Tag: regulations

Residents of one state paying for politics in their electric bills

When families in Central Pennsylvania open their electric bills, they need an explanation for why electricity keeps getting more expensive. Come November, voters will surely have this issue top of mind.

A quick look on the Pennsylvania 10th Congressional candidate’s websites shows stark contrast. U.S. Rep. Scott Perry addresses this concern and acknowledges, “The Biden-Harris anti-American energy policies threaten our national security and have ruined our economy. America must be energy independent to grow our economy and maintain our security.” He correctly states he, “supports a blended energy portfolio that includes the development of clean energy technologies and using our vast energy resources – to reduce our dependence on foreign energy, turn around the economy, create jobs, reduce inflation, make energy more affordable, and preserve our environment.”

And on Janelle Stelson’s website? Nothing. Even with the find feature on and searching the word “energy,” it’s not mentioned once.

Janelle Stelson may not have released a detailed energy plan, but she has aligned herself with the broader Biden-era Democratic energy agenda on several social media posts. That matters because the policies that came out of the Biden-era White House, combined with policies pushed in Pennsylvania by Govs. Tom Wolf and Josh Shapiro, have made electricity more expensive for consumers. These policies have taken reliable baseload power offline, discouraged investment in new natural gas generation, and created uncertainty for the very projects Pennsylvania needs to keep the lights on and prices affordable.

The answer is pretty straightforward: energy markets run on supply and demand. When government policies make it harder to build and maintain reliable power generation, supply gets tighter. When supply gets tighter and demand keeps growing, prices go up. That is exactly what Pennsylvanians are feeling now.

Because new baseload energy production requires massive investments, the energy cost crunch can’t break or be fixed overnight. The Obama Clean Power Plan began the federal push to force coal-fired power plants and natural gas plants off the grid. Don’t take my word for it: In a 2008 interview President Obama admitted himself that, “my cap-and-trade program will cause electricity rates to necessarily skyrocket.” The Biden Administration charted a similar course with a new round of regulations aimed at coal and natural gas plants, including rules that would have required major emissions reductions from existing coal plants and new baseload gas plants. EPA has since described those Biden-era regulations as costly rules that raised costs and threatened grid reliability. Ms. Stelson said she supported these policies.

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US Nuclear Regulator Seeks Simpler Environmental Reviews To Boost Nuclear Expansion

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on July 8 proposed narrowing environmental reviews for new and renewed nuclear reactor licenses, a move the agency said would reduce costs, as the Trump administration pushes to expand nuclear energy.

The proposal would change how the NRC implements the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), limiting reviews to environmental effects that fall within the agency’s legal authority.

The NRC described the proposal as the “most comprehensive update to its environmental review regulations in decades,” adding that it would remove outdated requirements and make the licensing process more efficient.

NRC Chairman Ho Nieh said the proposal, which is open for public comment until Aug. 21, would better align the agency’s environmental reviews with what Congress intended under NEPA.

He told reporters: “For many, many, many years, NRC did much more than required by law in the National Environmental Policy Act. So this really brings us back to what NEPA demands, nothing more, nothing less.”

Nieh also said, “By concentrating on impacts the NRC can address, we’ll strengthen environmental protection while making licensing reviews more timely and predictable.”

He said that the NRC proposes to limit areas where it does not have authority over effects on the environment, such as the construction of nuclear plants.

“Dust, noise, air impacts, non-radiological water, or non-radiological effects, all of those things are examples of where they’re outside of our regulatory authority, and so we won’t be doing those in the future,” he said.

NRC’s chief environmental review and permitting officer, Kimyata Savoy, said the proposal would save reactor developers and the agency about $135 million in licensing costs for new reactors and license renewals.

Other measures under the proposal include new categorical exclusions, an update of environmental review procedures, and greater flexibility for applicants in providing environmental information.

The proposal follows a series of actions by President Donald Trump aimed at expanding nuclear power in the United States. Trump signed four executive orders on May 23, 2025, directing the NRC to license 10 new reactors by 2030 and supporting a plan to quadruple U.S. nuclear power capacity by 2050.

One of them, executive order 14300, directed the NRC to reform its licensing process. The White House said the commission had slowed nuclear development by imposing unnecessary regulatory requirements.

U.S. Energy Information Administration data show that last year, nuclear energy accounted for about 18 percent of U.S. utility-scale electricity generation.

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The Supreme Court Has Weakened The Regulatory State

n Trump v. Slaughter, published yesterday, the Supreme Court held that the President has plenary (that is, unfettered) authority to fire the heads of regulatory agencies (though not the governors of the Federal Reserve Board, as explained in a note at the end of this post). The decision is hugely consequential. It is both a massive blow to the regulatory state and a huge—albeit precarious—step to returning our nation to function as the Constitution intended.

For over a century, ever since President Woodrow Wilson ushered in the “progressive era,” Congress has been creating “independent” agencies that have complete power to write regulations with the force and effect of law, and then to enforce those regulations, including deciding cases in their own courts, with penalties that include fines and jail time.

This means that, for most of our lifetimes, we have lived in a nation where federal agencies, which do not exist in the Constitution and are insulated from the ballot box, have had a far greater impact on our daily lives than the other three branches of government. The agencies’ reach has been an ever more intrusive tyranny of the regulatory state, from the EPA’s CO2 endangerment finding (which allows the agency to control every aspect of life) to the Department of Education’s unceasing support for teachers’ unions, which launder money to the Democrat party. (Indeed, Jimmy Carter created the DOE to sustain the unions.)

Almost all federal agencies hew to the same increasingly radical left agenda, as evidenced by political donations. And, indeed, this was President Wilson’s dream: To run roughshod over the Constitution and democracy, substituting rule by technocrats. Until yesterday, Wilson had succeeded.

When Congress created these so-called “independent agencies,” it often provided that the people appointed to operate had long-term sinecures that presidents could end only for malfeasance. This created what some called a fourth branch of government, cementing the “Deep State.” These agency heads, running their own fiefdoms, could thwart an elected president’s preferred policies. As Senator Elizabeth Warren has repeatedly, and rightly, pointed out, “personnel is policy.”

However, despite their seeming entrenchment, these agencies have no place under the Constitution. Art. II Section 1 provides that the “executive power” to enforce the laws resides solely with the duly elected president. As Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in his majority opinion, the Constitution’s drafters explicitly intended that the executive power include the plenary authority to remove any personnel exercising executive powers. Congress cannot curb that power using legislation.

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California’s Self-Inflicted Squeeze

Energy Island

Long time readers may recall the many articles we wrote over many years highlighting the madness of California planners and policymakers. We were born and raised in the land of fruits and nuts and lived and worked there for over four decades.

About four years ago, we made our California exodus. At the time, we thought our coverage of the Golden State’s self-destruction would continue. We still have family and friends there who we visit from time to time. But, as we’ve found, without a front row seat to the big show we’re less inclined to gawk at the insanity. Articles on California have diminished to a slow trickle.

Today, however, following a recent conversation with a friend and California resident, we aim our sights at our former home state. Once again, California delivers a rich example of what happens when central planning outweighs economic reality. Here the specific example involves extreme intervention in oil and gas markets.

Policymakers in Sacramento, over many decades, have operated under the assumption that if petroleum production, refining capacity, and fuel consumption were made sufficiently difficult and expensive, the market would rapidly transition to their preferred alternatives. The California Air Resources Board (CARB) has been the principal vehicle for implementing this vision through increasingly stringent fuel regulations, emissions mandates, low-carbon fuel standards, permitting requirements, and compliance costs imposed upon refiners operating within the state.

Yet the result has not been the energy transition that was promised. Instead, California has become increasingly dependent on foreign suppliers for products it once produced itself. This trend is particularly problematic because California is effectively an energy island. Unlike much of the United States, California lacks extensive pipeline connections to the major refining centers along the Gulf Coast.

The state also requires unique fuel formulations that relatively few refineries outside California are equipped to produce. Consequently, California’s fuel market functions largely as a self-contained system. When local refining capacity disappears, replacement supplies cannot simply be redirected from Texas or Louisiana with the turn of a valve.

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How Government ‘Affordability’ Turns an $18 Antibiotic Into $2,500

Nothing makes anything less affordable than a government promise to make something more affordable, and a Texas pharmacist revealed this week how an $18 generic antibiotic gets listed for $2,500. But from there, things get so seriously stupid that you just know there must be a government program involved.

Brad Hart, along with his wife Glenda, own Forest Park Pharmacy in Fort Worth, so he knows a thing or two about how the system works — and just how dysfunctional it is.

“A family came in wanting to transfer their kid’s antibiotic to us,” he posted to X earlier this week. “The child had already STARTED the course. Then, mid-treatment, the insurance company decided the last 14 tablets suddenly needed a ‘prior authorization’ before the other pharmacy could hand them over.”

All this for Linezolid, a generic antibiotic that costs Forest Park $18.

Why all the fuss for something so inexpensive? 

Hart explained, “Insurance and the PBMs [Pharmacy Benefit Manager] behind them price drugs off a number called AWP — ‘Average Wholesale Price.’ People in my industry have another name for it: ‘Ain’t What’s Paid.’ It’s a benchmark number, not a real-world cost. On paper, the AWP for just those last 14 tablets is about $2,500.”

“The system that’s supposedly ‘protecting’ this family from cost is the same system that inflated an $18 medication into a $2,500 line item, then slapped a prior auth on it to “review the expense” THEY invented,” Hart continued. “They manufactured the problem, then billed everyone for the privilege of solving it.”

PBMs and AWPs were unfamiliar to me, so I asked Grok to explain how they work and why they exist.

The short version is that Washington’s tax incentives and Affordable Care Act (thanks, Obama!) mandates push everything into third-party insurance, disconnecting patients from real costs. Medicare Part D (thanks, W!) and weak transparency rules empower PBM middlemen (another Washington creation) to profit from fictional AWP benchmarks, delaying care and sucking up tax dollars while also overcharging sick people.

You get robbed coming and going.

Really, what the insurance companies do here is play arbitrage games enabled by government meddling in the name of affordability. That’s why Forest Park Pharmacy doesn’t take insurance and just sells medications at a market-rate markup from their wholesale cost.

One solution — and this is exactly what I used to do — is to buy bare-bones high-deductible health plans with catastrophic coverage and pay cash for everything else. But I can’t do that anymore because Obamacare made those plans mostly illegal or unobtainable. 

Why, it’s almost as though the entire system were geared for price-gouging. 

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Khanna: California ‘Messed Up Housing’, ‘We Have Too Much Regulation’

On Friday’s broadcast of HBO’s “Real Time,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) stated that California has “messed up housing in this state. We have too much regulation, zoning where we don’t build. We’ve made it very, very hard to build, and that’s been a failure.”

Khanna said, “[W]e’ve done certain things right. We have excellent higher education. The U.C.’s, the California states. And it’s led to, of course, a lot of innovation, $20 trillion in my district, right?”

He added, “But we’ve messed up housing in this state. We have too much regulation, zoning where we don’t build. We’ve made it very, very hard to build, and that’s been a failure. And any person being honest about it needs to acknowledge that we’ve put roadblocks onto building housing. And that would be, in my view, be the biggest failure. And that’s what Fareed was saying that the housing policy here has been bad.”

Khanna added that there are “issues” within the state’s K-12 system.

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Stampede Grinches: City Hall aims to end Calgary nightlife

By weaponizing Calgary’s noise bylaws, city officials are saddling the nearly 30-year-old Cowboys Music Festival tradition with new sound restrictions and time limits that has long-time festival organizers panicking.

The result is a regulatory squeeze that could make it impossible for the festivals like the world famous Cowboys Music Festival to run its full, star-studded lineup. If you were looking forward to seeing Jason Aldean, Sean Paul or Jason Derulo at the nearly sold-out event, you can thank City Hall for killing the vibe.

According to a Calgary city noise permit issued for the event, once midnight hits on the weekend, the current rules force volume limits down to 65 decibels, which is the volume of a regular, everyday conversation.

The restrictions get even tighter during the week, choking the music down to a microscopic 50 decibels, the volume of a quiet recording studio, at midnight, before forcing the speakers to unplug completely by 12:30 AM.

In an exclusive interview with Juno News, Penny Lane Entertainment CEO, Paul Vickers said the abrupt changes from City Hall came suddenly and gave them very little wiggle room.

“This is not something you do three weeks before Stampede,” Vickers said. “You give everybody time to digest it. Last year, we had a whole year to talk about this. We had a really smooth Stampede last year. We had a really good community effort with everyone.”

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Pay up: Woman fighting to keep home after $600,000 website mistake

A Honolulu woman, 83, recently suffered injuries in a serious car crash, then returned home to find waiting for her a $600,000 city fine, accrued while she was recovering, at $10,000 a day, for a website mistake.

The city’s response was to tell her to hire a lawyer.

The plight of Sandra May, who has lived in her home for 56 years, raising her son there, has been described by Fox News.

The issue is that while she relies on rental income from an attached apartment for some of her income, she is not located in an area where short-term rentals are allowed.

And a rental website mistakenly listed that apartment as available for short-term rentals. It did not, however, allow anyone to actually book a short-term stay.

She’s now had to hire a lawyer after she finished her hospitalization, found the notice of the $600,000 fine, and tried without success to reason with city officials.

The complaint explains that the city issued its notice of violation but May was unable to access it during her hospitalization.

It ballooned before she got home.

“It feels to me like they’re just trying to take my house, put me on the street with the rest of the homeless people,” May told Fox News Digital. “It’s very depressing, very upsetting.”

The city has not been idle, after issuing the fine. Officials put a lien on her house and blocked her access to basic services, such as renewing her driver’s license or car registration.

“All the stress, the stomach problems, every day wondering if I’m gonna have a house… I was gonna live here for the rest of the days I have,” May told Fox. “This is actually — I call this my little piece of paradise on earth. … The thought of losing it is — I can’t imagine.”

Her legal advisers already have raised the city’s apparent violation of the Eighth Amendment, which blocks unreasonable government fines.

Loren Seehase, of the Pacific Legal Foundation, explained, “The Constitution prohibits excessive fines. Governments cannot simply impose fines that are so ruinous that they would financially devastate someone over a simple error. And that’s what we’re fighting for.”

In fact, the lawyer pointed out, it’s apparently an industry for Honolulu, which has issued more than $90 million in fines for related advertising “violations.”

Seehase described the city’s response: “Rather than having some sympathy and understanding that she was out of and in the hospital. They said, Well, we’re going to still fine her $590,000.”

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Washington’s Business Exodus

Washington state’s business climate continues to deteriorate under the weight of record tax increases and burdensome regulations. A spring 2026 survey by the Association of Washington Business (AWB) reveals alarming trends, nearly 1 in 4 employers (24%) are now actively considering relocating their businesses out of state, up sharply from 17% in the previous quarter and nearly triple the level from winter 2025.

Another 55% of business leaders are considering moving their personal residences elsewhere, citing the state’s escalating tax burden as the top challenge. This flight is no surprise. Washington’s business tax climate has plummeted from 6th best in the nation in 2014 to near the bottom today, with the state now ranking among the worst for small business survival.

Major tax hikes enacted in 2025 are now hitting businesses hard. Starting in late 2025 and accelerating into 2026, the state increased Business & Occupation (B&O) tax rates for service businesses and introduced new surcharges. Large companies face a 0.5% surcharge on taxable income over $250 million, while advanced computing firms saw their surcharge jump dramatically. These changes, part of the largest tax increase in state history, are projected to reduce state GDP growth by up to 0.5% in 2026 (nearly $4.5 billion) and cut wages by billions more.

Office vacancy rates reflect the pain. While Seattle’s downtown vacancy remains among the nation’s highest (hovering between 28% and 35%+ in Q1 2026 reports), the broader Puget Sound region and state face similar pressures from remote work shifts and corporate relocations. Companies like Starbucks are shifting hundreds of jobs to lower-tax states such as Tennessee. Other firms have issued WARN notices and moved operations to Idaho, Utah, and beyond.

High-profile exits and stalled expansions are mounting. Entrepreneurs report that Washington’s combination of high taxes, regulatory red tape, and hostile policies makes growth nearly impossible.

Bottom line is as the high earners and companies leave the state, the revenue from increased taxes, including the new income tax, will dry up and politicians in Olympia will be left scrambling for new sources of tax revenue. The $1,000,000 threshold on the income tax will fall in the blink of an eye.

Politicians have to restore small business owners’ confidence in the regulatory environment and keep the promises they are making. Just 3 months after signing the income tax into law, lauding it as the way forward for the state, Governor Ferguson is now claiming he will veto any change to the exemption threshold in order to garner support to keep the legislation in place. History indicates that Ferguson’s claim might be a little “flexible,” and that’s the problem. There is no predictability for business owners.

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US To Tighten Rule Regarding Nonprofits Paying Excessive Executive Compensation

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Department of the Treasury issued a notice on Friday, announcing their plan to issue proposed regulation concerning taxation on high compensation paid by tax-exempt organizations to employees.

The notice relates to excessive compensation and excess parachute payments, the IRS said in a June 5 statement. Parachute payments are made to key employees when they are terminated or when the business undergoes a merger or acquisition. An excess parachute payment is any such payment that exceeds three times an employee’s average annual compensation for the most recent five years.

Section 4960 of the Internal Revenue Code imposes an excise tax on any nonprofit or tax-exempt organization paying an employee more than $1 million in remuneration in a tax year or an excess parachute payment, according to the notice.

The new rule changes tax applicability regarding excessive compensation.

Prior to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, taxes on such payments were applicable to a tax-exempt organization’s five highest-compensated employees for a tax year whose compensation exceeded $1 million.

But under the new rule, the excise tax is applicable to any employee whose compensation exceeds $1 million in a tax year beginning after Dec. 31, 2025. The requirement of being among the five-highest compensated employees has been eliminated.

The rule is also applicable to any former employee who was a top-five compensated employee exceeding $1 million for any tax year between Dec. 31, 2016, and Dec. 31, 2025.

There is no change to taxation on parachute payments. Such payments will continue attracting taxes as per existing rules.

The updates also provide certain exceptions regarding people offering volunteer services to tax-exempt organizations.

IRS Chief Executive Officer Frank J. Bisignano said the latest rule “strengthens the accountability of tax-exempt organizations.” The regulation “broadens the scope of tax from a limited group of executives to potentially any highly compensated employee.”

The Treasury and the IRS are inviting public comments on the notice until Aug. 4.

The notice comes after the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) recently raised concerns about the implementation of the new regulations.

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