It’s been 800 years since England’s King John signed the Magna Carta and acknowledged that a sovereign’s authority was limited. Allan Meltzer and Kenneth Scott, both of the Hoover Institution, explain how this document planted the seed of the Rule of Law: Although general agreement on the precise definition of the “rule of law” is […]
Hydraulic fracturing, when done correctly, is safe and saves Americans money. The science says so. EPA looked at scientific studies, government, NGO, and industry data and concluded that hydraulic fracturing has not had “widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water.” For those of us closely involved in the debate over shale energy, this report simply reaffirms what previous science […]
Unions like the SEIU have spent millions funding “worker centers” that stage “grassroots,” “Fight for $15” minimum wage protests. In Los Angeles, they scored a win. However, unions want to be exempted from the wage hike: Labor leaders, who were among the strongest supporters of the citywide minimum wage increase approved last week by the Los Angeles City Council, […]
The Obama administration didn’t listen. Instead, it went ahead with its regulatory overreach over America’s waters. This worries farmers, ranchers, and other businesses. EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers released their final Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule–known as the “Clean Water Rule” in EPA lingo–that claims jurisdiction over vast swaths of the country. In a statement EPA […]
In March, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy bragged to a Senate Committee about the outpouring of public support for its proposed water regulations: We have received over 1 million comments and 87.1 percent of those comments we have counted so far… are supportive of this rule. No wonder EPA received so many public comments on its draft Waters […]
By outsourcing an audit to a high-priced law firm, the IRS might have broken the law, and the Senate Finance Committee Chairman wants to know why. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) wrote a scathing letter to IRS Commissioner John Koskinen asking why his agency hired the “law firm of Quinn Emanuel on a $2.2 million contract” to assist […]
At his annual shareholders’ meeting, Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett said raising the minimum wage isn’t the answer to economic ills [emphasis mine]: “I don’t have anything against raising the minimum wage but I don’t think you can do it in a significant enough way without creating a lot of distortions,” Buffett, 84, Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s chief […]
Geographically the headquarters of U.S. Chamber and the AFL-CIO are only a block apart. But philosophically on trade policy they’re light years apart. Although friends, the U.S. Chamber President and CEO Tom Donohue and AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka squared off on opposite sides at a Senate Finance Committee hearing on TPA renewal and forging ahead with trade agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership […]
In the last few years, we’ve seen innovative companies combine old and new technologies to tap into shale deposits that were once unreachable. The resulting shale energy boom has made the United States the world’s top oil and natural gas producer while creating jobs and improving the nation’s energy security. Now that we’ve moved from […]
Something to think about after the Senate failed to override President Obama’s Keystone XL veto is that not long ago, pipelines weren’t tied up in regulatory limbo and the focus of anti-energy advocates. Ken Cohen, Exxon Mobile’s vice president of public and government affairs, looks at a pipeline approved by the Obama administration that does the same thing Keystone XL will […]
Pultizer Prize-winning author Daniel Yergin, wrote in the New York Times that global energy markets are at an inflection point. The role of the world’s “swing producer” has swung to the United States: By leaving oil prices to the market, Saudi Arabia and the emirates also passed the responsibility as de facto swing producer to a country that […]
On the first day of taking control of the U.S. Senate, Republicans ran into some trouble: Democrats managed to put the kibosh on a planned Energy and Natural Resources [ENR] Committee hearing today on Keystone XL, forcing Republicans to cancel the event. Sen. Dick Durbin, on behalf of Barbara Boxer, objected to a GOP floor move […]
In a meeting with business leaders, President Obama had some interesting things to say about regulations, the Washington Times reports: You have regulations that are poorly written. You’ve got regulations that are not properly synced up so that you have different agencies with different responsibilities, and so compliance costs end up skyrocketing. You have regulations that squash innovation. He sounds […]
Jon Sourbeer, a computer science student and science fiction writer in Washington State, got so angry at the $20.91 settlement check he received from Toyota that he wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal [subscription required]. However, if you think he’s mad at the car company for stiffing him, you’re wrong. Sourbeer points out that while he […]
Ignore the cheers from the White House, the State Department, Mother Jones, and elsewhere over the U.S.-China greenhouse gas agreement. It’s simply another attack on abundant American energy and the economy. Secretary of State John Kerry detailed the deal in the New York Times: “For the first time China is announcing a peak year for its carbon emissions – around 2030 […]