Regulatory Reform - May 2017

FreedomWorks Foundation's Regulatory Action Center submitted comments to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) last week supporting the agency's stay and review of unnecessary and burdensome methane emission regulations on the domestic oil and gas industry. FreedomWorks Foundation further calls upon EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt to investigate the process by which such laughably bad regulations were finalized and fire those responsible.

FreedomWorks Foundation submitted, thus far, the only comment to an open Coast Guard docket requesting information on regulations to review and/or reverse, in accordance with President Trump's executive orders on regulatory reform.

Perpetually increasing prescription drug prices ravage everyday Americans. Specifically, name-brand prices outpace inflation by about 50%, largely due to government-protected market power. A beacon of hope for reducing drug prices are the generic and biosimilar drug industries, which produces existing brand drugs and biologics drugs through distinctly cheaper methods. But big Pharma doesn’t want competition, so it does everything it can to block generic and biosimilar innovation. The CREATES Act, H.R. 2212, solves a loophole commonly abused by big pharmaceutical companies for unlawful market advantages in the emerging generics and biosimilars markets.

Yesterday, FreedomWorks Foundation submitted comments in support of the FCC's proposed Restoring Internet Freedom Rule. This rule, proposed under Republican FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, would reverse FCC's 2015 classification and regulation of Internet service providers (ISPs) as public utilities or common carriers under Title II of the Communications Act, more commonly referenced as "net neutrality" rules. This would return ISPs to a light-touch regulatory framework that allowed for the Internet to grow and flourish into the revolutionary economic engine we know today.

On July 12, FreedomWorks Foundation's Regulatory Action Center (RAC) responded to a request for comment from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on how to reduce the regulatory burden of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), better known as ObamaCare.

Amazon and other corporate friends will spend Wednesday, July 12th, protesting FCC Chairman Ajit Pai’s impending net neutrality repeal through a “Day of Action.” The precise “action” is unknown, but one thing is certain. They’ll be begging for more corporate welfare.

Rose George, the author of the book Ninety Percent of Everything, spent several weeks traveling a total of 9,288 nautical miles aboard the Maersk Kendal, a British shipping vessel.

The Trump White House will seek to boost technology investment with a series of meetings this week. Dubbed as “Tech Week,” the meetings will include Silicon Valley and venture capital heavyweights and will prioritize discussing deregulations that would help investors develop 5g Internet, drone, and “Internet of things” technologies.