Op-Eds
Suit Will Hurt Competition
Increasingly, Americans are losing faith in their government. The U.S. Department of Justice’s action against American Airlines on Thursday underscores why. The lawsuit seeks to…
Op-Eds
Ignore the Pesticide Scare Du Jour
“Public advocate” reports on the supposed dire consequences of pesticide use seem to come out almost daily. According to news reports and environmentalist “studies,” if…
Washington Post
Chemically Speaking (Letter to the Editor)
It is ironic that environmental groups and others jumped ship from the Environmental Protection Agency’s food-quality advisory panel on the same day that President Clinton…
Washington Post
Suburbs Enter the Presidential Race (Letter to the Editor)
To the Editor: Re “Two Parties Seek to Exploit a Relentless Boom in the Suburbs” (news article, May 4): Vice President Al Gore and…
Op-Eds
Enemies Of The Stasis
Full Article Available in PDF Format Executive Summary Virginia Postrel's excellent book “The Future and Its Enemies” details the…
Op-Eds
Enemies of the Stasis
Virginia Postrel’s excellent The Future and Its Enemies (Free Press, 1998, 265 pages) details the many ways in which the forces of dynamism conflict with…
Washington Post
A Look at Resourceful Earth Day
April 22, once associated with the optimism of revolutionary Marxism (as the birthday of Lenin) and then with the pessimism of modern Malthusianism (as the…
Washington Post
Coming Down to Earth Day
Today is Earth Day. Every year since 1970, environmental activist groups have used this day to warn of “impending environmental catastrophe and advocate new government programs,…
Washington Post
Vice President’s Plan to Change Method to Measure GDP (Letter to the Editor)
Michael Evans’ April 6 commentary “Misguided Solution for debtors” did eh:. excellent job of refuting .Vice. President Al Gore’s plan’ to sell the gold reserves…
Washington Post
Is More Privacy a Good Idea? (Letter to the Editor)
To the Editor: Amitai Etzioni (“Privacy. Isn’t Dead Yet,” Op-Ed, April 6) vastly understates the availability of technologies that provide “cyberspace anonymity.” His worries about…
Washington Post
Who Should Pay for College Tuition (Letter to the Editor)
As a student I appreciate your call for colleges and universities to ante up more of their own funds to pay for needy students’ tuition…
Washington Post
Kyoto Lobby Kills Small Business
Credit for early action — a policy proposal developed by the Environmental Defense Fund, warmly embraced by the Clinton-Gore administration, and championed by. Rhode Island Republican…
Washington Post
Pa.’s Growing Greener Plan Favors Rich Over Poor (Letter to the Editor)
Gov. Ridge calls his Growing Greener Initiative “the most sweeping change in environmental spending policy in 30 years” (Inquirer, Feb. 24). His plan redirects money…
Op-Eds
The New Trustbusters
Joel Klein is a famous man. The head of the Antitrust Division at the U.S. Department of Justice usually toils in anonymity, known only…
Washington Post
EPA Can’t Win This Country’s Sprawl Brawl
Last month, the Clinton-Gore Administration unveiled a new multibillion-dollar environmental agenda, including the so-called Livability Agenda and Lands Legacy Initiative, as well as efforts to…
Op-Eds
Anyone Like Emissions Credits?
When President Clinton had the United States sign the Kyoto Protocol on “global warming,” his gesture was widely viewed as PR, pure and simple. After all, the Senate already was…
Op-Eds
Unlivable Communities
Vice President Al Gore recently announced a new “livable com munities agenda,” designed to “ensure a high quality of life” by controlling so-called “urban sprawl.” But…
Washington Post
Mining Law ‘Land Grab’ (Letter to the Editor)
Richard L. Lawson, president of the National Mining Association, is right, and USA TODAY is wrong (“Mining laws cheat taxpayers,” Our View; “Land-grab threatens economy,”…
Washington Times
Dump the Politics
Apparently, lawmakers are heartbroken because they think that only ‘99.9992 percent of Virginia is left for lovers. The .0008 percent is for trash — at…
Washington Times
It’s All About The Money
From pediatric disease to profit center — that, in a nutshell, is how smoking has changed in the eyes of the anti-tobacco warriors. In 1995,…
Op-Eds
Trashing New Yorkers, Trashing Solutions
Some Virginia lawmakers say they are going to “save” state residents from New York City dumping its trash in the Old Dominion. They’re considering…
Washington Times
Trash-War Victim (Letter to the Editor)
Liam Callanan is “One Virginian Who’s Ready to Do His Part” (Op-Ed, Jan. 20) about New York’s trash. As a New Yorker now living in…
Washington Times
The Free Enterprise of Trash Management (Letter to the Editor)
In the article “Tons More of N.Y. Trash Headed for Va. Landfills” [front page, Jan. 12], Virginia State Sen. William T. Bolling (R-Hanover) says: “There’s…
Op-Eds
Beware of the Kyoto Compromise: Kemp and Smith Op-Ed in NY Times
Published in the New York Times Published in the New York Times January 13, 1999 In November…
Op-Eds
Beware of the Kyoto Compromise: Kemp and Smith Op-Ed in NY Times
In November the Clinton Administration signed a treaty, negotiated in Kyoto, Japan, that purports to temper “global warming” by imposing a schedule of emissions reductions…
Op-Eds
The Dangers Of Precaution
Full Article Available in PDF Format Executive Summary Has Europe, long the home of so much scientific and technological…
Op-Eds
Free Trade and Idealism
In October, the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 passed through the U.S. Congress with little opposition. The new law enables unilateral export embargoes to be…
Op-Eds
How to Get Real Social Security: Tom Miller Article in Reader’s Digest
“Am I ever going to see that money again Published in Reader’s Digest December 1998 “Am I ever going to see…
Op-Eds
Only The Forest Service Can Prevent Forests
Remember,” Smokey Bear likes to remind careless campers, “only you can prevent forest fires.” Only you – and the U.S. Forest Service, which has been…
Washington Times
Funding the Lobby of Global Warming
Of all the shocking budget deal capitulations the Republican Congress made to the White House, none is more inexplicable than the decision to provide almost $200…
Op-Eds
DOJ Gets No Credit For Visa Complaint: Case Will Stifle Bank Card Innovation
The specter of the U.S. Department of Justice as "social engineer" — seeking to shape markets into a narrow and static mold of…
Op-Eds
Government Research Funding And Economic Distortion
Full Chapter Available in PDF Format Executive Summary Science and technology are good things. Still, there are many good…
Op-Eds
Mandatory Open Access for Electricity: Is there a better way?
“Mandatory open access to the power grid is the wrong paradigm for restructuring. Although open access is advocated by virtually all of today’s reformers, it…
Op-Eds
Challenging DC Over Potty Politics
Appeared in The Detroit Free Press, The Akron Beacon Journal, The Orange County Register, The Sacramento Bee, and Lima News Of all the bills now…
Op-Eds
Mogul vs. Mogul
Full article available in pdf format. Rupert Murdoch has come under fire for reneging on a contract to…
Op-Eds
Mogul vs Mogul
Rupert Murdoch has come under fire for reneging on a contract to publish former Hong Kong governor Chris Patten’s manuscript East and West. Reports indicate…
Op-Eds
Large Vehicles Are The Solution, Not The Problem
Copyright 1998 Dow Jones Industrial, Inc. If you listen to journalists, you'd think sport-utility vehicles were more dangerous…
Op-Eds
Micro-managing Bill Gates
Full article available in pdf Republicans are known for praising markets and condemning overregulation of business. But oddly, they often conspicuously endorse…
Op-Eds
Book Review – The Suicidal Corporation
Full Document Available in PDF…
Op-Eds
Climate Care
<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” /> Full article available in pdf format …
Op-Eds
Climate Care
Full article available in pdf format ClintonCare—Bill and Hillary Clinton’s plan to nationalize…
Op-Eds
Coveted Internet Cash Cow?
Published in the Washington Times <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” /> January 30, 1998 Excerpted in…
Op-Eds
Wasting Energy on Appliances
Uncle Sam is designing your next refrigerator, whether you like it or not. The humble refrigerator, an all-American invention that had become — without government…
Op-Eds
Lords of the Flies
When President Nixon signed the Endangered Species Act in 1973, he inadvertently codified Aldo Leopold’s stylish but stupid aphorism, “To keep every cog and…
Op-Eds
Microsoft Is a Competitor, Not a ‘Predator’
Published in The Wall Street Journal<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” /> October 7, 1996 …
Op-Eds
Trashing Free Trade: The Basel Convention’s Impact on International Commerce
Trashing Free Trade: The Basel Convention’s Impact on International Commerce by James M. Sheehan With the establishment of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995,…
Op-Eds
Nailed by FDA
I started 1996 with two new experiences. I had a close-up photograph taken of my big toe, and I had my first personal run-in with…
Op-Eds
Bring competitive power to the people
On Jan. 26, the Michigan Public Service Commission approved a contract which would allow Wisconsin Public Power Co. to provide electricity to the Copper…
Op-Eds
The Role, Limitations and Legitimacy of Regulatory Mechanisms in Market Economies
The charge at this Ditchley conference was a broad one: we were to review the proper scope of regulation and examine how that function…
Op-Eds
Free Market Environmentalism: Protecting The Planet Via Private Property
Full Book Chapter Available in PDF Format Executive Summary There is an alternative to the traditional approach to environmentalism…
Op-Eds
The GOP vs. The Environment?
Op-Eds
Assessing the Political Approach to Risk Management
Full Document Available in PDF…
Op-Eds
Feel a Heart Attack Coming? Go to France
Imagine that you’ve had a heart attack. Amid the wails of sirens and the flash of red lights, paramedics are rushing to help…
Op-Eds
Tanks on the Roll
Full article available in pdf format. Article originally appeared in the July 8, 1995 edition of the National Journal and was written by…
Op-Eds
VAT Chance for Tax Fairness
Op-Eds
Restricting Trade Will Not Help The Environment
Full Article Available in PDF Format Executive Summary Expanding free trade to include all nations could have beneficial effects…
The Freeman
Risks in the Modern World: What Prospects for Rationality?
Risk refers to the likelihood that something will go wrong.[1] People naturally fear such mishaps, and risk aversion is a basic survival trait.
Op-Eds
Making the Polluters Pay
Environmentalists often call for a world with zero pollution. The response from industry and professional economists is disbelief. Who is right? That depends…
Op-Eds
Learning The Washington Game: Political Strategy And Tactics
Full Chapter Available in PDF Format Executive Summary Those entering the federal government who seek to redirect the system to put greater emphasis on…
The Freeman
Books for Christmas
As a policy wonk, my recommended reading list, not surprisingly, is wonkish. Still, among all those dusty, boring books that make up this body of…
Op-Eds
Good Books For Christmas
Full Article Available in PDF Format Executive Summary Contains brief reviews of Searching For Safety, Essays On Economics And…
Op-Eds
Trading Away Free Trade
Full article is available in PDF (Liberty magazine, November 1994, pp. 22-26). The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade has lowered the world’s…
Op-Eds
The Quotable Fred
Full Booklet Available in PDF Format Executive Summary A compendium of quotes from the writings and speeches of CEI president and…
The Freeman
A Sign of the Times
In the normally quiet little Gulf Coast town of Port Bolivar, Texas, federal bureaucrats are threatening to throw an old man in jail because he…
Op-Eds
A Free-Market Environmental Vision
Full Chapter Available in PDF Format Executive Summary There is one environmental vision, and only one, that is compatible…
Op-Eds
Fire in Paradise: The Yellowstone Fires and the Politics of Environmentalism
ON AUGUST 20, 1988–A DAY THAT came to be known as “Black Saturday”–about 160,000 acres were consumed by fires in the greater Yellowstone Park…
Op-Eds
A Fresh Look at Environmental Policy
Environmental journalists are, on the whole, fairly good at producing stories. Unfortunately, these lend to be the stories put forward by the environmental establishment: Large…
Op-Eds
The Market and Nature
(Originally appeared in The Freeman, September 1993) Many environmentalists are dissatisfied with the environmental record of free economies. Capitalism, it is claimed, is…
Op-Eds
Better Living through Government Mandate?
Full article available in pdf format.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” /> Technology—or rather government-favored technology—has gained…
Op-Eds
Better Living Through Government Mandate
Technology—or rather government-favored technology—has gained favor among Washington politicos and activists. Technology, these activists seem to believe, makes it possible to mandate almost anything—recycling,…
The Wall Street Journal
If Grizzly Attacks, Drop Your Gun
Thanks to the Endangered Species Act, we can now add grizzly bears to the list of those who can get away with murder under our criminal…
Op-Eds
Kentucky Hosts Rio Follow-Up…but Frivolity is Pretty Big on the Agenda
Article available in pdf format…
Op-Eds
Kentucky Hosts Rio Follow-Up, But Frivolity is Pretty Big on the Agenda
I eagerly joined more than 1,100 people from forty-nine states gathered in Louisville, Kentucky from May 26-28, 1993. I was a speaker and participant at…
Op-Eds
Acute Government Activism
Click on link above to obtain .pdf of article.
The Wall Street Journal
Acute Government Activism
While President Clinton has taken pains to mimic the rhetorical successes of Ronald Reagan and John E Kennedy, he has actually modeled his presidency in the…
Op-Eds
Don’t Cross these Lines
Please click on .pdf link above to view article.
Op-Eds
Eco-Apartheid: It’s Africans versus Elephants and Environmentalists
Full document available in pdf format.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” /> Developing nations regularly complain that……
Op-Eds
Barriers to Private Insurance
Full Document Available in PDF The American insurance industry is shackled by regulations and restrictions…
Wall Street Journal
Al Gore, Reactionary Environmentalist
Al Gore has written, “When giving us dominion over the earth, did God choose an appropriate technology?” And then: “One is tempted to answer, the…
Op-Eds
Carnival of Dunces
Rio is a beautiful city, shoehorned between steep granite mountains and seemingly infinite sandy beaches where, despite the thinning of the ozone layer, eco-efficient clothing…
Op-Eds
Planning For A Better Environment
Full Article Available in PDF Format Executive Summary For 20 years, environmental policy has been…
Op-Eds
Environmental Policy at the Crossroads
Full Chapter Available in PDF Format Executive Summary It has always been with us, and…
Op-Eds
An Environmental House of Cards
AFTER REPEATEDLY HEARING “read my lips, no new taxes,” it is appropriate to ask whether President Bush’s promise to be green was simply protective coloration.
Op-Eds
Auto Fuel Economy Standards: Good For The Environment? Or A Cause Of Highway Deaths?
Full Policy Brief Available in PDF Format Executive Summary The Corporate Average Fuel Economy Program was part of legislation…
Op-Eds
Deadly Overcaution: FDA’s Drug Approval Process
Full article available in PDF When the federal Food and Drug Administration announces its approval of an important new drug, the…
Op-Eds
The Liberating Benefits of a Safer, Cleaner, and More Mobile Society
Full document available in pdf format.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” /> <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns…
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The Liberating Benefits Of Automobility
Full Article Available in PDF Format American’s love affair with the automobile has become…
Op-Eds
Environmental Protection: Is there a Better Way
Earth Day 1990-22 April—marks twenty years since the first Earth Day and since the modern environmental movement became a force for politicians to reckon with.
Op-Eds
Let the Market Save Us
Earth Day 1990 promises to be a replay of Earth Day 1970. The message hasn’t changed: Man and markets threaten Mother Earth. There are too…
Wall Street Journal
‘The Ring’ Free Market Classic
During this last week, thousands of Washingtonians have flocked to one of the world’s greatest artistic events, ‘The Ring” by Richard Wagner. Much has…
Op-Eds
Biotechnology Flirts with the Regulators
Biotechnology, like other unfamiliar high tech industries, offers great hopes but arouses even greater fears. Politicians, the record proves, are far more likely to respond to…
Op-Eds
Cap The Financial Black Holes
A consensus is emerging that the rate of U.S. thrift and bank failures stems in large part from the perverse incentives of Federal Deposit…
Op-Eds
The Suicidal Corporation: Two Cheers!
Smith book review for The World and I…
Op-Eds
Is Rent Control’s Lease Over?
In 1921, the Supreme Court issued its finst rent control decision. In a 5-4 opinion by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, the Court upheld a…
Op-Eds
What’s Wrong With Business Lobbyists
Fred Smith Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal, January 16, 1986…
Op-Eds
Rethinking Superfund
Manhattan Report—What are the origins of Superfund? Fred Smith—The Superfund law—the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act—was passed by Congress in 1980 in the…
Op-Eds
An Antitrust Route to Re-regulation
From telecommunications to airlines and railroads, from banking to natural gas, from trucking to broadcasting, partial deregulation has changed the U.S. economic landscape for…
Op-Eds
Taxpayers Tied to the Tracks
Full article available in pdf. In the latest episode of the Perils of Pauline, the villain, (a.k.a., Amtrak—the most heavily subsidized…
Op-Eds
Beyond Superfund
Please click on link above to obtain .pdf of the article. Expansion of the Superfund for toxic-waste cleanup now appears to have been deferred…
The Politics of IMF Lending
The Politics of IMF Lending
Full Document Available in PDF I. Introduction The 1983 debate over increasing the funding of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) reflects the…