RTP's Fourth Branch Podcast

In this episode, Michael F. Cannon argues that the federal income tax exclusion of employer-sponsored health insurance is an "accident of history," and has had a significant impact on the American markets for health insurance, medical care, and on the U.S. political system. Read more from Michael Cannon in his article, End the Tax Exclusion for Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance. Featuring: Micha...

The US-EU Trans-Atlantic Data Privacy Framework, announced in March of this year, is a new agreement governing trans-Atlantic data flows between the United States (US) and the European Union (EU) – specifically data flows from EU countries to the U.S. that contain personal information of EU residents. The new framework is intended to replace the previous Privacy Shield Framework, which the EU Cour...

The Supreme Court’s recent abortion decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization will no doubt have many ramifications. One of the more unusual questions is the impact that Dobbs might have on data privacy. It has long been the case, for example, that cell phone location data can be used to identify certain personal behavior patterns, such as routine attendance at church. Some are now...

In the name of equality, some state and local governments seem to have implemented race-and-gender-based legal quotas in practice if not in name. Wen Fa, an attorney who represents plaintiffs challenging the legality of these laws and policies provides a litigation update on two of his latest cases: CFER v. Alameda County, and Raak Law v. Gast. In CFER v. Alameda County, plaintiffs are Oakland-are...

Energy law expert, Professor James W. Coleman, shares his analysis of the factors causing high energy prices - including public policy on the federal, state, and local level - and suggests some policies that might alleviate high energy prices. Featuring: James W. Coleman, Robert G. Storey Distinguished Faculty Fellow and Professor of Law, Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law Visit ou...

In May, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated a decision of the Securities and Exchange Commission that hedge-fund manager George Jarkesy had committed securities fraud. The case, Jarkesy v. SEC, stuck down an important enforcement provision of Dodd-Frank and represents a potential strengthening of nondelegation and unitary executive principles. As a consequence, it could have far-reachi...

In the historic decision of West Virginia v. EPA, the Supreme Court held that the Clean Air Act doesn’t authorize EPA to force America’s electricity sector to switch to renewable sources. The Court invalidated the Obama-era Clean Power Plan, which would have limited the total allowable greenhouse gas emissions of each state’s utility sector under the banner of “performance standards” for power pla...

In the Executive Office of the President is a small office that most people outside the Beltway have never heard of. The Office of Information & Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) reviews agencies' draft regulations, public information requests, surveys, etc. Across administrations - both Republican and Democratic - it has served as a check on excessive administrative zeal. The Joe Biden administration...

On November 15, 2021, President Biden signed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. On May 11, 2022, the White House released the Permitting Action Plan, to "accelerate and deliver infrastructure projects on time, on task, and on budget." The infrastructure bill represents a major public investment in infrastructure development. And yet significant obstacles to infrastructure development rema...

In this episode, J. Kennerly Davis, Jr., former Deputy Attorney General for the Commonwealth of Virginia, discusses the historical origin of the Defense Production Act, the powers the Act gives to the president, and recent presidents' invocation of the Act in pursuit of public policy objectives. Featuring: - J. Kennerly Davis, Jr., Former Senior Attorney, Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP Visit our website...

The Biden administration has pledged to meet what it calls "the accelerating threat of climate change" with a wide-ranging campaign to discourage the production and use of fossil fuels in order to control the emission of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases said to be the principal cause of global warming. The White House has directed regulatory agencies and departments across the executive b...

Senior officials in the Administration have expressed concern about cryptocurrencies being used for criminal activity and undermining the dollar as the global reserve currency. These concerns have been heightened with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, evasion of sanctions including North Korean sanctions, cyberattacks, and ransomware. Others contend that blockchain transactions are easier to trace...

In February 2019, then General Counsel of the Department of Transportation (DOT), Steven Bradbury, issued a memo later dubbed the "Bradbury Memo" that addressed concerns about civil enforcement abuse at the agency. Parts of the memo were subsequently made into binding DOT rules. DOT asserted that these rules were designed to protect the due process rights of those who were the subject of DOT enfor...

On June 23, 2022, David A. Carrillo, Christina Sandefur, Robert F. Williams and moderator Braden Boucek joined us to debate the different purposes and rights guarantees within state constitutions and the federal constitution. What are the federalism implications of an increased focus on state constitutional rights, if that's really the trend? What does the map of states look like if some federal l...

Cryptocurrency. Decentralized finance. Nonfungible tokens. Once only experts on the cutting edge of financial services were familiar with these terms. Now, with the emergence of digital assets within the global financial system, crypto, DeFi, and NFTs are becoming part of the mainstream financial services lexicon. The rapidly emerging crypto ecosystem faces uncertainty within a regulatory regime d...

Cryptocurrency. Decentralized finance. Nonfungible tokens. Once only experts on the cutting edge of financial services were familiar with these terms. Now, with the emergence of digital assets within the global financial system, crypto, DeFi, and NFTs are becoming part of the mainstream financial services lexicon. The rapidly emerging crypto ecosystem faces uncertainty within a regulatory regime d...

On May 5, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) announced a new "Comprehensive Environmental Justice Strategy." One piece of this new strategy was an Interim Final Rule reintroducing the use of Supplemental Environmental Projects (SEPs) in environmental enforcement action settlements. As defined by the Biden administration, SEPs are "local projects that defendants can agree to undertake as...

On June 7, 2022, the Regulatory Transparency Project hosted a live discussion on occupational licensing via Twitter Spaces. Utah Governor Spencer J. Cox opened the program with remarks on licensing reforms his state has recently pursued, and an expert panel featuring Jon Gabriel, Scott Lincicome, Colin Mortimer, and moderator Shoshana Weissmann then broke down the Governor’s remarks and disc...

As the cryptocurrency industry grows, state and federal governments are considering how that industry should be regulated. The President has directed the Secretary of the Treasury to report soon on the issues involved. A draft bill that would regulate stablecoins has been released in the U.S. Senate. Meanwhile, states are competing with one another to adopt regulatory laws that may attract cryptoc...

In this episode, Adam Thierer interviews Professor Daniel Crane regarding state restrictions on direct car sales and their implications for automobile markets, including the antitrust concerns they may raise. Featuring: - Daniel Crane, Frederick Paul Furth Sr. Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School - [Moderator] Adam Thierer, Senior Fellow, Mercatus Center, George Mason University Vis...

Eight years after he was first sworn in, Arizona Governor Doug Ducey will leave office in January 2023 due to the state's limit of two consecutive terms. In this episode, Governor Ducey joined tech policy experts Brent Skorup and Adam Thierer to discuss initiatives aimed at boosting innovation Arizona has launched during his time in office. Their conversation covered regulatory sandboxes, occupati...

In February 2022, the Catawba Nation of South Carolina voted to approve the first tribal digital economic zone in the United States. This "Catawba Digital Economic Zone" includes an independent regulatory framework and commercial code, which its organizers intend to utilize to attract financial technology firms to the Zone as online "ecorporations." In this episode, Catawba Digital Economic Zone C...

In 2018, then-Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim announced with great fanfare the "New Madison Approach" to intellectual property and antitrust disputes, rejecting the application of antitrust law to licensing disputes involving Standards Essential Patents (SEPs) and announcing that SEP holders should be entitled to injunctive relief like any other patent holder. Many patent holders cheered...

On April 18, Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida vacated the Centers for Disease Control's mask mandate for public transportation. Health law and policy expert Joel Zinberg joined the podcast to break down the ruling and examine the strategy behind the Department of Justice's decision to appeal it without requesting a stay. Featuring...

Stablecoins are unique types of digital tokens that have emerged out of the cryptocurrency revolution and have taken center stage in the debate about crypto regulation. Tied to the value of an asset or fiat currency such as the dollar, stablecoins were initially created to ease the trade between different cryptocurrencies and crypto exchanges. Yet they have taken on innovative and beneficial new u...