OpenMarket

Last week, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler announced a U.S. effort to address plastic litter buildup in oceans and other waters. The desire to solve this problem is laudable, but the plan’s focus on government spending and command-and-control waste disposal policies is the opposite of what we need.

After 15 years of unrelenting regulation and litigation, the days of net neutrality as a live policy issue in Washington may be numbered. At its open meeting today, the FCC approved an order aimed at resolving some lingering questions about the agency’s Restoring Internet Freedom order.

The Labor Department has an interesting new idea: only publicly shame companies when it is clear that they have made serious violations of the law. It has ruffled the feathers of a few veterans of the prior administration who think the principle of “innocent until proven guilty” should not apply to businesses.

 A California appeals court ruling caps a crusade against ride-sharing apps in the state.

Just days before Californians themselves were set to decide on the matter, a state appeals court has ruled that app-based ride-sharing companies Uber and Lyft must comply  with state law AB5 and classify all of their drivers as employees rather than contractors. The ruling raises the possibility that the companies ...

The Justice Department filed an antitrust case against Google. It is the highest-profile antitrust case since the 1998-2002 Microsoft case. The OSIRIS-Rex spacecraft landed on an asteroid 200 million miles away, collected a rock sample, and is now returning to Earth. Meanwhile, regulatory agencies issued new regulations ranging from allulose to off-road vehicles.

The comment period for the EPA's proposed greenhouse gas emissions standards for commercial aircraft ended on October 12. There was a roughly even split between industry comments supporting the proposed standard and environmental groups and governmental officials complaining that it did not go far enough. However, not every commenter supported the EPA’s decision to regulate in the first place.

Boeing recently announced plans to consolidate all production of its 787 Dreamliner jet in South Carolina. In response, Governor Jay Inslee released a statement that called Boeing’s move “an insult to the hardworking aerospace employees” of the state and threatened “a review of our partnership and the company's favorable tax treatment.” In other words, retribution.

On Tuesday, the Department of Justice filed an antitrust complaint against Google. It marks the beginning of the first major monopolization case since the 1998-2002 Microsoft case. The filing’s timing and content are heavily politicized, and the quality of the complaint reflects this.

Anyone with a passing knowledge of American history is aware of the failures of prohibition. Both the now-repealed ban on alcohol and the ongoing “war on drugs” did little to reduce demand for substances, instead pushing people toward more dangerous behaviors, fueling illicit markets and drug cartels, and putting otherwise law-abiding citizens in conflict (sometimes fatal) with law enforcement.

October 27 is the deadline for submitting final legal briefs to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in Union of Concerned Scientists v. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The case pits California against the Trump administration over the One National Program Rule. If upheld, the rule will terminate California’s tailpipe greenhouse gas emission standards and zero-emission vehicle mandate.