power. These lay the groundwork for reforming nuclear regulation and enabling nuclear power…
News
EPA’s decision to allow California to ban new gas-powered cars by 2035 reversed after President Trump signs CRA resolution
California’s green light from the Environmental Protection Agency to ban new gas-powered cars by 2035 was revoked after Congress passed a Congressional Review Act (CRA)…
CEI praises EPA Administrator for proposing the repeal of greenhouse gas rule and to amend mercury rule
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin today announced the forthcoming proposed repeal of the Biden era Clean Power Plan 2.0 rule regulating greenhouse gas emissions…
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…
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