Since our founding in 1984, the Competitive Enterprise Institute has sought to reform and reduce environmental regulation of land, shrink the federal estate, and unlock federal lands for private ownership.
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Congress should codify the National Listing Workplan
In the 15 years after the Endangered Species Act (ESA) was passed in 1973, it was repeatedly amended. Congress passed major amendments that updated…
News Release
Pumping the brakes on permitting reform in Michigan: CEI report
Today, the Competitive Enterprise Institute released a new report on Michigan’s recent history of environmental permitting policies. “Michigan has undergone several attempts in recent…
Study
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…
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Trump Issues Executive Order on ‘America-First Offshore Energy Strategy’
President Trump issued an executive order on Friday directing the Departments of Interior and Commerce to “encourage energy innovation, exploration, and production” in U.S. offshore areas including…
Blog
An Overdue Review of the Antiquated Antiquities Act
Kudos to President Trump for signing the Antiquities Act executive order today directing Interior Secretary Zinke to undertake the long overdue review of the misuses and…
News Release
CEI Applauds Trump Executive Order To Counter Massive Land Grabs
President Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday directing Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to review the designation of dozens of national monuments on federal lands. The…
Blog
Free the Fishermen: Cause of Action Defends Small Business at Sea
Cause of Action is defending New Hampshire fisherman David Goethel, and others like him, from extraordinarily expensive government regulations.
Blog
Struggling Fishermen Sue over Cost of Harvest Monitoring
It can be difficult to make one’s living off of the land – or the sea – these days. Federal and state regulations on natural resource…
Blog
Endangered Species Bee Listing Could Harm Bees, Butterflies, other Pollinators
In the interest of both pollinators and landowners, the incoming Trump Administration needs to advocate and pass serious reforms to the Endangered Species Act.
Blog
Obama’s National Monument Designation: Second-Term Environmental Policymaking at Its Worst
It is outrageous that President Obama, on the way out the door, would try to irrevocably federalize 1.3 million acres in the state, in spite…
Blog
Property Rights Are the Key to Protecting Land
We often hear that only government can protect the environment through outright land ownership or heavy regulatory control of private land.
Blog
Can Trump (or Congress) Rescind Obama’s Arctic Drilling Ban?
President Obama yesterday designated “the vast majority of U.S. waters in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas as indefinitely off limits to offshore oil and gas…
Washington Post
Feds not Needed
Blog
Free Market Opportunities for the Trump Administration
This election has given us one more demonstration that knowledge is dispersed and “trusting the experts” to know the future is foolish. The unexpected success…
Blog
The Real Victim in the Dakota Access Pipeline Controversy Is the Company behind the Project
The real victims in the controversy over the Dakota Access Pipeline is Dakota Access Services, the company behind the 3.7 billion project that would move…
Blog
Celebrate World Conservation Day with Real Solutions
Today is World Nature Conservation Day, which brings to mind last Wednesday’s episode of The Diane Rehm Show in which guest host Frank Sesno presented…
Huffington Post
Don’t Give up on the Monarch Butterfly!
Last winter, monarch butterfly numbers soared, increasing by more than one-third in their overwintering habitat. Yet we are well into July, and while my…
Blog
Opportunities for the Environmental Entrepreneur
I had the honor to chair a panel and speak at the 10th ICREI conference in France on environmental issues last week. This year’s conference…
Blog
Unions and Environmentalists Oppose Plan to Address California’s Rising Housing Costs
Everyone’s for affordable housing—except, it seems, some unions and environmentalists. On May 18, a coalition of unions and environmental advocacy groups—including the State Building &…
Blog
Burning Ivory Is Not the Solution
A few days ago, Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta set fire to giant pile after giant pile of elephant ivory confiscated from poachers. Some 105…
Palmetto Business Daily
Land use expert warns of property rights infringement by “unelected bureaucrats” on the Charleston BAR
The Palmetto Business Daily discusses property rights infringement by the Charleston Board of Architectural Review with Marc Scribner. “The unelected bureaucrats on the…
Blog
Regulation Poses Biggest Threat to Monarch Butterflies
Like many nature lovers and gardeners, last year I launched a milkweed garden for monarch butterflies, starting from seed. After a long summer of manually picking pesky…
Blog
War on Logging Claims another Casualty
Sierra Pacific Industries is permanently closing its Arcata, California, sawmill, a third-generation family-owned forest products company and one of largest landowners…
Blog
How Markets Benefit Honeybees and Mankind
After more than a decade of panicked reports about honeybees disappearing and potentially going extinct because of a phenomenon called “colony collapse disorder,” The…
Blog
How to Improve the Energy and Water Development Appropriations Bill
The Energy and Water Development Appropriations bill for FY 2016 passed by the House Appropriations Committee spends too much, but does move some funding from…
Blog
A Voluntary Approach to Helping the Honeybee
Today, the Competitive Enterprise Institute published my paper on the honeybee health issue and pesticide use. We have had several media outlets ask, why…
Forbes
Enhancing The Private Role For ‘Public Goods’
John Kenneth Galbraith once observed that in America our gardens are beautiful, while our public parks are in a state of disaster. While Galbraith saw…
News Release
Lame Duck Land Grab Wedged Into Defense Authorization Bill
WASHINGTON, Dec. 3 – Last night, House and Senate lawmakers added a federal lands package to the National Defense Authorization Act (S. 2410, H. R. 4435)…
Blog
Green Exploitation of the Monarch Butterfly
Butterflies offer powerful imagery for environmental groups looking to advance their agendas. After all, who doesn’t want to save these beautiful creatures? Surely green activists…
Blog
Honeybee Population in Decline—Or Not?
If you read the news about honeybee survival, it’s all very confusing. Some sources sound the alarm by pointing out that the number of honeybee…
Blog
House Brings Transparency to Endangered Species Act, Still Needs to Protect Property Rights
Today the House passed H.R. 4315, the 21st Century Endangered Species Transparency Act. Unfortunately, it likely has no chance of passing in the Senate and word is…
The Hill
“Tampering” With Nature To Save Honeybees
Environmental groups are calling for an immediate suspension of an entire class of pesticides in order to save ailing honeybee populations—and they won’t wait for…
Forbes
Lumber Union Protectionists Incited SWAT Raid On My Factory, Says Gibson Guitar CEO
“Henry. A SWAT team from Homeland Security just raided our factory!” “What? This must be a joke.” “No this is really serious. We got guys…
Blog
CEI Sues National Park Service and Interior Department under FOIA over Government Shutdown Documents
Last night, CEI filed suit against the United States Department of the Interior and the National Park Service for failing to produce documents in…
Blog
Supreme Court Overwhelmingly Votes to Uphold Rights of Private Property Owners
The Supreme Court has decided an important property rights case in favor of the private property owners and against the claim of the federal government…
Blog
Good News to Share Over the Holidays: The World Is Getting Better
In the middle of this holiday season my colleague Stephanie Rugolo over at the Cato’s new project, HumanProgress.org, is spreading cheer by getting…
Forbes
Cuts can be made, but politicians have to want to make them
The program costs $9 billion annually and really should be eliminated since crop insurance is commercially available. According to the Competitive Enterprise Institute, even a…
National Review
Grilling the Park Service Bullies
The Park Service closed the City Tavern in Philadelphia, a meeting place for those who signed the Declaration of Independence, even though the tavern, at…
Blog
Are California Droughts Natural or Man Made?
A ongoing battle in court and public opinion rages in California over the environmental status of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta (both rivers meet, and…
Blog
Some Genuine Vindictiveness in Park Closings
The Washington Times story on the attempted forced shut down of the Pisgah Inn on the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina may provide some…
Blog
How to Have Enough Water for Everybody
Last week I testified in the Water and Power Subcommittee in the House of Representatives (hearing linked…
News Release
Land Use Policies of Interior Nominee Are a Concern
WASHINGTON, D.C., Feb. 7, 2013 – Yesterday, President Obama nominated Sally Jewell, CEO of REI, the outdoor and camping gear retailer, to be Secretary…
Blog
Virginia’s Uranium Mining Moratorium Should Be Buried, But What About Property Rights?
The earth below the United States contains 5 percent of the world’s known recoverable uranium deposits. More than a quarter of U.S. uranium is…
News Release
CEI Calls on EPA to Turn Over Bristol Bay Documents to Congress
Washington, D.C., January 10, 2013 – The Competitive Enterprise Institute today called on the Environmental Protection Agency to stop stonewalling repeated requests over many months…
Blog
LOST Washing Up To Our Shores Once Again
The United National Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) celebrated its 30th anniversary this year. Simultaneously, there has been a push for…
Blog
If Demography Is Destiny, We’re Screwed (So To Speak)
"Things will get better." Such sentiments frequently fall from the lips of ever-loving economic optimists who -- while noting the current distressed condition of things…
Blog
Decoding The Malthusian Fallacy
The writings of Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834) inspired Victorian historian Thomas Carlyle to condemn economics as "the dismal science." Witnessing the deplorable crowding,…
National Review
Red state farmers, conservatives clash over farm bill
From Tom Lutely’s article in The Billings Gazette: Conservative groups like Americans for Prosperity, Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform and the Competitive…
Products
Farm Bill Will Not Solve Drought
Dear Speaker Boehner, We write…
Study
Assessing the Empirical Basis of the “Biodiversity Crisis”
Full Document Available in PDF EXECUTIVE SUMMARY For several years now, the World Wildlife Fund and other wildlife interest groups have been…
Blog
Remembering Elinor Ostrom
Among the individuals with whom I wish I could have greater opportunities to exchange ideas is Elinor Ostrom. She passed away today, and now I…
Blog
Give a Man a Fish
Those with an interest in conserving our oceans’ fish stocks and those with an interest in promoting private property should both be interested in my…
Study
Give a Man a Fish
Attempts to prevent overfishing by promulgating regulations (which are often at odds with subsidies) have proved both ineffective and impossible to enforce. Ending subsidies and…
