Author Archive | Jonathan H. Adler

When I was 10, I somehow convinced my father to take me to a Kiss concert at the Spectrum. It was the Dynasty tour, the last with the original line-up and make-up (until the 1996 reunion). Judas Priest opened. I had an amazing time. My father says he enjoyed it, but I’m not so sure. […]

From the Skeptic’s Eye: Scene 12: Camera pans across hearing room, as Stephen Colbert takes his seat at a witness table, reporters scurry as we hear a gavel. LENHARD: Please, please everybody come to order. Mr. Colbert, you understand the allegations made about the funding of your candidacy. We here at the FEC want to […]

Stephen Colbert of Comedy Central’s “Colbert Report” has announced he is running for President. Even though it one grand exercise in performance satire, could his campaign still be subject to the campaign finance laws? Specifically, does the continued production and airing of his show by Comedy Central run afoul of campaign finance restrictions? Alison Hayward […]

Is President George W. Bush the most spendthrift president in recent memory, if not all time? It sure seems that way. Discretionary federal spending has increased more rapidly under President George W. Bush than any other post-WWII president. Take almost any yardstick and Bush generally exceeds the spending of his predecessors. When adjusted for inflation, […]

In today’s Los Angeles Times, Ed Whelan critiques the Miles/Sunstein study examining “judicial activism” on the Supreme Court. First, Whelan objects to focusing on review of agency decisions, as opposed to rulings on the constitutionality of state or federal statutes, because only in the latter case is the result of a court decision effectively immune […]

University of Chicago law professors Thomas J. Miles and Cass Sunstein summarize their effort to determine which Supreme Court justice is most “activist.” Rather than look at constitutional cases, or challenges to statutes, they looked at challenges to federal agency actions, judging a justice to be “activist” based upon how often he or she votes […]

I am generally skeptical of geo-engineering proposals to counteract global warming. But I agree with the Carnegie Institution’s Ken Caldeira that research into such proposals is worthwhile, just in case. As he frames the question: “Which is the more environmentally sensitive thing to do: let the Greenland ice sheet collapse and polar bears become extinct, […]

Speaking of corporate welfare, the cover story in new issue of Regulation, “Neither Renewable nor Reliable” by James Eaves and Stephen Eaves, devastates the environmental and “energy security” arguments for corn-based ethanol. According to Eaves and Eaves, corn-based ethanol is simply not capable of displacing a significant proportion of gasoline consumption, nor would a shift […]

The last Republican Congress justly earned a reputation for wasteful spending, particularly when it came to corporate welfare. Yet it appears the current Congress may do them one better. The last Congress spent over $90 billion per year on various subsidy programs, according to the Cato Institute. Yet, as a W$J editorial reports, the current […]

Earlier this month, a federal court enjoined construction of a border fence in southeastern Arizona designed to help keep out illegal immigrants, finding the Department of Homeland Security had failed to adequately consider potential environmental impacts. But this decision will not stop the fence’s construction. Yesterday, utilizing authority contained in the 2005 law authorizing the […]

In Slate, armchair economist Steven Landsburg examines the questions climate change policy advocates must answer. In particular, he notes that recognizing the fact of human influence on the global climate does not resolve the policy debate. There are many other scientific, economic, and ethical questions to resolve first, including the proper discount rate and level […]

Last week, with little fanfare, the Cape Cod Commission denied Cape Wind Associates permission to run transmission lines to their proposed offshore wind farm, the Boston Globe reports. The Commission based its decision on Cape Wind’s alleged failure to provide sufficient information about its project. Yet there is little doubt the decision was motivated by […]

Former Clinton Adminsitration National Security Council staff member Daniel Benjamin takes to the Washington Post‘s Outlook section to address “5 Myths about Rendition (and that New Movie).” Writes Benjamin: With hearings in Congress, legal cases bouncing up to the Supreme Court and complaints from Canada and our European allies, the issue of rendition is everywhere. […]

My colleague Erik Jensen has a new paper calling for a “Uniform Uniform Code.” The abstract reads, in full, “Law professors dress scruffily, and we need to do something about that.” Professor Bainbridge is unconvinced.

I am off to a conference on “Cost-Benefit Analysis of Regulations: Lessons Learned, Future Challenges,” sponsored by the Searle Center at the Northwestern University School of Law. The conference runs today and tomorrow. It features several the presentation of several academic papers and talks by the last four heads of the White House Office of […]