Air travel and rail transport were early examples of deregulation bringing huge benefits to consumers and industries. Yet automobility, air travel, and freight rail, are increasingly threatened with further regulation that will reduce their ability to transport goods and people. CEI opposes these attacks by arguing for greater freedom in mobility and opposing perverse transportation industry regulations.
Transportation Issue Areas
Featured Posts
Blog
Shutdown woes show why it is time to privatize the TSA
Imagine arriving at the airport for a long-anticipated vacation, only to face a line longer than an airport runway. The excitement quickly gives way to…
Blog
Mandates before proven safety: How the Railway Safety Act ignores rail safety
The Washington Post’s recent piece on the Railway Safety Act underscores an essential point: safety legislation must be grounded in evidence, not fear or…
Blog
Pardon me boys, is this the Special Interest Express?
The Washington Post published a smart editorial on Monday on why the proposed Railway Safety Act is a bad idea. The legislation is…
Search Posts
Blog
Michael Grunwald’s High-Speed Rail Fantasies
Perhaps the one thing Time magazine's Michael Grunwald loves more than drone assassinations of American citizens and dissident journalists is heavily subsidized passenger rail. This is not the…
Blog
Uber and Regulation: Pro-Business Is Not Pro-Market
“Republicans love Uber. Young urban voters love Uber. And Republicans hope that means young voters can learn to love the GOP.” That was the opening…
Blog
Public Still Favors Transportation User Fees over Tax Increases
Voters in Missouri yesterday rejected a proposed constitutional amendment that would have imposed a 0.75 percent sales tax to fund transportation, with nearly 60 percent opposing a…
Blog
New Report Highlights Driverless Car Urban Impact; Takes Techno-Dystopian Stance
Earlier this month, Professor David Begg of Transport Times published a new report on automated transport technology focusing on the potential impacts on London. This is one of…
Blog
Uber, Regulation, and Free Markets
Libertarians are justifiably excited about the prospects of ridesharing companies such as Uber and equally justified in their disgust of regulators intent on preventing the…
The Skeptical Libertarian
Reasons Libertarians Should Be Skeptical of Uber Politics
Libertarians, we may have an Uber problem. Don’t get me wrong, friends of freedom. I love Uber. I use Uber at least once a week.
Blog
Labor and Employment Scorecard: Pension Smoothing as a “Pay-For” in Highway and Transportation Funding Act
On July 15, 2014, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) scored U.S. House of Representatives Roll Call Vote #414 on final passage of the Highway and…
Letters
An Open Letter to the United States Congress: Protect Taxpayers and Empower the States by Reforming Transportation Spending
Full Coalition Letter Available Here Congress is set to consider major transportation spending legislation this year. The Competitive Enterprise Institute, Americans for Prosperity and…
Watchdog.org
Taxicab industry has history of lobbying, donations
The Virginia DMV’s order for Uber and Lyft to cease all operations in the commonwealth is the latest showing of the taxicab industry’s influence in…
Watchdog.org
When it Comes to Uber, Consumers May Speak Loudest
Uber was founded in 2009 as a venture-funded transportation company, allowing riders and drivers to connect on their mobile devices and see other people’s reviews…
Forbes
The Rise Of Uber Should Have Politicians, Regulators And Crony Capitalists Shaking With Fear
Consumers love choice and convenience, especially when it comes to getting from point A to point B. So as Uber takes the world by storm,…
The Hill's Congress Blog
Republicans sell out free-market principles for union favors
Co-authored with CEI Research Associate Matthew La Corte. The Norwegians are coming!” That’s hardly a call to send Americans scurrying to the barricades. But if…
Blog
One Year Later: TSA Still Flouting the Law on Body Scanners
CEI Research Associate Matthew La Corte contributed to this article. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) uses more than 700 full-body imaging scanners in 160 airports nationwide.
Blog
Distracted by Paranoia, Obama Administration to Regulate Map Apps?
A story in The New York Times is making the rounds about an Obama administration proposal to clarify the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's (NHTSA) authority to…
The Hill's Congress Blog
Distracted Drivers Or Driverless Cars?
The treatment of self-driving vehicles by policymakers represents one of the major barriers to their emergence, according to the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Only New…
Mass Live
Boston taxi drivers’ union to protest ride sharing service Uber
Services like Uber and Lyft upset cab drivers because they challenge the longtime status quo that has devolved into a cartel that limits innovation and…
One News Now
GM In Heavy Case Over Faulty Ignition Switches
Earlier this year, Toyota agreed to a $1.2 billion settlement with the Justice Department in a criminal probe over the company's recall of Toyota…
Progressive Railroading
Obama administration sends four-year transportation bill to Congress
Meanwhile, Competitive Enterprise Institute transportation policy expert Marc Scribner was more critical. Bailing out the Highway Trust Fund would violate "the long-standing user-pays/user-benefits principle in…
One News Now
Transportation Analyst: Hands Off Driverless Cars, Uncle Sam
A transportation policy analyst warns that lawmakers and regulators should steer clear of driverless vehicles when they arrive. Marc Scribner is a fellow for the…
Georgia Policy
Steer Clear of Overregulating Autonomous Autos
If anything drives transportation policy as a solution to congestion and mobility challenges in Georgia, it should be the recommendations in a new report from…
CQ Researcher
Self-Driving Cars Promise Safer Highways if Regulators Keep Hands Off, Study Says
Wider adoption of technology to allow vehicles to drive themselves promises to usher in a new era of safer motoring — as long as lawmakers…
News Release
When Robot Cars Arrive, Lawmakers and Regulators Should Steer Clear
WASHINGTON, April 23 – Today the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) released a new report by transportation policy expert Marc Scribner to help policymakers address regulating…
Study
Self-Driving Regulation
Leonardo da Vinci first sketched the design for a self-propelled cart in the late 15th century. In 2010, Google announced its fleet of self-driving cars…
Comment
Comments to USDOT in the matter of Use of Mobile Wireless Devices for Voice Calls on Aircraft
Full Document Available in PDF On behalf of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (“CEI”), I respectfully submit these comments in response…
Study
Bait and Reciprocal Switch
Full Document Available in PDF America’s freight railroad industry is one of the greatest success stories of economic liberalization. After decades of…
News Release
Special Interest Lobby Threatens Freight Rail Deregulation
WASHINGTON, March 24 – A new effort by special interest groups threatens much-needed freight-rail investment, according to a new…
Comment
Comments to the Federal Communications Commission in the matter of Expanding Access to Mobile Wireless Services Onboard Aircraft
Full…
Mass Live
Increased Boston-To-Springfield Passenger Rail Service May One Day Become A Reality
Marc Scribner, a research fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, thinks investment by the state on a primarily private rail line is unnecessary because private…
USA Today
GOP fighting cellphone freedom
Should the federal government outlaw rudeness? Some senior Republican lawmakers seem to think so. Since 1991, the Federal Communications Commission has barred cellphone use on…
USA Today
Experts: DOT probably has legal legs to ban calls
The libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute offered a dissenting voice Thursday, calling it “clearly arbitrary and capricious” for DOT to ban cellphone calls under consumer protection…
Washington Examiner
Not-so-friendly skies: Deregulation didn’t fail, it was never really tried
Anderson said that, although the 1978 Airline Deregulation Act eliminated the Civilian Aeronautics Board, the DOJ attorneys to this day use the old CAB antitrust…
Politico
Anthony Foxx: DOT will consider banning cell phone calls on planes
The Competitive Enterprise Institute, a libertarian group, questioned the grounds for DOT’s move. CEI fellow Marc Scribner said the move “runs counter to legislative intent…
News Release
CEI Applauds FCC Efforts on Ending In-Flight Cell Phone Ban
Washington, DC, Dec. 12, 2013 – This afternoon, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) held an Open Meeting. Among other issues, the FCC indicated it would…
Human Events
Amtrak – Another Government-Run Disaster
I am the casualty of a model train collector gone wild. Sorry, Dad, but it’s true. Many a Christmas morning, my brother and I would…
Entrepreneur
The Ridiculous Thing One Congressman Said About Self-Driving Cars
Forbes
The American/US Airways Case Highlights The Absurdity Of Antitrust Regulation
“If the airlines have a history of anti-competitive behavior, they are the least able practitioners of the art in the history of mankind.” This was…
News Release
President Obama Still Doesn’t Get It On Transportation Reform
WASHINGTON, Nov. 8 — At the Port of New Orleans today, President Obama reiterated his call for increased federal infrastructure spending, which has been a…
The American Spectator
BART’s Bogus Ride
It was the 1970s and Britain was the “sick man of Europe.” Labor unions had toppled one Conservative government and were bullying the existing Labour…
The American Spectator
Raising the Federal Gas Tax
Marc Scribner Discusses the Fuel Tax on Fox Business…
Investor's Business Daily
Shutdown Grounds Lawyers In US Air, American Case
Marc Scribner, analyst at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a libertarian think tank, earlier said: "American, if it isn't able to merge with US Air, is…
Fox News
DOJ Suits Against Airline Merger Further Alienates Unions
“It’s going further than just a few unions that really don’t represent a lot of people,” Marc Scribner, a transportation policy expert with Washington-based Competitive…
Investor's Business Daily
US Air, AMR Vow To Fight DOJ Lawsuit To Block Merger
"This administration's Department of Justice has a different posture than past DOJs, which had a more conservative approach to antitrust measures," said Marc Scribner, transportation…
Las Vegas Review Journal
Government moves to block airline merger, warns of higher fares, fees
But the open-market-leaning Competitive Enterprise Institute called the Department of Justice action “deeply misguided.” “On the heels of the successful Delta-Northwest and United-Continental mergers,…
News Release
CEI Analysts: Let Airlines Merge, Markets Sort Out Winners, Losers
WASHINGTON, D.C, Aug. 13, 2013 – Despite having allowed two huge mergers involving so-called “legacy carriers” in the last three years, the Department of Justice…
Las Vegas Review Journal
5 questions on high-speed rail and its U.S. future
According to a June report from the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a libertarian think tank, the Federal Railroad Administration “has strict crash safety regulation for passenger…
News Release
TSA Flouts Law With Vague Rule on Body Scanners
WASHINGTON, D.C., June 25, 2013 — Yesterday, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) and Robert L. Crandall, former chairman and CEO of AMR and American…
Comment
Comments to the TSA Regarding the Deployment of AIT
Full Document Available in PDF On March 26, 2013, TSA proposed a rule regarding passenger screening using advanced imaging technology after a…
Las Vegas Review Journal
Government regs hurt passenger rail
That’s the message of this paper from the Competitive Enterprise Institute. The writers point out the American safety regulators require passenger rail cars to…
Letters
Coalition Letter to Congress Opposing “Buy America” Provisions for Government Infrastructure Projects
Full Document Available in PDF TO THE MEMBERS OF THE UNITED STATES CONGRESS Do you want to artificially increase the cost of…
Las Vegas Review Journal
A Recipe for More Coastal Republicans
Josh Barro points us to a new report from David Edmondson and Marc Scribner on one of my favorite subjects — the fact that FRA…