Free Republic

President Obama has ordered his officials to step on the gas and clear as much of his regulatory agenda as possible during the twilight of his time in office. The clock is ticking, creating a sense of urgency in the administration to crank out his new rules without delay. Just a year into the president’s second term, experts and former administration officials say it is do-or-die time for scores of regulatory initiatives across the federal government that could shape his legacy. So Obama is spurring agencies on. “He has directed his entire administration to move as quickly as possible in...

Now, farmers are discovering that the FDA's proposed rules would curtail many techniques that are common among organic growers, including spreading house-made fertilizers, tilling cropland with grazing animals, and irrigating from open creeks. Suddenly, from small family operations nestled in the foothills of Appalachia to the sophisticated organic-grower networks that serve Los Angeles and San Francisco, the farms that celebrity chefs and food-conscious consumers jostle to buy from are facing an unexpected adversary. They're fighting back. Even though full enforcement of the rules is still years away, they are warning customers that some farms would have to close. "They are...

In keeping with his trending pattern of throwing bureaucratic bones to environmentalist groups whilst doing everything he can think of to “act where Congress won’t” (like his administration’s decision last week to initiate a $1 billion “climate resilience fund” that will combat problems of the Obama administration’s own making the effects of weather around the country), President Obama announced today the latest round of fuel-efficiency regulations to be handed down on high from the ever wise and abstemious Environmental Protection Agency: Speaking at a Safeway distribution center in Maryland, Obama instructed environmental and transportation agencies to get to work on...

President Obama—the imperial President, the “I’ve got a pen and I’ve got a phone” President who can’t wait to show us his “year of action”—once vowed to do exactly the opposite. "The biggest problems that we’re facing right now have to do with George Bush trying to bring more and more power into the executive branch and not go through Congress at all. And that’s what I intend to reverse when I’m President of the United States of America." That was candidate Obama back in 2008. This comment somehow slipped under the radar for the past few years and resurfaced...

In Europe, where fracking is heavily regulated or prohibited altogether, consumers pay more than twice for natural gas than what they do in America (currently $11.59 per mBtu vs $4.78). As consumers, businesses, and electric utilities pay more, the result is a stalled economy and lower standard of living. Thanks in part to its large investment in solar energy, Spain's per capita GDP in current U.S. dollars has dropped from $31,679 in 2010 to $28,624 in 2012. Based on his recent words and actions, Obama wants the same for the U.S. Over half the homes in America heat with natural...

On January 31, the State Department released its final Environmental Impact Statement on the Keystone XS pipeline, concluding once again that its construction would have a net neutral effect on carbon emissions. The study also confirms that the pipeline itself would have little to no impact on Canadian oil sands extraction rates or on global oil consumption. Canada will continue to develop the oil sands and consumers will continue to buy oil for the foreseeable future with or without the Keystone XL. The relevant questions surrounding the pipeline’s construction are who will benefit from the development and transit of this...

Auto Safety: The Obama administration is pushing technology that will let cars "talk" to each other to avoid crashes. Sounds great. But do we really want the folks who built HealthCare.gov at the wheel of our automobiles? Earlier this week, the Department of Transportation announced plans to require all cars to come equipped with "vehicle to vehicle" communications technology it's now developing. Once in place, these V2V devices would transmit information about car speeds and locations, warning drivers of danger. The system might even take control of a car to prevent a crash. Administration officials call it "game-changing" technology that...

Today we are pleased to release a white paper entitled The States’ Broadband Plan, a set of three suggested policies designed to promote broadband connectivity in the states. This white paper comes in response to legislators’ requests for proven ideas to foster more economic growth through technology and improve public safety in the wake of natural disasters. The best way to address the economic problems facing the country is to increase economic opportunity, investing in and fostering potential growth areas of the economy that hold real promise to create jobs and wealth. Few areas hold as much promise as broadband...

The Obama administration announced Monday that it intends to require new cars to include technology enabling them to communicate with each other, a step that transportation planners have said could significantly reduce crashes. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx told reporters that he hopes to finish the mandate before President Barack Obama leaves office. That would allow time for DOT and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to work out issues including security and privacy.

In an FDA office building in suburban Maryland, the bureaucrats gather over coffee to draft rules meant to squeeze the trans fat out of snack foods. Four blocks from the White House, in an EPA conference room: more bureaucrats, more meetings, more drafting of rules, these aimed at forcing industrialists to spend billions cutting carbon to fend off global warming. Congress? Who needs Congress? Americans heard President Barack Obama declare this week that he intends to bypass the gridlocked Hill to get things done on his own. What they didn’t hear: just how far he’s actually pushing his executive authority....

A government official appears at a man’s door. The man has been breaking the law: He has sold bread baked at home. This isn’t a page from Kafka—it happened to Mark Stambler in Los Angeles. For decades, Stambler has followed traditional methods to bake loaves of French bread. The ingredients are simple: distilled water, sea salt, wild yeast and organic grains. Stambler even mills the grain himself. To make it easier to steam loaves, he built a wood-fired oven in his own backyard. Stambler’s loaves came in first place at the Los Angeles County Fair and the California State Fair....

11 year old Chloe Stirling got some great accolades from her local newspaper for the cupcake business she had started out of her parents' kitchen. Unfortunately the local health department took another view and shut her down. The sticking point was that not only did she lack the proper permits and licenses to run a food business, but according to local and state law she would have to either own her own bakery or have a kitchen separate from that of her parents to continue cooking cupcakes for money. Since this was clearly impossible, Stirling is no longer able to...

Far below the Appalachian Mountains, in a space barely big enough to stand up straight, Bobby Combs works a job his father and his grandfather worked. Coal-mining is the highest-paying job available to him in eastern Kentucky. As he skillfully maneuvers a massive machine and rips into a seam of coal, though, Combs wonders if the family tradition ends with him. “It’s not looking good,” he says, dirt smudging his face. Coal has come under the crosshairs of the Obama administration in the push to transition to renewable energy sources. Coal mines are burdened with a never-ending stream of federal...

When government grows too large, dependency replaces achievementWhen I was in high school in Detroit, I had a job as a biology laboratory assistant. I spent a substantial amount of time in the greenhouse, preparing botany experiments. I had acquired some seeds of an interesting plant and was anxious to use them to produce my own crop of these plants. I planted the seeds in a special container and kept enriching the soil and providing plenty of moisture and sunlight to enhance and accelerate the growth. I was very disappointed with the results and eventually abandoned the project, leaving the...

Congress passed a historically low number of laws in 2013, but the executive branch bureaucrats who write the nation's federal regulations remained as busy as ever, as Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, demonstrated with a single picture. "Behold my display of the 2013 Federal Register," Lee wrote in a caption for a photo posted to his Facebook page on Friday. "It contains over 80,000 pages of new rules, regulations, and notices all written and passed by unelected bureaucrats. The small stack of papers on top of the display are the laws passed by elected members of Congress and signed into law...

World economic freedom has reached record levels, according to the 2014 Index of Economic Freedom, released Tuesday by the Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal. But after seven straight years of decline, the U.S. has dropped out of the top 10 most economically free countries. For 20 years, the index has measured a nation's commitment to free enterprise on a scale of 0 to 100 by evaluating 10 categories, including fiscal soundness, government size and property rights. These commitments have powerful effects: Countries achieving higher levels of economic freedom consistently and measurably outperform others in economic growth, long-term prosperity...

Every American knows about the income tax. But how many are aware of the regulatory tax? That’s the cost of all regulations (good, bad and indifferent) imposed on Americans by the 60 or so government agencies that contribute to the 175,000-page (and growing) Code of Federal Regulations. The fact that we don’t hear nearly as much about the regulatory tax doesn’t mean it isn’t substantial. As Heritage Foundation scholar James Gattuso notes, “While the revenues and expenditures of the government are accounted for each year, the costs of regulation are largely hidden from view, paid for indirectly via higher prices,...

President Obama called on Congress to make 2014 a “year of action” for the economy – starting with extending emergency unemployment benefits. In his weekly address, the president touted the gains the economy has made in the last few years, while urging policymakers to do more to boost jobs and put people back to work. The first item on the agenda should be getting federal unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless back in place, he said. That program was allowed to expire at the end of 2013 when Congress failed to extend the program, cutting off benefits for 1.3 million...

FRANKFORT — A year after Gov. Steve Beshear implemented the federal health care law without legislative approval, Senate Republicans plan to push a constitutional amendment that would curb the governor's power to issue administrative regulations. Senate President Robert Stivers, R-Manchester, said his caucus would push for the restriction early in the 2014 General Assembly that begins Tuesday. The proposed change to the state Constitution would keep a regulation issued by the governor or executive branch from taking effect if lawmakers declare it deficient. The governor and executive agencies issue about 700 regulations each year to implement various laws approved by...

It’s a new year and you know what that means — new regulations. The Obama administration has wasted no time in writing them. The website Regulations.gov lists 141 regulations that have been posted by federal agencies in the last three days alone. Of these regulations, 119 are “rulemaking,” meaning they establish a new rule. Twenty-three are “non-rulemaking,” meaning the regulations does not establish a new rule. The largest group of regulations have to do with energy and environmental issues, many of them issued by the Environmental Protection Agency. One new EPA regulation is an amendment to a rule on hazardous...