CEI’s Center for Technology and Innovation strives to keep the regulatory state from encroaching upon frontier industries and ensure that 21st century technologies are not shackled by 20th century regulations. We advance market discipline as superior to regulatory intervention; we legitimize market processes and forestall governmental restrictions on wealth creation. Our overarching goal is to persuade the public and policy makers that innovation tends to make the world safer, healthier, and happier, and that government regulation and intervention tend to do the opposite. Despite spending growth and entitlement paralysis, when we ignore regulation, we ignore the bulk of the government’s ability to interfere with and hamper free enterprise. Therefore, we seek to extend the institutions of liberty, such as property rights and contract, without which free markets cannot function effectively.
Innovation Issue Areas
Featured Posts

Blog
The unfinished state AI regulation debate
Following internal party negotiations, the Senate declined to include a multiyear moratorium on state artificial intelligence (AI) regulation in President Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill.”…

Blog
Free the Economy podcast: AI frontiers with Corbin Barthold
This week’s episode features Corbin Barthold, Internet Policy Counsel at TechFreedom and host of the Tech Policy Podcast. This is a…

DC Journal
What the Media Gets Wrong About Medicaid ‘Cuts’
Headlines assert that the reforms Republicans recently passed amount to a trillion-dollar cut to Medicaid. The New York Times calls this the most significant cut to federal…
Studies
No Permission Needed
Robust, resilient, and high-capacity internet service is critical to America’s economic prosperity and success. A key part of internet service is Wi-Fi, which provides Americans…
Evaluating Telehealth
Executive Summary Why Did We Write This Report Telehealth—the use of remote audio and/or video technologies to provide health care services—has been promoted as…
The Innovation Imperative
The Competitive Enterprise Institute recently celebrated its 40th anniversary in Edinburgh, Scotland. Edinburgh was chosen because the city was celebrating the 300th anniversary of the…
Blog
Lawmakers continue to embrace incoherent tech policy
As Congress continues its march to “rein in Big Tech,” some lawmakers seem unaware of how their stated goals conflict with each other. Members want…
Free the Economy podcast: Alcohol labels and warnings with David Clement
In this week’s episode we cover housing abundance in California, the meaning of a market economy, union privileges for government workers,…
FDA can’t stomach fluoride and doesn’t want you to, either
On May 13, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that it would begin a process intended to exclude ingestible prescription fluoride products for…
News
Senate Big Beautiful Bill Contains Needed Medicaid Reforms
The Senate today voted 51 to 50 to pass the Reconciliation package known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” following House passage in May.
Senate Parliamentarian Eliminates Medicaid Reform Provisions, Leaving Costs/Problems Intact
The Senate’s parliamentarian has determined that many of the Medicaid provisions in the One Big Beautiful Bill cannot be passed with simple majority vote via…
Market-based Reforms Needed to Correct Failures of Universal Service Subsidies, Congress Urged to Act
A new report from the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) highlights the pervasive failures of the Universal Service Fund (USF) subsidies and calls on Congress…
Op-Eds
Washington Examiner
FTC’s antitrust crusade against Meta contradicts key parts of the Trump agenda
We’re all about to find out if it’s the White House or what’s left of the administrative state that’s calling the shots on…
Los Angeles Times
The Trump administration schooled Europe on free speech. Why ignore the lesson at home?
Vice President JD Vance’s wise words to Europe about U.S. commitments to free speech are on a collision course with some of what’s happening stateside.
The Daily Economy
Bud Light Returns to Merit, Profit After ESG Backlash Cost Billions
Most Americans have heard about Bud Light’s controversial marketing collaboration with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney in April 2023 from the ensuing boycott against the brand, which tanked…
Staff & Scholars

James Broughel
Senior Fellow
- Deregulation
- Energy and Environment
- Innovation

Alex Reinauer
Research Fellow
- Antitrust
- Innovation
- Tech and Telecom

Brian A. Rankin
Adjunct Fellow
- Tech and Telecom
- Telecommunications

Clyde Wayne Crews
Fred L. Smith Fellow in Regulatory Studies
- Business and Government
- Consumer Freedom
- Deregulation

Paul Jossey
Adjunct Fellow
- Innovation

Kent Lassman
President and CEO
- Capitalism
- Deregulation
- Innovation

Jessica Melugin
Director of the Center for Technology & Innovation
- Antitrust
- Innovation
- Media, Speech and Internet Freedoms

Fred L. Smith, Jr.
Founder; Chairman Emeritus
- Automobiles and Roads
- Aviation
- Business and Government

Joel Zinberg
Senior Fellow