CEI Today: Court ruling on Obama recess appointments, junk science on Fox, and Obama's EPA nominee

OBAMA RECESS APPOINTMENTS - HANS BADER

Openmarket.org: Obama Recess Appointments Violate Constitution; Another Appeals Court Rules Against the NLRB

Another federal appeals court has ruled that President Obama’s so-called “recess appointments” to the National Labor Relations Board were unconstitutional because the Senate was not in recess at the time.

Obama’s appointments of the NLRB members would be valid only under a still broader, radically expansive interpretation of the Recess Appointments Clause that would gut the Senate’s power to review Presidential appointments. > Read more

> Interview Hans Bader

JUNK SCIENCE - ANGELA LOGOMASINI Openmarket.org: Surprising Junk Science on FOX News FOX published a silly story from Prevention magazine on how chemicals found in popcorn cooked in nonstick pans might give you heart disease based on a single study that found a statistical association, which can occur by mere chance.  How many other studies failed to find an association?  The article doesn’t bother to go there, rather it says:  ” Scary? You bet.”  The article does offer a weak qualifier, stating that “more research needs to be done to determine the specific relationship between PFOA [the chemical used in non-stick the pans] and cardiovascular disease.” Another recent FOX-published article highlights EWG’s latest Shoppers’ Guide to Pesticides in Produce.  Fox offers no  critical analysis of the activist groups’ crazy claims.  > Read more > Interview Angela Logomasini

EPA (NON)TRANSPARENCY - MARLO LEWIS Globalwarming.org:  Gina McCarthy’s Responses to Sen. Vitter’s Questions Part II: Fuel Economy Even the Society of Environmental Journalists – hardly a hotbed of libertarians, conservative Republicans, or fossil-fuel industry lobbyists — recently complained that the Obama administration “has been anything but transparent in its dealings with reporters seeking information, interviews and clarification” on environmental, health, and public lands issues, and that, ”The EPA is one of the most closed, opaque agencies to the press.”  > Read more > Interview Marlo Lewis

CEI Podcast for May 16, 2013: A Controversial EPA Nominee The bitter fight over Gina McCarthy, President Obama’s nominee for EPA Administrator, is headed to the Senate floor under a potential filibuster threat. Myron Ebell, Director of CEI’s Center for Energy and Environment, explains that the deeper cause of this political fight is a startling lack of transparency at the EPA that McCarthy is unlikely to fix.

COMING SOON! Ten Thousand Commandments: An Annual Snapshot of the Federal Regulatory State DID YOU KNOW? U.S. households “pay” $14,768 annually in regulatory hidden tax, “absorbing” 23 percent of the average income of $63,685, and 30 percent of the expenditure budget of $49,705.

CEI ANNUAL DINNER & GALA FEATURING THE HONORABLE RAND PAUL JUNE 20, 2013 cei.org/ceidinner

CEI is a non-profit, non-partisan public policy group dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and limited government.  For more information about CEI, please visit our website, cei.org, and blogs, Globalwarming.org and OpenMarket.org.  Follow CEI on Twitter! Twitter.com/ceidotorg.

"Richard Windsor,” Gina McCarthy, and the Abuse of Power Featuring Christopher Horner, author of The Liberal War on Transparency and CEI Senior Fellow Monday, May 20, 2013 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm 406 Senate Dirksen Office Bldg Washington, DC RSVP: mebell@cei.org

I, Pencil Movie Screening The Union League Club Chicago, Illinois May 21, 2013, 6 - 7:30 PM

APPLY TODAY! Warren T. Brookes Journalism Fellowship CEI offers a one-year fellowship for journalists seeking to improve their knowledge of the principles of free markets and limited government.  cei.org/warrenbrookes Contact: chall@cei.org

INTERVIEW A CEI EXPERT CEI Experts by Issue Advancing Capitalism Constitutional and Legal Issues Energy and Environment Finance and Entrepreneurship Health and Safety Labor Nanny State Regulatory Reform Tech and Telecom Trade and International Transportation

   

CEI Today: Senate vote on EPA nominee, suing the EPA, and labor unions vs workers

EPA NOMINEE - BRIAN McNICOLL

Fox News: EPA tries hard to keep nominee Gina McCarthy 'clean' before confirmation hearings

The Environment and Public Works Committee will vote this week on Gina McCarthy's nomination. Senators should not act on her nomination until she orders the veil lifted and lets Americans know her record with regard to President Obama's war on coal and efforts by the administration to build outside support for a carbon tax. > Read more

> Interview Brian McNicoll

SUING EPA - MARLO LEWIS Forbes: A Supreme Court EPA Decision That Could Cost Taxpayers $21 Billion Per Year Is the Clean Air Act so badly flawed that it will cripple environmental enforcement and economic development alike unless the EPA and its state counterparts defy clear statutory provisions or, alternatively, spend $21 billion a year to employ an additional 320,000 bureaucrats? That is a central issue in a recent lawsuit by the Southeastern Legal Foundation, the Competitive Enterprise Institute and a host of lawmakers and several companies. > Read more > Interview Marlo Lewis

LABOR UNIONS - MATT PATTERSON Washington Examiner: 'Life of Julius' shows how unions kill jobs, hurt workers Many people realize that unions can hurt the workers they claim to represent. For example, the United Auto Workers union drove labor costs up for the Big Three automakers, a major factor in driving General Motors into bankruptcy and leaving Detroit a shadow of its former glory. But what many don't realize is that labor unions can kill jobs and hurt workers even if they are not members of a union, because the laws, regulations and politicians supported by unions affect our entire economy, often in negative ways. > Read more See Julius’s story at WorkplaceChoice.org

More in the news... Government Gives Students Lifelong Lesson— In Debt Ohio Deserves Right-To-Work Institutional Corruption: AFSCME Subverts Prison Accountability Europe’s “Green Energy” Initiatives Don’t Want Your Help Youth Unemployment Is at Highest Sustained Level Since World War II First Amendment Menace: Obama Administration to Expand Americans with Disabilities Act over Websites?

CEI ANNUAL DINNER & GALA FEATURING THE HONORABLE RAND PAUL JUNE 20, 2013 cei.org/ceidinner

CEI is a non-profit, non-partisan public policy group dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and limited government.  For more information about CEI, please visit our website, cei.org, and blogs, Globalwarming.org and OpenMarket.org.  Follow CEI on Twitter! Twitter.com/ceidotorg.

CEI Today: Congress & global warming, Cordray nomination, and the UN vs free speech

CONGRESS & CLIMATE POLICY - MARLO LEWIS

Globalwarming.org: Why Is Congress Lethargic about Energy?

This week National Journal’s Energy Experts Blog poses the question: “What’s holding back energy & climate policy.” There is no momentum building for the kind of comprehensive energy legislation Congress enacted in 2005 and 2007.  > Read the analysis

> Interview Marlo Lewis

DODD-FRANK, CFPB - AMMON SIMON National Review: Jeb Hensarling on Richard Cordray President Obama’s attempt to circumvent the Senate by unilaterally appointing Ohio politician Richard Cordray to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau may have been premised on his expectation that he would get away with it. If so, he seems to have miscalculated, because the other two branches of government are providing him with a Sesame Street demonstration of the concept of “checks and balances.” >Read more > Interview an expert

FREE SPEECH - HANS BADER Openmarket.org: Lawsuits Over “Customary International Law”: A Menace To Free Speech, Our Liberties, Our Companies, And Our Economy The U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has ruled that Germany violated international law by not prosecuting a former German legislator for an interview with a cultural journal in which he said negative things about immigration and the alleged dependence on welfare of Turkish immigrants to his country. That ruling illustrates that international-law norms can be inimical to American civil-liberties such as freedom of speech, making it inappropriate for U.S. courts to enforce such foreign norms.  > Read more > Interview Hans Bader

More in the news... Capitalism’s Survival Depends on Politics CEI Study: Cost Of Keeping One Unauthorized Immigrant From Getting A Job — $13,000 Why FAA’s Child Seat Campaign Is Deadly The spreading of ‘right to work’ ... where will it show up next?

CEI ANNUAL DINNER & GALA FEATURING THE HONORABLE RAND PAUL JUNE 20, 2013 cei.org/ceidinner

CEI is a non-profit, non-partisan public policy group dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and limited government.  For more information about CEI, please visit our website, cei.org, and blogs, Globalwarming.org and OpenMarket.org.  Follow CEI on Twitter! Twitter.com/ceidotorg.

ALG - EPA's obstruction of Keystone XL pipeline puts nail in McCarthy's nomination coffin

April 23, 2013, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government General Counsel Nathan Mehrens issued the following statement on the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) attempt to throw sand in the approval of the Keystone XL pipeline through issuing a comment to the State Department's draft review of the project that complained that the report included "insufficient information" on environmental issues:

"The Senate has overwhelmingly made it clear that they want the Keystone XL pipeline built and they want it built now.  The EPA's attempt to further delay this project on specious grounds is evidence of just how far this rogue Agency will go, and how little they care about what Congress thinks.  It is time for the Senate to send a clear message to the EPA that they need to get out of the way. 

"It is time for the Senate to reject the nomination of Gina McCarthy to be the EPA Administrator.

"This would send a powerful message to the EPA to rein in their radical policies, but would also be doing what needs to be done by rejecting McCarthy who appears to be failing up through the ranks of the EPA.

"Absent the EPA's meddling in the Keystone XL issue, there have been multiple other serious and legitimate reasons to reject McCarthy's nomination. 

"It was McCarthy who was tasked with maintaining the nation's air radiation monitoring systems. After, the Japanese nuclear power plant failure, it was discovered that McCarthy had failed to do her job as the system suffered near catastrophic breakdowns directly due to her apparent incompetence.

"Anyone else would have been fired in the wake of this failure, but Obama is attempting to promote McCarthy to lead the entire EPA.

"McCarthy also is actively encouraging American automobile manufacturers to use an air conditioning refrigerant that has proven to be dangerous under the guise of helping combat global warming.

"Gina McCarthy is a radical, extremist intent on expanding the power of the EPA.  This latest incursion into the Keystone XL pipeline debate is further evidence of how far the EPA's tentacles extend, and the Senate needs to send the Obama Administration a direct and powerful message by rejecting Gina McCarthy's nomination to be the EPA Administrator.

"Failure to reject McCarthy may effectively abdicate the last opportunity for Congress to rein in this power grabbing Agency that is sucking the life out of the U.S. economy."

To view online: http://getliberty.org/epas-obstruction-of-keystone-xl-pipeline-puts-nail-in-mccarthys-nomination-coffin/

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Americans for Limited Government is a non-partisan, nationwide network committed to advancing free market reforms, private property rights and core American liberties. For more information on ALG please call us at 703-383-0880 or visit our website at www.GetLiberty.org.

CEI Today: New OMB report on regulations, Obama's EPA nominee, and a court ruling on mining

OBAMA REGULATORY COSTS - WAYNE CREWS

Openmarket.org: Costs Rise In Obama’s New 2013 Draft Report To Congress On The Benefits And Costs Of Federal Regulations

OMB just released the new 2013 Draft Report to Congress on the Benefits and Costs of Federal Regulations, and the burdens are increasing.

Observe the high cost estimates for each year; the Obama administration’s acknowledged new regulatory costs nearly doubled from $10.1 billion in 2012 to $19.5 billion annually in 2013.> Read the analysis

> Interview Wayne Crews

OBAMA EPA NOMINEE - BRIAN McNICOLL Daily Caller: Boxer’s claims on behalf of EPA nominee don’t hold water EPA has refused to produce emails that would shed any light on Gina McCarthy’s thinking on coal, climate science, air and radiation policy — her designated area — or a carbon tax, all likely to come before her as administrator if she’s confirmed. The strategy is clear — hide all McCarthy’s communications until she clears this hurdle.   Sen. Barbara Boxer is blocking for President Obama's EPA nominee now because she realizes if McCarthy can gain this one first down and achieve confirmation, she can run out the clock on reasonable opposition to her policies. Only the Senate stands in the way. >Read more > Interview an expert

COURT RULING ON EPA REGULATION Today's Court Ruling on West Virginia Mine Could Have Silver Lining William Yeatman, an energy policy analyst at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, sees a possible silver lining to today’s ruling by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals that the Environmental Protection Agency has the authority to retroactively revoke a Clean Water Act permit that had been issued to the Mingo Logan Coal Company for the Spruce No. 1 Mine in West Virginia. While Yeatman disagrees with the ruling, he welcomes the scrutiny of the science behind EPA’s veto that will likely result from today’s decision. > Read more > Interview William Yeatman

More in the news... CEI Study: Cost Of Keeping One Unauthorized Immigrant From Getting A Job — $13,000 Why FAA’s Child Seat Campaign Is Deadly The spreading of ‘right to work’ ... where will it show up next?

CEI ANNUAL DINNER & GALA FEATURING THE HONORABLE RAND PAUL JUNE 20, 2013 cei.org/ceidinner

CEI is a non-profit, non-partisan public policy group dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and limited government.  For more information about CEI, please visit our website, cei.org, and blogs, Globalwarming.org and OpenMarket.org.  Follow CEI on Twitter! Twitter.com/ceidotorg.