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This week in ridiculous regulations: Closed captioning and toothless blindcats
The new 2024 edition of Ten Thousand Commandments is out now. The Paris Olympics began. Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro stole another election. Agencies issued…
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EPA: From environmental champion to bureaucratic goliath?
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was established as a symbol of hope for a cleaner, healthier America. Today, however, it faces critical scrutiny due to…
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Free the Economy podcast: Paying for mass transit with Marc Scribner
In this week’s episode we cover California’s minimum wage for fast-food workers, overturning the FCC’s universal service fee, and pushing back on…
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Jerome Powell risks the Fed’s gains against inflation
The big story from today’s Federal Reserve decision isn’t that interest rates are staying the same. It’s that the dual mandate is back. This…
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The NLRB’s Orwellian ‘Fair Choice – Employee Final Voice Rule’
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the federal agency that oversees union elections, has a funny idea about what constitutes giving employees an honest say…
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America should emulate South Korea on nuclear energy
A South Korean company, Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power, just received a $17.3 billion dollar contract to construct two new nuclear power plants for the Czech Republic.
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EU’s Digital Markets Act: An obstruction to AI innovation?
European consumers are being left behind in the AI revolution due to tightened regulations. Apple’s decision to withhold its new AI features from the European…
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2024 edition of Ten Thousand Commandments is out now
The federal government has a spending budget that the public can see. Every year Congress allocates a certain amount of money to each agency, and…
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This week in ridiculous regulations: Water heaters and children’s passports
President Biden dropped out of the race, leaving Vice President Kamala Harris as the likely Democratic nominee. The Federal Register topped 60,000 pages and remains…
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Harris’s rent control support clashes with even progressive economists
As one of his last policy initiatives before officially dropping out of the 2024 presidential race, President Joe Biden unveiled a housing plan that included…
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Top-down economic ‘moonshot’ incompatible with bottom-up ideals
In her book Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism, economist Mariana Mazzucato proposes rebranding the United States’s economy. An advocate behind Biden’s Build…
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Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals finds FCC’s universal service fee unconstitutional under the nondelegation doctrine
Late yesterday, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an opinion in Consumer Research v. FCC that breathes new life into the nondelegation doctrine. This…
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Free the Economy podcast: Dead malls and retail nostalgia with Sal Amadeo
In this week’s episode we cover state-level regulatory reform, the opinions of Latino voters, Biden’s tax on stock buybacks, and another…
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Kamala Harris’s California quid pro quo for unions
Kamala Harris is now the Democrats’ likely nominee to succeed Biden and she may pull the administration’s already pro-union labor policy even further leftwards. A…
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CEI’s The Surge: Carbon taxes, Chevron, nuclear bill becomes law, & more!
If you are interested in analysis and perspective on current energy and environmental issues, then we encourage you to subscribe to this new publication…
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Congress in a post-Chevron world
The House Committee on Administration conducted a regulatory reform hearing today entitled “Congress in a Post-Chevron World.” The title refers to the anticipated sea…
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House Interior and Environment spending bill: Critical provisions and amendments
This week, the House is expected to take up the Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2025 (H.R. 8998). The…
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Generator sales are rising… And there’s good reason
I bought a house earlier this year, and to my absolute delight, it came with a built in 16 kilowatt (kW) generator, plenty of power for…
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Combatting climate anxiety: Yes, it’s okay to have children
The message that the Earth is rapidly decaying has long been evangelized by college professors and other gung-ho Malthusians in the media. It has led…
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This week in ridiculous regulations: Blood donors and paper marketing
Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt. The Republicans held their convention in Milwaukee. Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) was convicted on bribery charges and resigned, leaving…
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NLRB backs down on Joint Employer
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has withdrawn an appeal of a district…
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‘Are you serious? Are you serious?’
Earlier this week, an editorial in the Wall Street Journal recapped former Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s famous response when a journalist questioned her about the…
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Free the Economy podcast: Inflation and Bidenomics with Kurt Couchman
In this week’s episode we cover Capital One buying Discover, solutions for high housing prices, China’s soft-power investment strategy, and President…
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Enhancing oversight: GAO’s blueprint for congressional control over agency rulemaking
On July 5, the White House released its biannual regulatory agenda for the executive branch, which highlights agency priorities for the next six months.
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Book review: The War on Prices by Ryan Bourne
I have reached a stage in my career where younger colleagues sometimes ask me for advice. There are a few evergreen pieces of advice I…
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Rent control doesn’t work. Increase housing supply instead.
President Biden will soon announce a proposed 5 percent cap on rent increases. Rent control is one of the most ridiculed economic policies there…
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Union leaders need Trump more than he needs them
Credit where credit is due, Teamsters President Sean O’Brien faced a tricky tightrope walk when he spoke before the Republican National Convention…
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The deregulation maverick
A deregulation wave occurred in the American economic landscape in the late 1970s, particularly in the utility and airlines sectors. This shift was driven by…
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There is no such thing as a free lunch, especially under MMT.
Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) has emerged in recent years as a highly-debated economic concept, challenging traditional views on national debt and money. MMT is a…
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Kansas REINS Act overrides governor’s veto
Advocates for government accountability recently scored a big win with the passage of House Bill 2648 in Kansas. The Regulations from the Executive In…
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How major rules are surging under the Biden administration
We’ve taken a look at the total numbers of significant regulations issued this year in the Biden administration as well as at the subsets…
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This week in ridiculous regulations: Watermelon taxes and crash test dummies
CEI’s home distillery court case had a good week. President Biden had a bad week. Agencies issued new regulations ranging from rotorcraft to desert…
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Energy freedom on the ballot in Washington State
Climate change policies tend to become unpopular as soon as the public realizes the effects such policies will have on them. That certainly is the…
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Free the Economy podcast: The new progress movement with Ronald Bailey
In this week’s episode we cover the end of Chevron deference at the Supreme Court, the economic impact of future Trump tariffs,…
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Missing the economists in FTC’s latest PBM study
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) released its not-so-objectively titled interim report on Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs): Pharmacy Benefit Managers: The Powerful Middlemen Inflating Drug…
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You have the right to a jury trial
The Supreme Court’s recent Jarkesy decision affirms that people have the right to a jury trial, even in regulatory agencies’ special in-house courts. My colleague…
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Supreme Court’s Jarkesy decision sheds light on the SEC’s hidden advantages
The Supreme Court’s momentous decision in SEC v Jarkesy provides us with a rare glimpse into the murky realm of administrative adjudication. Despite there being more…
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Small group of House members introduce pro-tax, anti-energy bill
The PROVE IT Act (S. 1863) is a pro-tax, anti-energy bill that, if passed, would lead to a carbon tax on imports…
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Anticipating post-Chevron federal power moves
In a series of landmark rulings just before Independence Day (SEC v. Jarkesy, Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, and Corner Post, Inc. v. Board of…
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The Supreme Court sends warning shot to NLRB
Only one of the Supreme Court’s cases this term dealt directly with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), but several addressed the broader question of…
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A rule for the Fed
The Washington Examiner is running a series of pieces on policies the next administration should pursue. My contribution details a way to contain inflation…
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Takeaways from Biden’s new Spring 2024 Unified Agenda of Federal Regulations
At the end of the July 4th holiday weekend, the Biden administration Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released the Spring 2024 edition of the…
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This week in ridiculous regulations: Coke ovens and stolen firearms
It was a short week in honor of Independence Day. Speculation swirled about President Biden’s political future. Agencies issued new regulations ranging from brominate vegetable…
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Free the Economy podcast: Taxocracy with Scott Hodge
In this week’s episode we cover how the SEC is going to spam investors with a deluge of low-quality disclosures, the Supreme Court’s…
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Could AI regulation hamper the next agricultural revolution?
Artificial intelligence (AI) is poised to revolutionize the agricultural industry, along with other sectors of the economy. Already, AI has reduced…
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Reflecting on independence: More than fireworks and barbecues
As we enjoy barbecues, fireworks, and parades on the Fourth of July, we also reflect upon the deeper significance of our nation’s Independence Day and…
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New Jersey moves to ban gas powered leaf blowers
In the latest example of the environmentalist cause going too far, the New Jersey State Senate has voted to move forward with a bill that…
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California’s Newsom grants exception to state law so restaurants can cope with other state law
California Governor Gavin Newsom signed legislation over the weekend that exempted restaurants in the Golden State from…
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USTR inconsistent in their application of new tariffs
I recently made comments on the United States Trade Representative’s (USTR) latest Section 301 tariffs, specifically those imposed on facemasks and steel and…
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CEI opposes SEC’s gag rule
The Securities and Exchange Commission does not like to be criticized. That’s not unusual. What is unusual is that the SEC includes a prohibition of…