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September 23, 2020
Yesterday, in the most recent installment of CEI’s “Repeal for Resilience” event series, CEI President Kent Lassman welcomed Securities and Exchange Commission member Hester Peirce and former SEC Commissioner Paul Atkins for a discussion on the future of finance regulation. Peirce led off with a description of some of the SEC’s helpful policy responses to the coronavirus pandemic.
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September 23, 2020
The Business Roundtable released a new policy document recently, “Addressing Climate Change.” The statement seems crafted to cover BRT members over a wide range of scenarios while exposing them to the least possible financial risk. That’s fine for them, but not exactly some kind of major change in corporate attitudes. It is also unlikely to garner them the environmental halo they clearly covet.
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September 22, 2020
Tech companies regulators are targeting have the pandemic easier to endure. Antitrust lawsuits would not help the COVID-19 response. The real cost of antitrust policy is its chilling effect on new innovations. Ramping up antitrust enforcement would leave us less resilient against the next crisis. Read the new CEI paper, “Repeal #NeverNeeded Antitrust Laws that Hinder COVID-19 Response.”
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September 22, 2020
Republican members of the Senate Commerce Committee recently introduced the SAFE DATA Act. While the bill includes much needed federal preemption of state privacy laws, it also creates regulations that would threaten innovation and ultimately harm consumers more than it helps them.
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September 22, 2020
Last year, California passed AB5, intended to go after rideshare companies Uber and Lyft. The law requires “gig economy” companies to classify all of their workers as employees. These restrictions went into place exactly as the COVID-19 outbreak hit. People found themselves stuck at home and in need of alternate, temporary means to earn money. What are typically called gig economy jobs.
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September 21, 2020
Three months have passed since the FAA granted a special waiver to the drone delivery company Zipline International. Early last week, Walmart announced a partnership with Zipline to “launch a first-of-its-kind drone delivery operation in the U.S.” to distribute health and other wellness products. This innovation could have substantial health and economic benefits.
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September 21, 2020
Scientists may have found potential chemical evidence of life on Venus—phosphine gas, which in Venusian conditions may well have been produced by anaerobic (non-oxygen-using) microbes. No life forms have been directly observed, and phosphine is also present in the atmospheres of lifeless Jupiter and Saturn, but that is still a pretty big deal. In more earthly realms, regulatory agencies issued new regulations ranging from watermelon promotion to natural gas emissions.
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September 18, 2020
For more than 50 years, Americans have used washing machines to clean their clothes and dryers to dry them. Manufacturers built highly effective products that did the job quickly so people had the time to do other things they valued more. Sadly, in the last few decades, the government has been slowly decreasing the energy such machines could use, causing them to take longer and clean less effectively. But the Department of Energy is proposing to solve this problem by once again allow manufacturers to produce machines that can clean clothes quickly and thoroughly and get them dried must faster.
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September 18, 2020
Two Democratic leaders of the House Natural Resources Committee are demanding that the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration explain why it hired a “climate denier” to be the new Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Environmental Observation and Prediction. The alleged “denier” is David R. Legates, a climatologist and professor at the University of Delaware. According to Google Scholar, Legates has authored or co-authored 146 papers, which have been cited 12,755 times in the scientific literature. A question for the Reps. Grijalva and Huffman: How can one "deny" science, yet contribute so much to it?
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September 18, 2020
The Department of Justice last week filed its initial reply brief in Union of Concerned Scientists v. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, a case in which California and its allies are petitioning the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to vacate the One National Program Rule. That rule clarifies that federal law preempts state government greenhouse gas and zero emission vehicle standards. Today’s post—Part 1 of this series—summarizes and excerpts DOJ’s defense of NHTSA’s preemption of California’s CO2 tailpipe and zero-emission vehicle standards.
Yesterday, in the most recent installment of CEI’s “Repeal for Resilience” event series, CEI President Kent Lassman welcomed Securities and Exchange Commission member Hester Peirce and former SEC Commissioner Paul Atkins for a discussion on the future of finance regulation. Peirce led off with a description of some of the SEC’s helpful policy responses to the coronavirus pandemic.
The Business Roundtable released a new policy document recently, “Addressing Climate Change.” The statement seems crafted to cover BRT members over a wide range of scenarios while exposing them to the least possible financial risk. That’s fine for them, but not exactly some kind of major change in corporate attitudes. It is also unlikely to garner them the environmental halo they clearly covet.
Tech companies regulators are targeting have the pandemic easier to endure. Antitrust lawsuits would not help the COVID-19 response. The real cost of antitrust policy is its chilling effect on new innovations. Ramping up antitrust enforcement would leave us less resilient against the next crisis. Read the new CEI paper, “Repeal #NeverNeeded Antitrust Laws that Hinder COVID-19 Response.”
Republican members of the Senate Commerce Committee recently introduced the SAFE DATA Act. While the bill includes much needed federal preemption of state privacy laws, it also creates regulations that would threaten innovation and ultimately harm consumers more than it helps them.
Last year, California passed AB5, intended to go after rideshare companies Uber and Lyft. The law requires “gig economy” companies to classify all of their workers as employees. These restrictions went into place exactly as the COVID-19 outbreak hit. People found themselves stuck at home and in need of alternate, temporary means to earn money. What are typically called gig economy jobs.
Three months have passed since the FAA granted a special waiver to the drone delivery company Zipline International. Early last week, Walmart announced a partnership with Zipline to “launch a first-of-its-kind drone delivery operation in the U.S.” to distribute health and other wellness products. This innovation could have substantial health and economic benefits.
Scientists may have found potential chemical evidence of life on Venus—phosphine gas, which in Venusian conditions may well have been produced by anaerobic (non-oxygen-using) microbes. No life forms have been directly observed, and phosphine is also present in the atmospheres of lifeless Jupiter and Saturn, but that is still a pretty big deal. In more earthly realms, regulatory agencies issued new regulations ranging from watermelon promotion to natural gas emissions.
For more than 50 years, Americans have used washing machines to clean their clothes and dryers to dry them. Manufacturers built highly effective products that did the job quickly so people had the time to do other things they valued more. Sadly, in the last few decades, the government has been slowly decreasing the energy such machines could use, causing them to take longer and clean less effectively. But the Department of Energy is proposing to solve this problem by once again allow manufacturers to produce machines that can clean clothes quickly and thoroughly and get them dried must faster.
Two Democratic leaders of the House Natural Resources Committee are demanding that the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration explain why it hired a “climate denier” to be the new Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Environmental Observation and Prediction. The alleged “denier” is David R. Legates, a climatologist and professor at the University of Delaware. According to Google Scholar, Legates has authored or co-authored 146 papers, which have been cited 12,755 times in the scientific literature. A question for the Reps. Grijalva and Huffman: How can one "deny" science, yet contribute so much to it? 
The Department of Justice last week filed its initial reply brief in Union of Concerned Scientists v. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, a case in which California and its allies are petitioning the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to vacate the One National Program Rule. That rule clarifies that federal law preempts state government greenhouse gas and zero emission vehicle standards. Today’s post—Part 1 of this series—summarizes and excerpts DOJ’s defense of NHTSA’s preemption of California’s CO2 tailpipe and zero-emission vehicle standards.