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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Happy birthday, Smokey Bear! Let’s fight forest fires the right way
Smokey Bear, the famous US Forest Service (USFS) mascot, celebrated his 81st birthday this past Saturday, August 9. Smokey Bear was created in 1944…

News Release
EPA proposes rule to overturn regulatory finding justifying major restrictions on consumer choice: CEI analysis
Today, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced the agency’s proposed rule that would overturn the 2009 endangerment finding. For 16 years, this finding has been…

Blog
Congress should support the Grizzly Bear State Management Act
Tomorrow, the House Natural Resources Committee will meet to consider 12 pieces of legislation that have been introduced in the 119th Congress. One of…
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Op-Eds
Action Needed Now to Stop EPA Power Grab
I wrote this morning in the American Spectator about how tight the vote is on Senator Murkowski’s bid to stop the…
Blog
BP Supported Obama Stimulus Package, Global Warming Bill, and Corporate Welfare; BP Bankrolled Obama Campaign
Columnist Tim Carney notes that BP, responsible for the massive oil spill, is “a close friend of big government whenever it serves the company’s…
Op-Eds
BP’s Disturbingly Close Ties to Obama Administration
Columnist Tim Carney notes that BP, responsible for the massive oil spill, is “a close friend of big government whenever it serves the company’s…
Blog
Global-Warming Bill Contains Ethanol Subsidies, Which Cause Famine, Hunger, Food Riots, and Political Unrest
People across the world “are being battered by surging food prices that are dragging more people into poverty, fueling political tensions and forcing some to…
Newsletter
BP, the Supreme Court on Corporate Accounting and Eliot Spitzer on CNN
Many are pointing to the BP oil spill as proof of the failure of free market capitalism. The Supreme Court is expected to soon hand…
Blog
Obama Uses BP Oil Spill to Push Corporate-Welfare-Filled Global Warming Bill That BP Once Lobbied For
Talk about chutzpah. President Obama, the biggest recipient of campaign cash from BP, is using BP’s oil spill to push for a global…
Op-Eds
Australian Resource Tax Will Dampen Innovation (Letter to the Editor)
Sir, Your editorial, “Taxmen vs miners: Australia’s resource super profit tax is a good idea” (May 31), argues that “natural resource profits are…
Blog
BP: A “Serial Environmental Criminal” With Close Ties To The Obama Administration
BP, which is responsible for the terrible oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, has a safety record infinitely worse than other oil companies, which…
Blog
CEI Weekly: CEI Sues NASA to Uncover Key Global Warming Docs
CEI weekly is a compilation of articles and blogs from CEI's staff. This week features CEI's federal lawsuit against NASA to force them to comply…
Blog
Myths About Green Energy: The Truth Is, It’s Corporate Welfare That Destroys American Jobs
In The Washington Post, Robert Bryce debunks five myths about green energy: it won’t create jobs, won’t help the environment, and won’t make America…
Blog
Stimulus Package Increases Trade Deficit: Replaces U.S. Jobs with Foreign “Green Jobs”
The $800 billion stimulus package is shipping American jobs overseas. More than 79 percent of “green jobs” funding under the stimulus package went to…
Newsletter
The Gulf Oil Spill, GM’s Bailout Troubles and the Costs of CO2 Regulation
Environmentalists call for a stop to offshore drilling in reaction to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. CEI files a complaint against General Motors with…
Comment
CEI Comments on EPA Biopesticides Registration for Biotech Plum
Full Document Available in PDF The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) appreciates…
News Release
EPA May Force Pesticide Label on New Biotech Fruit
Washington, D.C., April 30, 2010 – The Competitive Enterprise Institute today condemned a proposed Environmental Protection Agency action plan that would, for the first…
Blog
Earth Day Agriculture and Sustainable Intensification
What’s the most sustainable way to grow the food we eat? The answer environmentalists give is always "local and organic." But, increasingly, the answer from…
Blog
Food Fight Over a Living Relic of the Past
There’s an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal today on a big new…
News Release
Keep Humanity in Earth Day
Washington, D.C., April 21, 2010—This year, the Competitive Enterprise Institute urges those celebrating Earth Day to remember that human beings are part of the natural…
News Release
White House Conservation Program Faces Identity Crisis
The White House’s recently announced “America’s Great Outdoors” conservation program shows some encouraging signs – such as including landowners, sportsmen and business representatives in initial…
Blog
Green Thumbs and GMOs
A friend just recommended this op-ed published in the Boston Globe on Sunday. The title and subtitle say it all: "Green Thumbs: Genetically engineered crops…
Blog
The Story of Leftist Propaganda in Schools
At BigHollywood.com, Anne McIlhinney critiques the anti-industrial environmental propaganda film, The Story of Stuff. The film’s narrator, Annie Leonard, argues that modern civilization…
Blog
A salute to coal mining
In today’s Investor’s Business Daily, CEI’s Iain Murray tells about his first-hand experience with coal-mining and salutes the miners and the mine owners…
Newsletter
Alcohol, Climate Change, and Landscaping
The government currently enforces a system of alcohol distribution whereby importers, breweries, and wineries can only sell to wholesalers. Some government ads about global warming…
Blog
Is There No Adult Supervision at the Campaign for Liberty?
My colleagues brought to my attention this grossly misinformed, misleading, and error-laden essay on the Campaign for Liberty’s website. The main thrust of the piece…
Blog
Obama Administration Rewards Corrupt Mortgage Giants, Punishes Productive Private Banks, Fleeces Taxpayers and Responsible Credit Cardholders
The Obama administration wants to increase taxes on productive banks that are self-supporting, while exempting the mortgage giants and other companies that got massive taxpayer…
Blog
If we want elephants to die off, we only need to do what we’re doing
They can be saved, however. Dan Hannan in London talks about “privatising” the elephant (and watch the video): To us, elephants are…
Blog
One cheer for Obama on nuclear energy
Obama has done something right concerning nuclear energy; credit where credit’s due. But he also did something very wrong, which we’ll get to. The president…
Blog
O’Neill on the Sorry Heritage of “Overpopulation”
At Spiked Online, Brendan O’Neil dissects the absurdity of neo-Malthusians who seek to portray themselves as intellectual mavericks, by presenting “overpopulation” as the environmental…
Op-Eds
Use of Genetically Modified Alfalfa Unnecessarily Held Hostage
What’s the most sustainable way to grow the food we eat? If you think the answer is always local and organic, you may be…
Blog
New Federal Program Kills Jobs, While Costing Taxpayers Half a Billion Dollars
A federal biofuels program enacted in the name of fighting global warming and reducing dependence on foreign oil is instead killing jobs while perhaps…
Richmond Times-Dispatch
EPA Delivers Lump of Coal to Appalachia
If a tree falls in a forest, and no one is around to hear it, the Environmental Protection Agency would still investigate. This corny…
Blog
Following the scientific method: an example
Experiments in science that don’t reinforce scientists’ hypotheses can be vitally important in understanding complex systems. Serious scientists don’t fudge the results or hide…
Newsletter
Suing NASA, Swine Flu Declines and Climategate Tricks
CEI announces a plan to sue NASA over violations of the Freedom of Information Act. The Centers for Disease Control report cases of swine flu…
Richmond Times-Dispatch
The Other L.A.
The hot and humid impoverished region of Lago Agrio has unusual tourism traffic these days. Its renowned Toxic Tours have attracted many…
Blog
Buffet Displays Hope in America’s Energy Future
Warren Buffet, one of the most respected investors in America, recently purchased Burlington Northern, one of the nation’s largest railroads with some 32,000 miles of…
Blog
Obama One Year Later — A Legacy of Lies and Broken Promises
It’s been a year since the president was elected, and he’s already piled up an impressive list of lies and broken promises. The broken promises…
Richmond Times-Dispatch
1 Year Later-Obama’s Legacy of Lies and Broken Promises
It’s been a year since the president was elected, and he’s already piled up an impressive list of lies and broken promises.
Blog
Cap-and-Trade Global Warming Bill Is A Scam, Experts Reveal
Two EPA lawyers criticized the cap-and-trade energy bill passed by the House as a scam, noting in The Washington Post that it will be manipulated…
Blog
“Cities are probably the greenest thing that humans do.”
Environmental guru and author of the Whole Earth Catalog Stewart Brand has a new book out in which he argues that "My fellow environmentalists have…
Blog
Science and the Sustainable Intensification of Agriculture
The UK Royal Society's long-awaited study on improving agricultural productivity and increasing food security was released this morning. it suggests that a healthy concern for…
Blog
Bill Gates Says Africa Needs GMOs
On Friday, Bill Gates announced at the World Food Summit in Des Moines that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation would be redoubling its efforts…
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Not So Peachy Advice
Recently featured on Good Morning America, the Environmental Working Group identified a “dirty dozen” list for the most contaminated produce that includes: peaches, apples,…
Blog
Three Cheers for the Nobel Economic Prizes!
After the weird “future” award to President Obama of the Nobel Peace Prize, another Nobel committee has made a brilliant choice – awarding the Economics…
Blog
2002 Economics Nobel Prize Winner Vernon Smith on 2009 Winner Elinor Ostrom
In honor of the awarding of the Nobel Prize in Economics to Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson, it’s worth recalling a mention of Ostrom’s…
Newsletter
Opposing Net Neutrality, TSA Unionizing and Banning Soft Toilet Paper
The Washington Post editorializes against the FCC’s proposed “net neutrality” regulations. The American Federation of Government Employees seeks to unionize airport safety screeners and other…
Blog
Regulation of the Day 54: Shovelnose Sturgeon
Why does the Fish and Wildlife Service want to list it as a threatened species? Because it looks like the pallid sturgeon, which is currently…
Blog
AP: Obama Health-Care Plan Raises Taxes, Breaks Campaign Promises
The Associated Press is now chiding President Obama for falsely claiming that his proposed tax on uninsured people is not a tax. It is…
Blog
Chevron Plaintiff Lawyer’s Least Favorite Writer
In Forbes yesterday, New York lawyer Steven Donziger, consultant attorney for Ecuadorian plaintiffs in the suit against Chevron, criticizes my article,…
News Max
Cap-and-Trade’s Cost to Americans: $1,761 per Household
Blog
Big Health and Energy Tax Increases for the Middle Class from Obama and Liberal Congressmen
Even the trimmed-down version of Obama's health-care plan recently announced by a ranking Senator contains lots of tax increases for the middle class.
Blog
The Man Who Fed the World
Norman Borlaug was an American agricultural scientist and plant breeder whose work sparked what is now known as the Green Revolution. He was recognized with…