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This week in ridiculous regulations: Volatile gas and the Gulf of Mexico
The Federal Reserve held interest rates steady, and President Trump put on some pressure to lower them. Trump also fired Democratic FTC commissioners on unclear…
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SEC restores corporate control over ESG proposals
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has wasted no time in reforming controversial regulations under the Trump administration. Beyond targeting formal rules, GOP commissioners have…
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Free the Economy podcast: Tariffs, tax cuts, and trustees with Dominic Pino
In this week’s episode we cover retirement investing, pivoting to India for global trade, new housing on federal land, and priorities…
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Trump SEC makes tremendous progress against crypto-stifling regulation
Gary Gensler’s SEC worked at a frenetic pace to shut down innovation in the crypto sector. Without rhyme or reason, the Biden-Gensler SEC moved fast…
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Let the deconstruction commence
Congress’s actionable hierarchy for administrative state burial & constitutional resurrection Alongside restoring fiscal sanity, Congress must establish a hierarchy of actions to make Donald Trump’s…
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Trump cancels Biden’s heat pump crisis
It isn’t easy figuring out the single most ridiculous Biden administration climate policy, but its declaration that electric heat pumps are critical to the…
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Otherwise Objectionable Podcast episode 1: ‘The Most Misunderstood Law on the Internet’
Otherwise Objectionable is the brand-new limited series podcast that tells the true story of how a previously-obscure defamation law, Section 230 of the 1996…
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14 priorities in slashing spending and regulation before ‘America 250’—#7 will shock you!
This past week, the House and Senate passed a continuing resolution (CR) that preserves Biden-era spending levels while largely turning a blind eye to…
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Let’s cut the cord on federal funding for NPR and PBS
They are products of a media landscape that no longer exists. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) was born through the Public Broadcasting Act…
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Will BlackRock revive Social Security reform?
Earlier this week mega asset manager BlackRock hosted a high-profile public event in Washington, D.C. focused on retirement savings, with several A-list panelists from…
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Gov. Youngkin should veto restrictive credit bill
While many watchful eyes focus on the economic impacts of actions of federal lawmakers inside the Beltway, pending legislation in a statehouse 100 miles south…
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Free the Economy podcast: Broadcasting liberty with Jeff Westling
In this week’s episode we discuss Trump tariffs (via AEI’s Jim Pethokoukis and Apricitas Economics’s Joey Politano), the death…
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Shutdowns are fake, but government growth is very real
With a government funding deadline looming on March 14, the House passed a continuing resolution (CR) to freeze non-defense spending at Fiscal Year 2024…
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Plans to build gas plants respond to increased power demand
Energy companies respond to surging AI demand with behind-the-meter solutions. Rising power demand, led by the buildout of data centers for Artificial Intelligence (AI), is leading…
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Chavez-DeRemer exemplifies Trump’s complicated relationship with unions
The Senate confirmed former Oregon Congresswoman Lori Chavez-DeRemer in a 67-32 vote Monday as President Trump’s new labor secretary. CEI and others…
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Russia tariffs won’t bring peace
President Trump seems to think that tariffs can accomplish almost anything. My colleague Iain Murray recently pointed out that Trump believes tariffs can raise…
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This week in ridiculous regulations: NEPA and refrigerators
President Trump delayed some tariffs against Canada and Mexico, but let others take effect. He also enacted a sixth round of tariffs against China and…
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Free the Economy podcast: Striving for shareholder value with Matt Cole
In this week’s episode we discuss executive branch powers at the Supreme Court, BP’s pivot back to being an oil and gas…
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Legislation would restore the full power of the Seventh Amendment
Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-WY) has introduced a bill offering the first legislative step toward administrative law court (ALC) reform. Known as the Seventh…
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Trump EO on crypto reserves rightly eschews government purchases
After much anticipation, President Donald Trump’s newly issued executive order (EO) on a “Strategic Bitcoin Reserve” and “digital asset stockpile” does not call for…
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The CFPB drops its misguided case against Zelle
Seemingly as part of the general order to stop work by acting director Russ Vought, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has dropped…
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You want hiring freezes with that? The effects of California’s minimum wage increase
California officially raised its minimum wage to $20 an hour last April in an attempt to help the state’s working poor. What those folks…
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DOGE’s first cut at bureaucracy: A target inventory
Donald Trump’s Executive Order 14219, “Ensuring Lawful Governance and Implementing the President’s ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ Regulatory Initiative,” has set the stage for a major…
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CEI’s The Surge: CRA resolutions, Climate Disclosure Rule, and 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 and…
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Pressure brought to bear to delist ‘threatened’ grizzlies
On February 5th, Reps. Harriet Hageman (R-WY), Russ Fulcher (R-ID), Ryan Zinke (R-MT), and Troy Downing (R-MT) sent a letter to President…
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White House requires federal agencies to disclose time spent working for unions instead of taxpayers
The Trump administration has restored reporting and transparency requirements for so-called “official time,” the practice where government workers are allowed to act exclusively on behalf…
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This week in ridiculous regulations: Crab specifications and dominant postal products
More tariffs are on the way against China. President Trump announced that delayed tariffs against Canada and Mexico will go through. The actor Gene Hackman…
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Trump labor department pick signals pro-market stance on joint employer, independent contract rules
Keith Sonderling, Trump’s pick to deputy secretary of labor, the department’s second-ranking position, told the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee this…
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Presidential discretion allowed by the Impoundment Control Act
The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) publishing my paper this week about the possible constitutional arguments against the Impoundment Control Act of 1974. This…
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My State of the Union message: Restore separation of powers
President Trump is giving a speech on March 4 to a joint session of Congress. In a syndicated column for Inside Sources, I argue…
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Don’t let a government shutdown stop mergers
With a March 14 deadline looming, the US is heading towards another government shutdown. Congressional Democrats seem willing to let funding lapse unless they…
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Free the Economy podcast: Alabama does DOGE with Stephanie Smith
In this week’s episode we discuss poverty in Illinois, J.D. Vance on AI in Paris, the future of the Jones Act and…
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SEC abandons legal arguments in favor of climate disclosure rule
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced this month that it will no longer defend the indefensible, abandoning in court its arguments favoring mandatory…
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With Section 230 under threat, Otherwise Objectionable tells the true story of the most misunderstood law on the internet
Section 230, the foundational law that governs defamation liability online, has been under attack by partisans on both the left and the right in recent…
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The FROGs are back: Will White House hop to it on guidance documents?
Donald Trump’s 2019’s Executive Order 13891, “Promoting the Rule of Law through Improved Agency Guidance Documents,” established online portals and inventories at…
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This week in ridiculous regulations: pillar coral and mailing cremains
President Trump blamed Ukraine for its invasion by Russia and called Volodymyr Zelenskyy a dictator. He also issued an executive order with potential to…
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The SCRUB Act: Washing away Washington’s regulatory grime
The Searching for and Cutting Regulations that are Unnecessarily Burdensome (SCRUB) Act, introduced today by Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA), is a key step …
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Lawsuit by Texas, Utah could change small reactor regulation
The states of Texas and Utah—along with Last Energy, a company that builds small modular reactors—are suing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), arguing that it…
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Tossing gold bars off the Titanic is just the tip of the IRA iceberg
The Biden Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rushed to dole out billions of taxpayer dollars before President Donald Trump took office. A former Biden EPA official…
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Free the Economy podcast: Defend yourself from debanking with Nick Anthony
In this week’s episode we discuss public confidence in the economy, California’s electric vehicle mandate, the prospect of a sovereign wealth fund…
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Trump executive order puts independent agencies on a leash
President Trump’s new executive order, “Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies,” marks a major shift in regulatory oversight by bringing independent agencies…
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Trump labor secretary pick backs right to work, disavows past support for union-tilted PRO Act
President Trump’s pick to be labor secretary, former Oregon Congresswoman Lori Chavez-DeRemer, disavowed her past support for the union-tilted …
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CEI to Supreme Court: Please don’t let executive branch set tax rates
Yesterday, the Competitive Enterprise Institute filed an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to recognize that only Congress has the authority to write the…
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Trump says labor law cannot prevent him from cleaning house at labor umpire agency
President’s Trump’s letter firing National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Chairwoman Gwynne Wilcox and the NLRB’s general Counsel, Jennifer Abruzzo, makes the bold claim that…
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Animal personalities, individualism, and economics
One of my hobbies is finding economics in unexpected places. The biologist and animal rescuer John Shivik’s 2017 book Mousy Cats and Sheepish Coyotes: The…
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This week in ridiculous regulations: flax revenue and female test dummies
President Trump announced reciprocal tariffs. At this point it is uncertain how they would be implemented. Agencies issued new regulations ranging from butterfat testing to…
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Free the Economy podcast: Pivot or Die with Gary Shapiro
In this week’s episode we discuss corporate DEI mandates, financial surveillance at the Securities and Exchange Commission, medical fraud among Alzheimer’s…
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Goodbye to the roaring twenties of regulation? A cost roundup
The final Report to Congress on the Benefits and Costs of Federal Regulations from the Biden administration appeared January 15. Here at the middle…
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Sovereign wealth funds: Should governments invest in private businesses?
President Trump recently signed an executive order to study creating a sovereign wealth fund for the US government. If the proposal comes to pass,…
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Trio of agencies scrap their climate disclosure mandate, SEC should take note
Prior to Inauguration Day 2025, the Department of Defense (DoD), General Service Administration (GSA), and National Aeronautics Space Administration (NASA) collectively withdrew a…