Regulatory Action Center Review - November 15, 2018

1) Video of the Week: In this video, the Cato Institute’s Ryan Bourne and Vanessa Brown Calder joined Diane Katz of the Heritage Foundation to talk about federal regulations that disproportionately harm low income Americans.

2) E-cigarette Flavors are Good for Public Health: “Removing dramatically safer nicotine options like flavored e-cigarettes from convenience stores and gas stations, while tobacco cigarettes can be sold just as freely as before, is a defeat for public health and gives an unfair and unwarranted advantage to traditional cigarettes over e-cigarettes.” https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/e-cigarette-flavors-are-good-for-public-health-why-is-the-fda-cracking-down-on-them

3) CAFE Standards – The Most Obnoxious Regs of the Obama Era: “The most obvious issue with the CAFE standards, though, is that they just aren’t doable for car companies. In its final days, the Obama EPA even admitted in its technical assessment of the regulations that it would be near impossible for the industry to get to that kind efficiency by 2025. Central planners can cook up whatever idealistic dreams they want in agency backrooms, but that doesn’t mean businesses can actually make them a reality or that the market will cooperate with this meddling.” https://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2018/11/09/cafe_standards_the_most_obnoxious_ regs_of_the_obama_era_103487.html

4) FCC Auctioning Off First Wave of 5G Spectrum: “5G is shaping up to be a big deal, and a huge part of that is mmWave technology — the radio signals that are much higher up the electromagnetic spectrum that are capable of carrying far more data at much faster speeds than our current LTE signals. That’s why a key part of 5G’s success is going to come down to who controls the rights to use those bands of spectrum. Today, the first blocks of mmWave 5G are getting auctioned off by the FCC.” https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/14/18095020/fcc-auction-mmwave-5g-spectrum-mobile-network

5) Airbnb Sues Boston Over Rental Rules: “Airbnb has filed a lawsuit in an effort to overturn Boston’s new short-term rental law, and is asking a judge to block the stringent rules from taking effect on Jan. 1. In a federal court filing on Tuesday, Airbnb claims that Boston’s regulations requiring online rental platforms to police their listings and share user information with the city violate state and federal laws.” https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2018/11/12/airbnb-sues-city-over-rental-rules-set-take-effect-january/SxmDxGVy8ZTTgmQYXTrmRP/story.html

6) AT&T CEO Says State Net Neutrality Laws are a Disaster: “AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson yesterday urged Congress to pass net neutrality and consumer data privacy laws that would prevent states from issuing their own stricter laws. ‘What would be a total disaster for the technology and innovation you see happening in Silicon Valley and elsewhere is to pick our head up and have 50 different sets of rules for companies trying to operate in the United States.”’ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/11/att-ceo-urges-congress-to-block-state-net-neutrality-and-privacy-laws/

7) How Antitrust Regulation Hinders Competition and Innovation: “Creative destruction is the best answer to dominant market positions. Rather than use antitrust law aggressively, those who wish to see big companies fall quickly should instead work to end antitrust law. As for other barriers to creative destruction—for instance, financial regulations that make launching an initial public offering of stock prohibitively costly—increased competition can be achieved through deregulation in those other areas.” https://cei.org/content/how-antitrust-regulation-hinders-innovation-and-competition