Category: regulation

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crime and punishment regulation

Fix-​It Man Pardoned

Troy Lake, regulations, Trump, pardon

Troy Lake, the mechanic who helped truckers and bus drivers keep their vehicles going by removing crippling emissions systems, paid the price — jailed for this “crime,” and also fined $52,000. 

Prosecutors made an example out of the Wyoming fix-​it man for following a practice that had become mandatory to keep rigs — in his case, at least 344 heavy-​duty diesel trucks — on the road.

I’ve discussed his case, saying that President Trump should pardon him for this non-crime.

Though Troy Lake served about seven months in a federal prison, and he’s been out for a while, the conviction was still hanging over his head.

Now President Trump has indeed pardoned Mr. Lake.

He learned about it from a congratulatory voicemail left by U.S. Senator Cynthia Lummis, calling to “let you know how very sorry I am that this even happened to you guys but how delighted I am that the pardon has come through.”

“It’s great,” says 65-​year-​old Lake, who broke down after hearing the good word. “It’s news that, you know — I guess I look at it as, there are some good things that happen in the world.”

Troy and his wife, Holly, also tearfully relieved by the news, are grateful to Senator Lummis, Wyoming legislators, and others who went to bat for him.

About the environmental regulations that sent him to prison for helping diesel drivers survive, he says, “We need to sit down and think about a more logical way of doing it, not putting people out of work.”

Talk about an understatement.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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folly regulation

Twilight of Electrical Civilization

Germany, nuclear power, climate change, energy, nuclear energy

Paige Lambermont reminds us that Germany’s phase-​out of nuclear power has its reasons.

Construction, transport, and other processes involved in making and maintaining a nuclear power plant emit carbon dioxide. But nuclear power itself does not emit carbon dioxide, which is supposed to be terrible for climate and planet. So, “What would prompt a country seeking to sharply reduce CO2 emissions to get rid of its largest source of carbon-​free energy?”

Lambermont, a policy associate at the Institute for Energy Research, reviews the history of anti-​nuclear sentiments, going back to the 1970s, and various news-​driven decisions by the German government. A tsunami in Japan didn’t help, though safety measures were strengthened at the affected nuclear power plant.

Now we seem to be nearing the end of the line. German pubs host “demolition viewing parties” as the country self-​destructively continues to destroy another nuclear power plant, specifically the part consisting of two giant cooling towers.

A controlled demolition caused 56,000 tons of concrete to collapse in seconds. The speed is misleading, for the job is far from finished. Further work dismantling the Bavaria-​based plant is expected to continue until 2040. Of course, the useful life of the plant is already over.

It’s all part of the plan, the German government’s energy-​transition plan called Energiewende. The energy has to become “renewable,” a word meaning — in effect — unreliable (wind, solar). Also, Germans must drastically reduce their consumption of energy.

Maybe they should call the plan Götterdämmerung — twilight of the gods or, in this case, of industrial civilization.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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First Amendment rights ideological culture media and media people regulation

Cancel Kimmel Culture

Reverse cancel culture is here, so to speak.

For years, leftists hounded any and all offenders against politicalcorrectness — meaning they’d root out anyone they disagreed with, including for saying anodyne things like “women are adult female humans and men are adult male humans” — directing hysterical online mobs against offenders’ employers, advertisers, and even ISPs.

Now it appears rightists are doing the same. People have lost their jobs for saying horrific — tasteless, hateful — things regarding the killing of Charlie Kirk. And Jimmy Kimmel just lost his high-​profile late-​night “comedy show” with ABC.

He’s literally been cancelled.

What happened? The Sinclair and Nexstar affiliate groups announced they will not (barring some apology) air Kimmel’s show anymore, and the two, together, own over 70 ABC affiliates — suggesting a substantial hit to the network’s bottom line.

“‘Jimmy Kimmel Live will be pre-​empted indefinitely,’ a spokesperson for the Disney-​owned network said in a statement,” reports the BBC. 

The offense? “In his Monday night monologue, Kimmel said: ‘The Maga Gang desperately trying to characterise this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.’”

One could nitpick. 

It has, after all, been embarrassing to watch the anti-​MAGA folks desperately try to pin the accused shooter’s motive on some bizarre theory about “groyper” culture and “furry” larping; truth is, after an obviously political assassination, nearly everyone will aim to “score political points.” Kimmel one-​sidedly points only to his opponents.

Missing in the back-​and-​forth? The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which regulates broadcast TV in the first place. 

The FCC actually has a case that what Kimmel said was offensive and not “in the public interest.” But why should that count for anything? Were the broadcast spectrum privately owned — slots sold to the highest bidder, getting government out of any regulatory role whatsoever over media outlets — then, maybe, ABC wouldstand by its divisive host to satisfy only their core audience of partisan MAGA-haters.

And keep losing money … as is its right.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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free trade & free markets regulation

Regulating Restrooms

Perhaps you remember the good old days — when men were men, women were women, and private establishments could maintain men’s restrooms and women’s restrooms for the men and the women without worrying about totalitarian edicts from a Human and Civil “Rights” Commission.

Those days may not be gone forever. But it sure must feel like it to the owners of the Hideout Arcade Bar & Grille in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.

The restaurant refused the request of a man, what news reports call a “biological man,” who wanted to use the woman’s bathroom at the restaurant. His reason was that — well, I’m not sure his exact rationale matters. Anyway, the restaurant said no, doubtless feeling that it had a right to protect the sensibilities of the women using its bathrooms and to establish rules for their use.

He must have complained, because the Delaware Human and Civil “Rights” Commission got involved and, ignoring any common-​sense defense the restaurant offered, has fined the restaurant $2,000 and imposed “anti-​discrimination training” — i.e., reeducation — on its employees. 

No word on whether they’ll be forced to wear dunce caps, as were some unfortunates during China’s Cultural Revolution.

Commission members might say they’re merely following the law — they just work there. Delaware enacted an Equal Accommodations Law mandating that “All persons within the jurisdiction of this state are entitled to full and equal accommodations, facilities … regardless of … sex.”

Notice that the law did not say “heedless” of sex, however.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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free trade & free markets regulation

Regulating Refineries to Death

California, regulations, fuel, engery

Punish them! 

That might as well be the explicit goal of California’s regulators and politicians — and all too many voters — for the results are clear enough. All who refuse to use electric cars and solar energy must suffer … with ever-​higher gas prices, at the very least.

Two major oil refineries that provide gas for California as well as a few neighboring states have announced that they are closing their doors. They can’t hack it.

One analyst predicts that in consequence of these closures and related destruction of production, the price of gas will shoot up to $8 per gallon.

Lane Riggs, CEO of Valero Energy, which is closing a refinery near San Francisco, says the state’s tough “regulatory enforcement environment” is to blame for the loss of the sixth-​largest refinery in the state.

Also throwing in the towel is a Los Angeles refinery, this one the state’s seventh-​largest, operated by Phillips 66.

Brittany Bernstein notes that Phillips announced the closure “just 72 hours after California passed ABX‑2, which requires refineries to hold additional inventories of finished stocks.” Yet another arbitrary burden on a company’s ability to function.

Last year, Chevron moved its headquarters from California to Texas because of the toxic environment for producers in California.

The researcher who’s predicting $8 per gallon gas, USC Professor Michael Mische, says Californians have “legislated ourselves into a situation where the costs are extraordinarily high and the political environment is extraordinarily harsh.”

Solution: reverse and undo. Please permit me to assume that this is possible.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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First Amendment rights free trade & free markets national politics & policies regulation

Banks Not the Only Debankers

debanking, debank, banks, censorship, surveillance

A recent executive order that President Trump issued to stop regulators from abetting and even compelling the “debanking” of bank customers for their political views is clear and on-target. 

On-​target as far as debanking by banks goes.

But Reclaim the Net notes a glaring omission. The order’s identifies financial institutions willing to blacklist customers for possessing the “wrong” political opinions or missions. (“Wrong” here means not too pro-​criminal or pro-​terrorist but too constitutionalist, too much in favor of individual rights of the First or Second Amendment variety.)

The problem is that the order says nothing about major payment processors like Visa and PayPal.

Now, perhaps a penumbra of the new regulatory marching orders would influence the policies of the credit-​card companies, whose cards are after all typically issued in cooperation with banks. But this is highly uncertain.

And Reclaim the Net thinks that Visa and Mastercard, “the twin tollbooth operators of the global payments highway,” are, like PayPal and Stripe, untouched by Trump’s order. Yet all of these payment processors have in recent years been blacklisting individuals and organizations that the processors happen to disagree with.

The practice goes back at least to the Obama administration, which instructed regulators that it could regard something called “negative public opinion” as a legitimate risk factor. 

This doctrine “quickly turned into a permission slip for politically driven account closures.” 

The government shouldn’t be issuing such “permission slips” — or implicit instructions — to banks, payment processors, or anybody.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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free trade & free markets regulation

Debanking Disallowed

debank, banking, surveillance, censorship

President Trump has issued an executive order telling banking regulators to cut it out already.

The order, “Guaranteeing Fair Banking for All Americans,” takes aim at Biden-​era regulations that pushed banks to “debank” clients who had the “wrong” political viewpoints: supporters of the First Amendment, the Second Amendment, or whatever aspect of individual rights and freedom the Biden administration was most insistently opposed to.

One key passage requires regulators to “remove the use of reputation risk or equivalent concepts that could result in politicized or unlawful debanking … from their guidance documents, manuals, and other materials … used to regulate or examine financial institutions over which they have jurisdiction.…”

The order also takes aim at banks. It requires regulators to identify financial institutions that have engaged or still engage in “politicized or unlawful” debanking practices and “to take appropriate remedial action” against the banks, including possibly “levying fines, issuing consent decrees, or imposing other disciplinary measures.”

Overall, the order represents a welcome 180 turnabout in very recent policy. The one problem I see, though, is that no clear attempt is made to distinguish between banks that were gung ho about clobbering politically unhip account holders and those that went no further than what they were pushed by Biden regulators to do.

Of course, one could always take a stand and do the right thing despite being threatened. Like the way the debanked individuals and institutions fought for what they believed in despite the risk of being debanked.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment local leaders regulation

Free Troy Lake

US Capitol, pollution, exhaust, regulations, pardon

Colorado mechanic Troy Lake, former and (we hope) future operator of Elite Diesel, was incarcerated by the Biden administration.

The 65-​year-​old fixed diesel vehicles. Unfortunately for him, he did so by removing EPA-​mandated emissions systems that supposedly help keep the air clean. By forcing vehicles to recirculate exhaust, the systems also make it harder for them to function properly.

“I was just trying to help people. And the word got out all over the country that I could do it right.”

One customer was hauling calves when his truck almost caught on fire because of the EPA-​mandated system. He removed the filter himself and paid Troy to fine-​tune the engine.

Troy has seen school buses unable to move for hours because of problems caused by the filter.

He wasn’t fixing these vehicles “out of malice,” he protests. “I think all of us want cleaner air. [At this cost? No.] But when we’re putting people out of business, there’s got to be a common ground.”

In December 2024, a judge sentenced Troy to 12 months in prison and fined him $52,500 for “conspiracy to violate the Clean Air Act.” It could have been worse: up to five years and $250,000.

Now Troy and his friends want President Trump — who has been working to undo some of the worst regulatory impositions of the Obama and Biden years — to pardon Troy so he can get back to his life and business. 

How about it, Mr. President?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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regulation

Ban Banning Gas Stoves

gas stove, fuel, regulations, freedom

Not long ago, you would’ve been labeled a conspiracy theorist if you suggested that a government report about how terribly unhealthy gas stoves are and how they ought to be banned meant that plans were in the works to ban gas stoves. 

“No, the government’s not taking your stove,” CNET said in January 2024.

What were we all worried about?

Tightening regulations, that’s what.

Absent a Trump administration, we would have witnessed a long series of ever-​stricter regulations — always ratcheting up — to save us from the horrors of gas stoves.

Though we have been reprieved from many anti-​energy Biden administration initiatives, a gas-​stove ban may yet be coming to a state near you. 

Do you live in New York State? Well, your anti-​gas-​stove politicians want to ban installation of new gas connections. You need a connection to the gas to get the gas into the stove.

It’s being litigated right now. An Empire State regulation forbidding new gas infrastructure will take effect next January unless a court challenge succeeds. Even though it’s all just a conspiracy theory.…

Judge Glenn Suddaby is giving plaintiffs, who argue that the impending regulation imposes arbitrary hardships, time to submit new arguments. Then, if he’s not persuaded, he’ll dismiss their challenge. 

Unfortunately, the facts being promoted in New York State aren’t enough by themselves to motivate this judge to make a rational ruling.

No, government isn’t going to take your stove. But politicians and activists do seek to force you to give up your stove in the future. For want of fuel. Or because they’ve added sin taxes on the fuel or the stoves. Or both. 

Or something else.

That’s how the progressive regulatory agenda works.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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free trade & free markets regulation tax policy

The New Old Coke

Trump, Coke, sugar

The President of these United States famously drinks Diet Coke.

Despite his preference, however, it’s regular Coca-​Cola he’s making waves about.

“I have been speaking to Coca-​Cola about using REAL Cane Sugar in Coke in the United States, and they have agreed to do so,” Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social last week. 

The Atlanta-​based company has confirmed the story, but it will not be removing High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) Coke from the market. 

What will change? 

“Mexican Coke” (made from refined cane sugar) is available in glass bottles right now, for a premium, in many venues. In effect, Trump is merely helping promote this currently U.S.-made product, allowing it to sit next to regular Coke just as aspartame-​sweetened Diet Coke competes on the shelf with Coke Zero, which is made with a blend of artificial sweeteners, including aspartame and acesulfame potassium (Ace‑K).

Maybe all Coca-​Cola will really do is re-​brand Mexican Coke.

To “Trump Coke”?

“I’d like to thank all of those in authority at Coca-​Cola,” added the president. “This will be a very good move by them — You’ll see. It’s just better!”

Matters of taste aside, cane sugar may be marginally healthier for you than HFCS. Invented in the Fifties and Sixties in labs, it has been pushed by the USDA, which regulates its prices (as Matt Damon’s 2009 comedy The Informant! makes clear). But both are sugar, if slightly different, chemically.

Behind the proposal to switch to HFCS lies a broader reality: domestic refined cane sugar production from states like Hawaii, Florida, and Louisiana falls short of U.S. consumption needs, while protectionist policies keep its price significantly above global market levels.

For some reason, Donald Trump hasn’t been talking about reducing the sugar tariff!

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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