Regulation

The RFS is the latest phase in Congress's decades-long support for the ethanol industry. The problem is that support has outlived its usefulness.

Democrats in Congress are working feverishly to restore the Obama rules by abusing a device called the “Congressional Review Act.”

Republicans took a huge step by ending ObamaCare’s onerous mandate. But the freedom from having to buy expensive, government-approved coverage doesn’t mean consumers have the freedom to buy what they want and need.

The city must resist the call for an enormous new investment of taxpayer dollars to facilitate these private entrepreneurial ventures.

If ever a federal program had outlived its usefulness, it’s the government’s support for ethanol.

“As far as any effects which consumers can expect, nothing’s going to be different because nothing ever changed in the first place,” said Bartlett Cleland, research fellow for the Institute for Policy Innovation.

Merrill Matthews, Ph.D., IPI resident scholar, praised the new proposed rule, noting that it allows small businesses to do what large employers have long been able to: self-insure. “Self-insured employers have been able to avoid many of the state and federal mandates imposed on the small group and individual markets, which helped employers keep down the cost of coverage,” he said.

The Department of Labor’s proposed rulemaking released today would help clear the way for employers to band together in associations and self-insure, and is a good first step in the ongoing but challenging effort to provide employers and employees more flexibility under Obamacare.

President Trump made a lot of progress in 2017—a lot more than many expected. Now the question is whether his second year can top his first.