COMPETITIVE ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE

VOL. 31, NO. 2 | SPRING 2018

FEATURED ARTICLES

Trump is Cutting Regulations,

but Only Congress Can Make
4
BY MARC SCRIBNER
Reform Last
Cracking Down on Automated
Vehicles Would Mean More BY WAYNE CREWS AND RYAN YOUNG
Death and Destruction

W hen President Trump first took office, he

issued a handful of executive orders
to cut red tape and reduce the ways that
Washington micromanages Americans’ lives.
As the news cycle has shifted to Russia, Syria,
7 and tax reform, the administration has quietly
used tools like Trump’s one-in-two-out process
BY JESSICA MELUGIN to slow the growth of federal regulations that
Consumers Lose if Internet dictate what Americans can buy, sell, and
Sales Tax Goes into Effect even do on a day-to-day basis.
Trump’s regulatory reform efforts saved
the economy about $570 million in 2017.
When compared to the overall cost of federal
regulations, that barely makes a dent, but it’s
a start. The U.S. budget is approximately $4
11 trillion. Though they provide benefits, federal
regulations cost all of us nearly half of that
BY MARLO LEWIS ever year, according to an estimate in the
Cutting Tailpipe Emissions Not that 2018 edition of 10,000 Commandments,
Effective against Global Warming CEI’s annual survey of the federal regulatory
state. With an annual tab of almost $1.9 tril- The answer is: Only if Congress helps
lion, federal regulations cost nearly $15,000 out. Despite a number of executive orders,
per household if you look at the long-term outlook, federal
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE Shining some light on this hidden tax and agencies already have a slew of regulations
reducing the burden of federal rules on U.S. planned that could reverse Trump’s early
Coffee Won’t Kill You, but CAFE Might. . . . . 5 innovators and entrepreneurs is a rare bright progress. To prevent erasing gains made
Tech Companies Should Avoid a Devil’s spot for the Trump administration. In fact, his thus far, Congress needs to give Trump’s
Bargain with Big Government. . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
predecessors set the bar so low that Trump reforms legislative teeth before his affinities
There’s Nothing to Fear About Modest could already be considered one of the most
Banking Reform. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
for protectionism and antitrust get in the way,
successful deregulatory presidents in 40 and before the next administration reverses
For Some Class-Action Lawyers, Charity
Begins and Ends at Home. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
years. In 2017, federal regulators issued the course with the stroke of a pen.
lowest number of final rules—3,281—since One promising proposal in Congress is
Don’t Fear Worker Freedom . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
the National Archives began publishing these a regulatory budget. This would build on
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. . . . . . . . . 14
numbers in 1976. But the important question Trump’s executive order that only allows
Media Mentions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 is: Will it last? agencies to issue a new rule if its net costs
End Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
(continued on page 3)
 Three Branches and Seven Principles
by Kent Lassman

W e spend a lot of time and energy educating

policy makers about the tradeoffs associated
with regulation. Some costs of the regulatory state are
more easily measured, like the billions of dollars in
compliance costs taken out of the economy. Yet, some
other costs go straight to the question of individual
liberty and our constitutional order.
The regulatory state is often thought of as a
FROM THE PRESIDENT
• Withhold appropriations for agency initiatives
that Congress has not approved.
• Require sunset provisions for agency rules.
• Rein in overregulation via “regulatory dark
matter” by requiring disclosure of all guidance
documents issued by federal agencies.
Lawmakers who are serious about easing the

fourth branch of government. I think that is too kind. weight of costly regulations from their constituents’
It suggests that the Framers of the Constitution could lives should seriously consider these principles. For
have picked any number of branches, so long as more on CEI’s Principles for Regulatory Reform,
powers were divided and balanced against one please go to www.principles.cei.org.
another. Unfortunately, the balance is lost with the
20th century innovation of the regulatory state.
Today, there are multitudes of federal agen-
cies staffed by tens of thousands of unelected
officials who do the bulk of lawmaking. Last
year, Congress enacted 97 laws while agencies
issued 3,281 rules. And some rules are imposed
via “regulatory dark matter” in the form of guid-
ance documents, memoranda, and other agency
issuances.
With all that in mind, here at CEI we’ve devel-
oped seven simple principles to guide regulatory
reform. We believe that Congress should:
• Reassert its constitutional authority over

SAVE THE DATE

lawmaking by improving regulatory over-
sight and resisting delegation of its legislative
authority to the executive branch.
• Hold agencies accountable for their activi-
ties and improve disclosure by requiring
agencies to present complete data regard-
ing regulation and regulatory activity to
Congress and the American public.

• Survey the existing body of regulations and CEI’s 2018 Annual Dinner and Reception
statutes in order to reduce red tape. Freedom: The Greatest Show on Earth
• Reduce final rules and pages in the Federal June 28, 2018
Register and Code of Federal Regulations as cei.org/ceidinner
these correlate to regulatory burdens.

The CEI Planet is produced by the Competitive Enterprise

Publisher Institute, a pro-market public interest group dedicated to
Kent Lassman free enterprise and limited government.
Editor
CEI is a non-partisan, non-profit organization incorporated in
Ivan Osorio
Ph (202) 331-1010 the District of Columbia and is classified by the IRS as a 501
Fax (202) 331-0640 Associate Editor (c)(3) charity. CEI relies upon contributions from foundations,
info@cei.org Richard Morrison corporations, and individuals for its support. Articles may be
reprinted provided they are attributed to CEI.
ISSN#: 1086-3036

2 CEI.ORG COMPETITIVE ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE

 Regulations, continued
are zero. Just as the federal govern-
ment releases an annual spending
budget, an annual regulatory budget
would allow each federal agency a
certain amount of costs they could
impose on American businesses and
consumers. This would force agencies
to prioritize rules that are efficient and
effective and ditch rules that are out-
dated, burdensome, or fail to accom-
plish their goals.
As it is now, agencies largely
police themselves, which allows them
to get away with number fudging and
skewed assumptions without adequate
oversight or accountability. To date,
Congress has been unwilling to step
in, preferring to blame unelected
agencies when a regulation proves
unpopular or controversial. A regu-
latory budget would restore some
accountability to agency behavior,
while allowing Congress to set the
rules of the road.
Although a regulatory budget
would be a good start, it alone will
not solve our problems. Without clear,
uniform standards for calculating
regulatory costs, it is difficult, if not
impossible, to gauge with precision
how well agencies are keeping to their
allotted budgets.
An even more important reform
that Congress could pass would
require lawmakers to vote on costly,
complex, and controversial rules
before they become binding on the
public. This would preempt the blame
game between Congress and agen-
cies for undesirable regulations.
Increasing transparency, account-
ability, and disclosure should appeal
to both sides of the political aisle. At
a minimum, policy makers and the
public need to be able to gauge how
agencies are doing their jobs.
A government that tries to do
everything does nothing well. Rather
COMPETITIVE ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE
Rather than
spread itself thin,
government should
concentrate on its
core responsibilities
and take steps
to ensure open,
competitive markets.
than spread itself thin, government
should concentrate on its core respon-
sibilities and take steps to ensure open,
competitive markets.
Eventually, politicians will be
forced to get spending and defi-
cits under control, but regulatory
reforms are just as important to keep
the economy growing and moving
forward. Cutting red tape and freeing
entrepreneurs to innovate will enrich
society and give consumers more
choice and likely more money in their
pockets. And by making the overall
economy healthier, Congress could
in turn improve the unhealthy federal
budget in the process, making a politi-
cally difficult job a little easier.
Wayne Crews (wayne.crews@cei.
org) is vice president for policy at CEI
and author of CEI’s annual report, Ten
Thousand Commandments. Ryan Young
(ryan.young@cei.org) is a CEI fellow.
A version of this article was originally
published in USA Today.
C E I . O R G 3
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Enterprise Institute carry
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 Cracking Down on Automated Vehicles
Would Mean More Death and Destruction
BY MARC SCRIBNER
I n March, tragedy struck in Tempe,
Arizona, where Elaine Herzberg was
struck and killed by an Uber automated
test vehicle while crossing a darkened
roadway. Clearly, something went
wrong with Uber’s automated driving
system.
Early reports suggest that the vehi-
cle did not apply the brakes prior to the
collision. The test vehicle was equipped
with a Velodyne LiDAR array affixed to
the top of the vehicle that should have
identified Herzberg as a pedestrian
and allowed for the vehicle’s software
to safely respond. But it appears the
system didn’t properly detect and clas-
sify her while crossing. Or perhaps it
did, but failed to accurately predict her
movements and respond accordingly.
However, it is not clear if a human
driver would have made this a sur-
vivable event. The Uber test vehicle,
manned by a safety driver who may
have been distracted, was travel-
ing several miles per hour below the
posted speed limit and dashboard
video shows Herzberg crossing out
of the dark into the vehicle’s path just
before the fatal collision.
State and federal investigators are
on the ground and it will take some
time for their findings to be made
public on exactly what went wrong.
The roadway where the crash occurred
also appears to be hostile to pedestrian
traffic, implicating street design as a
contributing crash factor. But beyond
that, we know very little.
Yet, this lack of knowledge has not
kept proponents of the precautionary
principle from calling for all sorts of
government regulatory interventions—
from a requirement that test vehicles
certify to nonexistent standards to a
nationwide prohibition on any public
road testing in the near future.
4 CEI.ORG
Elaine Herzberg’s death was a trag-
edy, but it should not distract us from
the lifesaving possibilities of automated
vehicle technology. Some 35,000 to
40,000 Americans can be expected
to die at the hands of human drivers
every year, including around 6,000
pedestrians. And according to federal
estimates, human error or misbehavior
is a critical crash factor in around 19
out of 20 crashes. Advocates of new
regulations on automated vehicles—for
which a dearth in technical under-
standing means the government would
largely be flying blind—often fail to
acknowledge this fundamental risk-risk
tradeoff.
Uber and government investigators
should be as transparent as possible in
conducting their inquiries and report-
ing their findings. Whether Uber is held
at fault or not, the company should
commit to identifying and rectifying any
errors in its automated driving system—
and gaps in its test-driver protocols—
that may have contributed to this
crash. If Uber finds that its technology
and practices are not able to achieve
at least a level of safety on the road
equivalent to that of traditional human-
driven cars, it should focus on working
out these problems in closed-track test-
ing and virtual traffic simulations before
resuming public road testing.
COMPETITIVE ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE
Dramatic responses to tragic events
rarely yield sound public policy.
Politicians and regulators need to
understand that rashly enacted, poorly
informed regulation aimed at mitigating
one risk could mean amplifying other,
often existing risks that claim many
more victims every year.
Instead of overreacting to tragedy,
as is their tendency, politicians and
regulators should continue their largely
hands-off approach to automated
vehicle regulation. Road testing is the
best way to continue improving the
performance of automated driving sys-
tems, as closed-track testing and virtual
simulations cannot substitute for the
complex messiness of real-life traffic.
Throughout that process, engineers will
have the time and information to write
technical standards to better inform any
future regulatory changes. But cutting
off or greatly curtailing automated
vehicle road testing would only fore-
stall the radical safety improvements
that can help end much of the death
and destruction that occur on America’s
roadways due to driver error.
Marc Scribner (marc.scribner@cei.org)
is a senior fellow at CEI. A version of
this article was originally published on
OpenMarket.org.
 Coffee Won’t Kill You, but CAFE Might
“obscured the safety problem” through less significant. But the basic relation-
BY SAM KAZMAN a combination of “fudged analysis,” ship between size and safety has not
“statistical legerdemain,” and “bureau- changed. The Insurance Institute for

F or decades, federal auto fuel

economy standards have posed a
simple problem: They kill people. Worse,
the National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration (NHTSA) has covered
this up. The Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA), which since 2009 has
helped manage the Corporate Average
Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards, also
played a role in burying their deleteri-
ous effects. But change finally is coming.
On April 2, EPA Administrator Scott
Pruitt announced his agency is reex-
amining the stringent standards set by
the Obama administration in 2012.
This might finally bring some honesty
to the issue of CAFE’s lethal effects and
push the safety issue to the forefront of
the debate over government efficiency
mandates. Or it might not.
To call it a coverup isn’t hyperbole.
CAFE kills people by causing cars to be
made smaller and lighter. While these
downsized cars are more fuel efficient,
they are also less crashworthy. In 1992
in Competitive Enterprise Institute v.
NHTSA, a lawsuit CEI brought with
Consumer Alert, a federal appeals
court ruled that the agency had
cratic mumbo-jumbo.” In the court’s
view, nothing in the record “appears to
undermine the inference that the 27.5
mpg standard kills people.”
How many people? A 1989
Harvard-Brookings study estimated
the death toll at between 2,200 and
3,900 a year. Similarly, a 2002
National Academy of Sciences study
estimated that CAFE had contributed
to up to 2,600 fatalities in 1993. This
was at a relatively lenient CAFE level
of 27.5 miles per gallon. Under what
the Obama administration had in store,
CAFE would soon approach levels
twice as stringent.
These inconvenient truths should
have led the government to change
its approach to CAFE. At least the
standards didn’t get worse for about
a decade throughout the 1990s,
despite environmentalist demands for
a stricter—and therefore more lethal—
approach. But then CAFE was swept
up in climate change politics.
Advocates of stringent standards
claim that automotive technologies
have advanced since that 1992
court ruling, making vehicle mass
Highway Safety, which closely moni-
tors crashworthiness, still provides the
same advice it has been giving for
years: “Bigger, heavier vehicles are
safer.”
CAFE advocates like Consumer
Reports treat lighter cars as merely a
question of comfort, not crashworthi-
ness. Automakers and dealers may
express concerns about safety in the
abstract, but considerations of politics
and marketing make them hesitant to
discuss hard numbers.
In his announcement, Pruitt proved
admirably blunt in characterizing the
Obama CAFE standards as based
on “politically charged expediency”
and assumptions “that didn’t com-
port with reality.” Let’s hope he’ll be
similarly candid about CAFE’s risks. A
lethal program that’s been in effect for
decades deserves one thing above
all—an accounting.
Sam Kazman (sam.kazman@cei.org)
is general counsel at CEI. A version of
this article was originally published in
The Wall Street Journal.

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COMPETITIVE ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE C E I . O R G 5

 Tech Companies Should Avoid a Devil’s
Bargain with Big Government
BY WAYNE CREWS AND RICHARD
MORRISON
F acebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s
recent testimony before a joint
session of the Senate Judiciary and
Commerce Committees was troubling
in some ways. Zuckerberg’s comments
suggested that Facebook is prepared
to accept liability for the harmlessness
and accuracy of all the hundreds of bil-
lions of pieces of content posted on the
platform, which is a terrible precedent
for any tech leader to create—even if
his company is one of the few that can
afford to hire an additional 20,000 full-
time content reviewers in a single year.
He also seemed to go along with
the premise that a social media net-
work consisting of 2 billion users can
be hijacked to the point of threatening
the legitimacy of a presidential election
with a $100,000 ad buy. That’s absurd,
and an insult to the 99.99 percent of
politically involved Facebook users who
aren’t Russian trolls. Total political cam-
paign ad spending, by the way—across
all formats—was approximately $9.8
billion for the 2016 election cycle.
He also seemed open to regula-
tion of political ideas and of what
constitutes “fake”—which is even more
troubling, since most of the controversial
6 CEI.ORG
political content on Facebook consists
of opinion, advocacy, and ideological
signaling rather than content presented
as news coverage. What constitutes a
“true” claim or proposition in politics is
often in the eye of the beholder, as the
complex ecosystem of fact checking and
counter-fact checking organizations and
websites around today—and their crit-
ics—amply demonstrate.
Facebook, of course, is free to pursue
whatever news verification partnerships
it sees fit—as it has since December
2016—but that may not stop members
of Congress from seeking the ability to
bully, bribe, and threaten the company
into cementing in place some set of
guidelines that a handful of politically
powerful individuals want right now, as
opposed to leaving the company free
to evolve and respond to new develop-
ments going forward. Facebook already
has the world’s largest global network
of users, so giving up the freedom to
set its own procedures for some kind of
qualified or implied legal immunity in the
future could be very tempting.
However, any new set of rules that
comes with a congressional seal of
approval can be expected to lead to
more government-enforced definitions
of what counts as “fake” and deni-
als of the ability of individuals to post
on social media anonymously. This
COMPETITIVE ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE
could make it next to impossible for
the next generation of companies after
Facebook to emerge and grow. Despite
being a large and influential company,
Facebook is in no way an “essential
facility” or “monopoly,” especially not
in the sense of being a news outlet.
Fewer than 20 percent of Americans say
that they get news “often” from social
media—including Facebook, Twitter,
Snapchat, Tumblr, YouTube, and Reddit.
In a nation with a vibrant, low-cost
Internet infrastructure and strong First
Amendment protections, it is meaning-
less to talk about public discourse being
“monopolized” by any single company
or tech platform. Government regula-
tion, on the other hand, could give
one company or platform an unfair
advantage over rivals and newcomers,
truly stifling the free exchange of ideas.
Zuckerberg is understandably motivated
to demonstrate to the powers that be
in Washington that his team is taking
consumer concerns seriously, but seek-
ing to placate the Beltway bigwigs risks
threatening the culture of free expression
he’s supposedly trying to protect.
Wayne Crews (wayne.crews@cei.org) is
vice president for policy at CEI. A version
of this article was originally published on
OpenMarket.org.
Consumers Lose if Internet Sales Tax
Goes into Effect
BY JESSICA MELUGIN
I n April, the U.S. Supreme Court heard
a case that could affect the future of
online commerce, specifically small
online sellers and those who purchase
their products.
In South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc.,
the Court will determine whether state
government officials may collect Internet
sales tax on purchases coming from a
seller that is not physically present in a
consumer’s state.
Revenue-hungry state and local
officials and retail giants have lobbied
members of Congress for nearly two
decades to eliminate the physical pres-
ence limit on state taxing powers. These
politicians would love to tax sellers in
other states, who can’t vote them out of
office, while retail giants welcome any
policy that will squash their competition.
But when it comes to protecting con-
sumers and the rule of law, it would be
better for everyone if the Supreme Court
upholds the physical presence standard
and relies on Congress to address this
issue.
It’s a fundamental tenet of federalism
that a state’s powers are limited to its
own state and residents. States should
not and cannot impose their will on other
states, but instead should compete for
residents and businesses based on the
wisdom or folly of their political choices.
Internet sales taxes are anti-competi-
tive and would likely be experienced as
a tax hike on consumers. They also give
states the opportunity to create a make-
shift tax cartel, something prohibited by
the Constitution.
There would be no way for an online
buyer to avoid the tax. That means the
long-term effect of this arrangement
would be reduced tax competition
among states. Consumers would be
forced to wear their home jurisdiction
COMPETITIVE ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE
like a tax albatross when they shop
online.
Think about the difference in gas
taxes between Virginia and Washington,
D.C. That difference leads many people
to drive across the state line into Virginia
to pay less for gas. This keeps at least
some downward pressure on tax rates.
If we apply the Internet sales tax plan to
gas taxes, a Virginia gas station would
have to charge you D.C. gas taxes if
your car had D.C. plates.
An Internet sales tax would also
drown small, online businesses and
entrepreneurs, like those on eBay and
Etsy, with compliance costs, since they
would have to deal with the costs and
complications of figuring out approxi-
mately 10,000 distinct sales tax jurisdic-
tions. These independent sellers would
also be subject to audits from up to 46
states, the current number of states that
impose a sales tax.
Big box retail stores, like Target,
Best Buy, and Walmart, support this
new tax because it’s a way to burden
small competitors. Even Amazon, which
used to oppose these tax expansion
efforts, has switched sides now that it
owns warehouses across the country
to improve delivery times, which also
happens to trigger sales tax compliance
in many states.
Internet sales tax proponents point
to free government-provided tax-
calculating software as a way to reduce
these compliance burdens. But there are
serious concerns with the performance
of that software and there are no allow-
ances made for costs associated with
testing or integrating these systems.
The current, physical presence stan-
dard protects business owners from what
amounts to taxation without represen-
tation, since a state cannot impose its
sales tax on purchases if the seller has
no store, warehouse, or office located in
the state.
C E I . O R G 7
This protection is in line with one of
the most important aspects of competitive
federalism: protecting individuals from
overreaching states and states from each
other. The Constitution doesn’t bar state
Internet sales taxes; it permits them so
long as they’re approved by Congress
through federal legislation or through
approval of a multi-state agreement.
If these taxes are really in the
public interest, then there’s no reason
to think that Congress won’t act. But
states should not be able to undo the
physical presence rule on their own, as
South Dakota is attempting to do in its
Supreme Court case.
There is a better way. Consider
a congressionally enacted—or
approved— origin-based online sales
tax system. It would assess a tax based
on the point of purchase—an online
seller located in South Dakota would be
subject to that state’s tax, just like brick-
and-mortar sellers in that state.
Online and main street sellers
would be treated identically. And most
importantly, such an approach would
promote healthy competition among the
states, and keep politicians accountable
to those they tax. A state that imposed a
very high tax on sellers located within its
borders would risk losing those busi-
nesses to lower-tax states.
This approach is vastly superior to
a Supreme Court ruling that took the
decision about the physical presence
requirement away from Congress. If that
were to happen, it would surely lead
to the destruction of many small online
businesses and a tax hike on Americans,
leaving us with less money in our pock-
ets and fewer choices online.
Jessica Melugin (jessica.melugin@cei.
org) is associate director of the Center
for Technology and Innovation at CEI.
A version of this article was originally
published at CNBC.com.
 There’s Nothing to Fear About
Modest Banking Reform
BY DANIEL PRESS
T he United States financial system
is in desperate need of reform. The
hundreds of new rules and regulations
imposed by the Dodd-Frank Act have
devastated the nation’s banks, with
compliance costs nearing 83 million
paperwork hours and $39 billion.
While big banks with armies of lawyers
can absorb these costs and remain
profitable, smaller banks simply cannot.
Since Dodd-Frank’s passage, more than
one in five banks have disappeared
across the country, at a rate of nearly
one per business day.
That’s why a major piece of bank-
ing legislation introduced by Senate
Banking Committee Chairman Mike
Crapo (R-Idaho) is an important yet
modest attempt at reform, loosen-
ing certain rules for small banks but
leaving Wall Street untouched. It has
passed the Senate but still needs to
be reconciled with legislation in the
House.
So why are progressive groups
and their Senate counterparts trying to
label the bill as “gutting” Dodd-Frank?
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), for
example, said that Republicans and
Democrats are “siding with their big
bank donors instead of working fami-
lies.” She’s wrong. Whatever the many
merits of dismantling Dodd-Frank, this
bill doesn’t do that.
Hyperbole aside, the Crapo bill is a
moderate, common-sense reform with
strong bipartisan support. The bill is
almost exclusively focused on exempt-
ing community banks—Main Street
institutions with less than $10 billion in
assets—from some of the most burden-
some Dodd-Frank rules. For better
or worse, the legislation provides no
deregulatory measure whatsoever for
Wall Street—surely more a “tweaking”
of Dodd-Frank than a “gutting.”
8 CEI.ORG
Even the legislation’s most sig-
nificant reforms are rather modest.
Take Dodd-Frank’s policy of desig-
nating regional banks as “too big to
fail.” Regional banks are larger than
community banks but much smaller
than their cousins on Wall Street.
Nevertheless, regional banks are
regulated in the same manner as some
of the largest, most complex institu-
tions. Currently, any bank with over
$50 billion in assets is automatically
Regulating Main
considered a Systemically Important
Financial Institution (SIFI). This places Street like Wall
Zions Bank in Utah, with $65 billion
in assets, under the same regulatory
apparatus as J.P. Morgan, which has
Street simply does
$2.5 trillion in assets. The hypothetical
failure of these two banks would pose
not make sense.
wildly different risks to the economy,
yet they are regulated as if they were
threshold altogether. This is because
the same.
a bank’s size alone fails to identify
Regulating Main Street like Wall
whether or not it is “systemically impor-
Street simply does not make sense.
tant.” To improve the bill, the Senate
Even the co-author of Dodd-Frank,
should follow the House’s lead and
former Massachusetts Rep. Barney
require regulators to look at a range of
Frank, thought that Congress should
factors to tailor regulation to a bank’s
revisit the asset threshold, as they
particular risk profile.
“never thought $50 billion was a
Sen. Crapo’s banking reform
forever number.” That’s why the Crapo
legislation is not the bogeyman that
bill proposes lifting the SIFI thresh-
progressive groups make it out to be.
old from $50 billion to $250 billion,
Indeed, a slim Republican majority in
exempting banks that engage in
the Senate makes sweeping legisla-
“traditional” banking activities, such as
tion unlikely, yet this bill has enough
taking deposits and lending to small
Democratic support to garner 67
business, from an unnecessary layer of
votes.
regulation.
Even in such a polarized environ-
According to one study, such
ment, Republicans and Democrats
inappropriate regulation is reducing
agree that community and regional
regional banks’ capital to lend by $20
banks are in need of regulatory relief.
billion. Bringing this capital back into
Despite what populist politicians say,
local economies would be a boon for
there is nothing to fear about such
small businesses and working families.
modest banking reform.
If anything, the Crapo bill doesn’t
go far enough. A recent report by the
Office of Financial Research, a non-
Daniel Press (daniel.press@cei.org) is a
partisan government agency created
policy analyst at CEI. A version of this ar-
under Dodd-Frank, recommended
ticle was originally published in The Hill.
scrapping the $50 billion asset
COMPETITIVE ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE
 For Some Class-Action Lawyers, Charity
Begins and Ends at Home
BY TED FRANK
I f an attorney raids a client’s settle-
ment money, he’ll get disbarred and
could go to prison for embezzlement.
But if the same attorney raids settle-
ment money from a class-action suit,
charities may laud him and courts
award him millions of dollars. My col-
leagues and I are asking the Supreme
Court to put an end to the abuse of a
trust-law doctrine known as cy pres,
under which class-action lawyers have
funneled millions of dollars of settle-
ment money to select charities.
In French, cy pres (pronounced
see-PRAY) means, roughly, “as near as
possible.” As a legal doctrine, it typi-
cally applies to charitable trusts that
have outlived the cause or issue they
were originally established to address.
Under cy pres, for instance, the March
of Dimes could turn its focus to other
childhood diseases once polio was
eradicated. While appropriate in the
trust context, cy pres’s application to
class-action suits enables attorneys to
bilk their clients by claiming it would be
too difficult to distribute the money to
class members.
Right away there is a conflict of
interest. Any attorney with a choice
between sending out a million $5
checks to clients he’s never met or
being part of a ceremony to hand over
oversize $1 million novelty checks
to five of his favorite charities—and
receiving a full fee either way—will
have a strong incentive to leave the
clients with nothing. That’s exactly what
happened in the case we’ve asked the
justices to take up.
Paloma Gaos filed a class action
in 2010 in the Northern District of
California over Google’s practice of
divulging consumers’ search queries to
third-party websites. The plaintiffs’ law-
yers alleged that because this search
COMPETITIVE ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE
data could be traced back to the indi-
vidual, Google had violated federal
privacy laws that provide statutory
damages of $1,000 per violation. If
the plaintiffs had a real case, the dam-
ages would be in the trillions of dollars.
But the lawyers must not have thought
much of their claims—they settled for a
paltry $8.5 million.
Because of cy pres, however,
that number is entirely imaginary.
Under the settlement, class members
get nothing and Google makes no
material change to its practices—but
the attorneys collect more than $2
million. The rest of the money is going
to a variety of charities affiliated with
Google and the plaintiffs’ attorneys,
essentially allowing the lawyers to
double dip in the settlement fund.
Class counsels Michael Aschenbrener
and Kassra Powell Nassiri graduated
from Chicago-Kent and Harvard Law,
respectively. Both institutions happened
to receive funds in the settlement.
Tech companies that settle class
actions often tacitly collude with
plaintiffs’ attorneys to funnel money to
the defendants’ preferred charities. In
such cases the “relief” to the class can
be entirely illusory, because the money
would likely have gone to those chari-
ties even without a settlement. Worse,
a judge might have designs on what
has become essentially a slush fund,
and encourage the parties to steer
money to his or her own particular
favorite charity—as happened in yet
another Google case, in which now-
retired federal district Judge James
Ware rewrote the settlement to direct
$500,000 to Santa Clara Law School,
where he taught. The money went to
fund a center for ethics.
The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals approved the Google settle-
ment my organization challenged
because it thought actually distribut-
ing the money to such a large class
C E I . O R G 9
would be too difficult. But under the
new standard they created, almost any
class-action lawyer can claim the same
thing. When other appellate courts
have applied the correct standard and
agreed that attorneys shouldn’t get
paid unless their clients do, lawyers
have magically discovered ways to
get money to class members, even
when the payment per class member
was as small as it is in our current case.
Incentives work.
A bipartisan coalition of 16 state
attorneys general is also urging the
Supreme Court to hear Frank v. Gaos.
They agree that the Ninth Circuit has
created a standard that will make it far
too easy for attorneys to siphon millions
of dollars of consumers’ money into
their own slush funds. Chief Justice John
Roberts has previously expressed con-
cern about cy pres abuses. We hope
the Supreme Court will protect consum-
ers who take part in class actions from
being preyed upon by their attorneys.
Ted Frank (ted.frank@cei.org) is direc-
tor of litigation and director of the
Center for Class Action Fairness at CEI.
A version of this article was originally
published in The Wall Street Journal.
On April 30, the Supreme Court
agreed to hear Frank v. Gaos.
 Don’t Fear Worker Freedom
BY TREY KOVACS
P ublic sector unions have some dire
warnings about a U.S. Supreme
Court case that could end forced union
dues for government employees.
According to some union officials,
giving workers a choice to decline
paying fees to a union, while allow-
ing them to stay in their jobs, is part
of a strategy to deplete union coffers.
On February 26, the court heard from
Mark Janus, a child support specialist
in Illinois who argues that forcing public
employees to pay these fees violates
their First Amendment rights.
Government unions are inherently
political. Most items bargained over in
the public sector, such as pay, teacher
tenure, and pension funding, involve
political choices that determine how tax
dollars are spent.
In 22 states, unions are empowered
to speak and negotiate on behalf of
workers, whether they like it or not.
According to Janus, he doesn’t want to
pay for a union or activities that don’t
represent his values and interests, but
he has no choice in the matter if he
wants to keep his job.
A favorable outcome for Janus
would create an environment where
state and local workers, not the
government, will decide if a union is
worthy of their financial support. Justice
Sonia Sotomayor questioned whether
the lawsuit amounted to an effort to
“do away with unions.” Nothing could
be further from the truth. Unions more
than likely would see a slight drop in
revenue, but not in the amount that
would lead to their extinction. Instead,
a ruling in favor of Janus will give state
and local government workers some
control over where their hard-earned
money is going and who represents
their interests.
Unions worry that, when given
the choice, workers will not pay dues
since they will continue to receive
union representation either way. This is
10 CEI.ORG
because labor unions act as exclusive
bargaining agents, meaning they must
represent all workers in a bargaining
unit whether or not they are full-fledged
dues-paying members. But the fact
is, the majority of workers stay union
members when given the option.
According to the Bureau of Labor
Statistics, unions fare well in right-to-
work states, where private-sector work-
ers have the right to choose whether
to pay union dues. Data compiled
by the Mackinac Center for Public
Policy show union membership rates in
those states are comparable to states
that require forced union dues. For
example, according to Mackinac, from
2000 to 2014, “the average percent-
age of union-represented, private-
sector employees who were full union
members was 93 percent in agency-
fee states, 94 percent in mixed-status
states, and 84 percent in right-to-work
states.”
In Michigan and Wisconsin, where
right-to-work laws were recently
enacted, union membership among
public sector employees covered by col-
lective bargaining agreements remains
above 90 percent. This data should
alleviate union concerns that members
will stop paying dues in droves once
COMPETITIVE ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE
they are given a choice. But consistently,
unions fight tooth and nail to stop “free-
riders” from opting out.
Unions shouldn’t be able to have
it both ways. Either free workers from
forced union representation entirely
or accept that some workers may not
want union representation and allow
them to opt out of paying dues. No
worker should be forced by the gov-
ernment to financially support a union
or risk losing his or her job.
The case before the Supreme Court
is ultimately about worker freedom, not
defunding unions.
The only thing unions really have to
fear from the court’s forthcoming deci-
sion is the possibility that unions will
be held accountable to their member-
ship. A ruling in favor of Janus will
give workers the opportunity to opt out
of paying dues if they do not think a
union is earning its keep. Perhaps that
is what’s really making union bosses
uncomfortable.
Trey Kovacs (trey.kovacs@cei.org) is a
policy analyst at CEI. A version of this
article was originally published in U.S.
News and World Report.
On February 26, CEI
policy analyst Trey
Kovacs attended the
United States Supreme
Court oral argument
in Janus v. American
Federation of State,
County, and Municipal
Employees, Council
31. Left to right: CEI
Vice President of
Communications Annie
Dwyer, Policy Analyst
Trey Kovacs, and Director
of Communications
Christine Hall.
 Cutting Tailpipe Emissions Not that Effective
against Global Warming
BY MARLO LEWIS
T he U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) announced on April
2 that it will reconsider the federal
government’s Corporate Average Fuel
Economy standards for passenger
cars for model years 2022–2025. The
Obama administration set very strin-
gent standards, peaking at 54.5 miles
per gallon in 2025. After the EPA’s mid-
term review, it found these standards to
be inappropriate. Automakers warned
that the standards are too strict and
potentially price millions of consumers
out of the market for new cars.
The EPA’s recent decision could save
car buyers thousands of dollars in the
showroom, make auto companies more
attuned to what consumers—rather than
what bureaucrats—want, and increase
autoworkers’ wages. At the same time,
and contrary to what the EPA’s critics
claim, relaxing the standards would
have no discernible impact on either
climate change or energy security.
The case for rolling back the
Obama administration standards can
be summed up in three words: cost,
choice and safety.
The National Auto Dealers
Association estimates the CAFE regula-
tions will add $3,000 to the cost of
new motor vehicles by 2025, poten-
tially pricing millions of low-income
households out of the market for new
cars. A Heritage Foundation study
estimates the Obama CAFE mandates
have increased new car prices $6,800
above the pre-2009 baseline trend,
and that repealing the standards could
save buyers $7,200 per vehicle.
CAFE prevents consumers from
obtaining all the safety they would
otherwise be able to buy.
The CAFE program limits consumer
choice by making larger, heavier,
safer but less fuel-efficient vehicles
COMPETITIVE ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE
unaffordable or simply unavailable.
Heavier and larger vehicles have more
mass to absorb collision forces, while
providing more space between the
occupant and the point of impact. A
2002 National Academy of Sciences
study concluded that CAFE-related size
and weight reductions contributed to
between 1,300 and 2,600 deaths in a
single year and 10 times as many seri-
ous injuries.
Although advanced technologies
such as automatic braking improve
vehicle safety, adding size and weight
to a high-tech vehicle would make it
safer still.
Contrary to proponents, CAFE has
never been a smart energy security
policy. People naturally switch to high-
mileage vehicles when oil prices rise.
More importantly, expensive oil spurs
investment in new technologies such
as hydraulic fracturing and direc-
tional drilling, which then lowers oil
prices by increasing supply. A Reason
Foundation study estimates that when
all economic impacts are properly
accounted for, CAFE costs about $500
for every barrel of oil saved—more
than three times the highest oil price in
history.
C E I . O R G 11
CAFE is also a woefully inefficient
climate change policy. Obama’s EPA
estimated that the 2012–2025 fuel
economy standards would avert less
than two hundredths of a degree
Celsius of warming by 2100—too little
to discernibly affect weather patterns,
sea levels, polar bear populations, or
any other climate-related indicator
people care about. The Reason study
estimates that automakers and consum-
ers spend about $1,000 for every ton
of carbon dioxide reduced through the
CAFE program. That’s more than 20
times greater than the Obama adminis-
tration’s social cost of carbon estimate
for 2025.
Proponents claim America needs
the CAFE program so that automakers
produce the cars consumers want. The
truth is just the opposite. CAFE impedes
automakers from serving consumers.
If high-mileage vehicles are always a
great bargain, why do we need a law
to make us buy them?
Marlo Lewis (marlo.lewis@cei.org) is
a senior fellow at CEI. A version of this
article was originally published in The
San Francisco Chronicle.
On April 2, CEI General
Counsel Sam Kazman
(pictured) and Center for
Energy and Environment
Director Myron
Ebell attended EPA
Administrator Scott Pruitt’s
announcement of his
agency’s reversal of the
Obama administration’s
stringent corporate
average fuel economy
(CAFE) standards.
 C E I E V E N T S A ND P UBL IC A P P E A R A NCE S

Jessica Melugin and Ryan Radia Discuss Net Neutrality on Capitol Hill
On April 20, CEI hosted a panel on Capitol Hill addressing the ongoing controversy over net
neutrality—the notion that all data on the Internet should be treated equally. On December
14, 2017, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) implemented the Restoring Internet
Freedom Order, which overturned the Obama-era net neutrality rules that threatened to stifle
innovation by regulating the Internet like a public utility. Now some members of Congress
are considering various measures to repeal or dilute the order. The panel discussed what
policy makers should do to protect consumers and promote a free and open Internet. Panel-
ists included CEI tech policy experts Jessica Melugin and Ryan Radia, FreedomWorks Chief
Economist and Vice President of Research Dr. Wayne Brough, and American Action Forum
Director of Technology and Innovation Policy Will Rinehart. Also, on March 17, Ryan Radia
spoke to the University of Florida libertarian club on net neutrality and the Restoring Internet
Freedom Order.

Wayne Crews Discusses the Federal Regulatory State at

Economics Conference
Also on April 2, CEI Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews spoke before the Association of
Private Enterprise Education’s 2018 annual meeting in Las Vegas, on the costs of the federal
regulatory state. The session, “Public Sector Economics,” was organized Dwight R. Lee of Southern
Methodist University and chaired by J.R. Clark of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
Other presenters included Michael DeBow of Samford University and Dima Yazji Shamoun of the
University of Texas at Austin.

CEI Hosts Congressional Staffers, Unveils New Regulatory Reform Principles

On March 28, CEI hosted a reception on Capitol Hill to give congressional staff a chance to
meet and mingle with CEI policy experts. Over 60 congressional staffers from both the House
and Senate attended the reception. CEI President Kent Lassman provided welcoming remarks,
an overview of CEI resources, and introduced a few experts. CEI Government Affairs Manager
Taylor Barkley explained how he can be a resource to Hill staff and introduced CEI’s new set of
principles for regulatory reform, “Reducing Regulatory Barriers: Principles to Cut Red Tape.”

CEI President Kent Lassman

welcomes guests at CEI’s
Capitol Hill reception

12 CEI.ORG COMPETITIVE ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE

 Richard Morrison Speaks at Leadership Institute Workshop
On March 26, CEI Senior Editor Richard Morrison spoke at the Leadership Institute’s Think
Tank Opportunity Workshop in Arlington, Virginia. Morrison shared advice as part of the
“What Position is Right for You?” session. The workshop provided attendees information on
how think tanks operate and how job seekers can successfully find and build a career in major
research organizations in Washington D.C. and beyond. Other speakers included R Street
Institute Federal Affairs Manager and Coalitions Coordinator Lauren Bouton, Cato Institute
Center for Constitutional Studies Senior Fellow Trevor Burrus, Heritage Foundation Director
of Congressional and Executive Branch Relations Thomas Binion, and Mercatus Center Vice
President for Outreach Karen Czarnecki.

Jessica Melugin Speaks out against Internet Sales Taxes on Capitol Hill
On March 13, Jessica Melugin joined Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) and representatives from
several free market organizations at a Capitol Hill news conference to oppose efforts to include
an Internet sales tax in the March 2018 omnibus spending bill. The Remote Transactions Parity
Act (H.R. 2193) would result in an unprecedented expansion of states’ power to tax entities
outside their borders and a tax hike for consumers. Ultimately, the legislation was not attached
to the omnibus spending bill that was passed. “An Internet sales tax may help politicians and
big box stores, but it will harm every American who shops online,” said Melugin. “It is a de
facto tax hike.”

Marc Scribner Outlines Problems with Vehicle Technology Mandates

On March 16, CEI Senior Fellow Marc Scribner appeared on a panel at New Amer-
ica discussing a stalled Obama administration proposal to mandate “talking car”
technology. In early January 2017, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
proposed a rule to require all new vehicles to be equipped with vehicle-to-vehicle
communications technology operating over a protocol known as dedicated short-
range communications. Panelists discussed the technological and economic problems
associated with the proposal, with Scribner describing the proposal’s legal deficien-
cies, which would likely invite costly litigation while failing to significant improve
safety. The panel, moderated by Bloomberg Law tech and telecom reporter Tara Jef-
fries, also featured Cisco Senior Director of Government Affairs Mary Brown; Roger
Lanctot, director of Automotive Connected Mobility at Strategy Analytics; Danielle
Pineres, associate general counsel at NCTA, The Internet and Television Association;
and Michael Calabrese, director of New America’s Wireless Future Project.

Iain Murray Discusses Regulatory Reform at CPAC

At the 2018 Conservative Political Action Conference in February, CEI Vice President for Strat-
egy Iain Murray spoke on a panel assessing the Trump administration’s progress in implement-
ing regulatory reform. Murray outlined the problem of “regulatory dark matter” identified by
CEI’s Wayne Crews and explained in detail the egregious behavior of the Consumer Financial
Protection Bureau under its previous director. The panel, moderated by Matthew Spalding of
Hillsdale College, also included Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.) and Dr. Gregory Dolin, co-
director of the Center for Medicine and Law at the University of Baltimore School of Law.

COMPETITIVE ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE C E I . O R G 13

 THE
GOOD
The Good: Federal Court
Rules against Obama-
era “Fiduciary Rule” on
Investment Advice
On March 16, the Fifth Circuit Court of
Appeals struck down the Obama Labor
Department’s controversial fiduciary
rule, which would have imposed legal
burdens on a large category of finan-
cial professionals, effectively deterring
those professionals from continuing to
offer services to middle class investors.
Proponents of the rule, however, will
be headed back to court. The AARP
and the attorneys general of New York,
California, and Oregon are asking the
full Fifth Circuit to rehear the previous
three-judge panel decision. CEI Senior
Fellow John Berlau lauded the Fifth
Circuit’s decision and urged the Trump
administration to support it. He said:
“The court rightly labeled as ‘arbitrary
and capricious’ the Labor Department’s
issuing of this regulation that goes
against congressional intent and rede-
fines ‘fiduciary’ in a way that gives the
department broad power over a broad
swath of investment professionals ser-
vicing 401(k)s and individual retirement
accounts.”
14 CEI.ORG
THE
BAD
The Bad: Lawyers in
Anthem Privacy Case
Overbill Class Members by
900 Percent
This class action lawsuit against health
insurer Anthem for alleged violation of
customer privacy became more inter-
esting when class members realized
the ridiculous terms of the proposed
class action settlement. The plaintiff
attorneys drastically overstated the
dollar amount of their work hours, with
millions of dollars of work by contract
attorneys being billed at excessive
rates and with duplication of effort.
The request for fees by attorneys in
the case was “upside-down,” accord-
ing to CEI Center for Class Action
Fairness Director Ted Frank, because
the lawyers and settlement administra-
tor involved were asking for $63.6 mil-
lion of a $115 million settlement fund,
leaving $51.4 million for 78 million
class members, or less than a dollar
per person.
Class member and CCAF attorney
Adam Schulman, CEI challenged the
excessive fee request.
COMPETITIVE ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE
THE
UGLY
The Ugly: Trump Tariffs
Could Spell Doom for
the Economy
On March 8, the Trump administra-
tion announced tariffs on steel and
aluminum, while suggesting that more
trade restrictions are possible—a
protectionist shift that could erase the
economic gains from deregulation
and tax reform.
CEI President Kent Lassman said
that “unless the president course
corrects on his trade policy, the path
toward economic growth ahead will
be challenging.” CEI Vice President
for Strategy Iain Murray observed:
“This White House is supposed to
understand business, but if you get rid
of everyone who has a good under-
standing of free market economics,
businesses and jobs will suffer.”
 MediaMENTIONS
Policy Analyst Daniel Press makes
the case for bipartisan reform of the
CFPB:
Only two weeks ago, Rep. Dennis
Ross (R., Fla.) introduced a bipartisan bill
to impose accountability by replacing
the single director of the CFPB with a
bipartisan five-person commission, the
standard structure for an independent
agency. House Financial Services
Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling
and other Republicans sought changes
to the CFPB in the financial reform bill that
passed the Senate earlier this month. But
their Democratic counterparts, including
Sen. Warren, refuse to compromise on
changing the bureau’s structure.
–April 3,
The Wall Street Journal
Senior Fellow John Berlau
celebrates the federal court ruling
that invalidated the Department
of Labor’s “fiduciary rule” on
investment advisors:
John Berlau, a senior fellow at
the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a
libertarian think tank, said in the wake
of the court ruling that “much of the
losses from the DOL rule to small savers
and small businesses will be reversed.”
“Firms will be able to once again offer
personalized service—not just robo-
advice—to these customers without fear of
massive liability for good-faith suggestions.
And overall fees will probably come
down for these customers as financial firms
no longer have to absorb the costs of this
rule,” he said.
–March 30,
Financial Times
CEI Center for Energy and
Environment Director Myron Ebell
comments on the EPA’s decision
to reform mileage and emissions
standard for new cars:
While Mr. Pruitt’s proposal to open up
the Obama rules to review isn’t expected
to include specific targets, “The proposed
COMPETITIVE ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE
rollback is going to be quite a significant
number,” said Myron Ebell, who led Mr.
Trump’s EPA. transition team and directs
the energy and environment policy at
the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a
Washington research organization that
questions the established science of
human-caused climate change. “It will be
more than a couple mpg.,” he said.
–March 29,
New York Times
Vice President for Policy Wayne
Crews argues that consumer choice
can protect consumer privacy better
than federal regulation:
But Wayne Crews, vice president
for policy at the libertarian think tank
Competitive Enterprise Institute, said
Facebook customers know they’re
sacrificing privacy every time they log on.
“It’s never been a secret that when you go
online you share information in exchange
for certain services,” said Crews.
–March 27,
The Boston Globe
Senior Fellow Marc Scribner
suggests a better path forward for
air travel:
When you deal with competitive
industries, you generally encounter falling
prices and a pronounced eagerness to
make the customer happy. When you
deal with industries that are protected from
competition, you generally encounter
high prices and a pronounced arrogance
toward customers.
As Marc Scribner of the Competitive
Enterprise Institute, quoted by [Reason
Editor at Large Matt] Welch, puts it:
“If American consumers wish to enjoy
improved service quality in air travel, they
should demand that Congress repeal 90
years of anti-competitive federal law. Less
regulation of air travel, not more, is the
solution.”
–March 18,
USA Today
C E I . O R G 15
CCAF Director Ted
Frank discusses
his role in the case
Frank v. Gaos,
which was recently
accepted by the
Supreme Court:
Ted Frank, director
of litigation and the
Center for Class Action Fairness at the
Competitive Enterprise Institute, said he
was not surprised by the government’s
insistence the justices not take up the
dispute. The Justice Department, he said,
is “locked in, and the vehicle problems
here are so immense.” Frank took issue
with the Justice Department’s claim that the
government doesn’t need any guidance
from the Supreme Court about cy pres
settlements. “Just because Jeff Sessions
implemented a policy in 2017 doesn’t
mean President Oprah’s attorney general
won’t reverse the policy in 2021,” he said.
–March 5,
The National Law Journal
Marc Scribner explains private jet
owners’ opposition to a proposal
to reform of the nation’s air traffic
control system:
The [21st Century AIRR Act]
continues to throw money into the Airport
Improvement Program, which exists to
funnel money into runway and other
updates, especially for rural airports. The
bill also maintains Essential Air Service that
pours cash into rural routes that are often
barely patronized. One near certainty:
Congress won’t end these subsidies.
What’s really going on? The business
jet industry pays 0.6 percent of aviation
user taxes but accounts for 11 percent to
13 percent of controlled traffic, as Marc
Scribner of the Competitive Enterprise
Institute has noted. The industry would like
to keep it that way.
—February 14,
The Wall Street Journal

1310 L Street NW, 7th Floor
Washington, DC 20005
...END NOTES
From the Department of Hand-Cranks and Buggy
Whips
Unions in Wisconsin have been in a foul mood since
Governor Scott Walker’s 2011 labor reform. That frustra-
tion may explain the Wisconsin AFL-CIO’s recent social
media outreach opposing … self-checkout lanes. A recent
Facebook post from the labor group shows a woman at
an automated kiosk with the all-caps headline “NEVER
SELF-CHECKOUT.” The text advises shoppers that checking
out their own groceries is a way “to help corporations fire
workers so they raise their profits.” Busy Wisconsinites are
advised to shun the automated options and simply to wait in
long lines until more employees are called upon to deal with
the backup.
California Judge Rules Coffee Must Carry Cancer
Warning
The Golden State’s initiative process, which allows citi-
zens to propose new legislation to be approved by popular
vote, has spawned a wide variety of laws and state consti-
tutional amendments—of varying degrees of wisdom—since
it was first adopted in 1911. Proposition 65, approved by
voters in 1986, requires the state to publish a list of chemi-
cals known to cause cancer and to notify Californians about
significant amounts of said chemicals in the products they
purchase. But over the years, its requirements have stretched
to include chemicals that pose no harm in the tiny amounts
that consumers encounter them. Recently, Los Angeles
Superior Court Judge Elihu Berle ruled that anyone selling
coffee in the state must post signage warning customers
about the allegedly carcinogenic compound acrylamide, a
chemical created during the roasting process.
16 CEI.ORG
Nonprofit Org.
U.S. Postage
PAID
Permit 425
Southern MD
If Your Pizza Isn’t Delivered in 30 Minutes, You May
Commit Assault
A pair of New Jersey police officers are in hot water after
one of them was caught on camera pushing a Domino’s
manager against a wall because their pizza didn’t get
delivered on time. Video obtained by the local NBC affili-
ate shows the two Jersey City police officers storming a
Domino’s store and pushing the manager up against a wall.
According to the manager, when the driver arrived at the
delivery location, his calls were not answered. A short time
later, one of the officers called the Domino’s location upset
over his missing pizza delivery. Cell phone footage shows
the officers storming into the store and grabbing the man-
ager, eventually escorting him outside out of view of cam-
eras. After the exchange, the two officers were suspended
and charged with harassment and disorderly conduct.
World Outside of Campus Too Risky for Penn State
Students
Today’s college students often endure accusations of
being overly sensitive, easily offended, and unwilling to
endure risky, challenging situations. This time, however, it’s
their university guardians who have decided they’re not
ready for the real world. Recently, Penn State’s division of
student affairs decided that the activities of the Outing Club,
which sponsors trips into the great outdoors for nature-loving
students, were too risky for a student-led group. It seems
many of their outings take place “in high-risk environments
such as unsupervised or lightly-patrolled areas with unreli-
able or no cell phone service,” according to PennLive.com.
Also running afoul of the new rules were the Nittany Grotto
Caving Club and the Nittany Divers SCUBA Club.
COMPETITIVE ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE