Top Democrats Unveil Ambitious Antitrust Agenda

Liz Crampton in Bloomberg BNA on July 24, 2017

Congressional Democrats July 24 unveiled an ambitious antitrust agenda that takes aim at big corporations and signals what tack the party would take should Democrats capture either the House or the Senate in the midterm elections…

Trump administration cancels hundreds of Obama-era regulations

Juliet Eilperin and Damian Paletta in The Washington Post on July 20, 2017

The White House’s Office of Management and Budget detailed Thursday how it would jettison hundreds of existing or planned regulations as part of its larger push to ease federal restrictions on the private sector, upending federal policies on labor, the environment and public health…

NYC law that makes dog-sitting illegal without kennel license triggers rage from pet lovers

Erin Durkin in New York Daily News on July 20, 2017

Pet lovers are barking mad over a little-known city rule that makes dog-sitting illegal in New York.

Health Department rules ban anyone from taking money to care for an animal outside a licensed kennel — and the department has warned a popular pet-sitting app that its users are breaking the law…

Automated ATC Authorization For Drone Flights Will Occur At These 50 Airports This Fall

Gregory McNeal in Forbes on July 19, 2017

Drone operators in Cincinnati, Miami, and Phoenix rejoice: you will be among the first to receive automated authorization to fly in controlled airspace, rather than enduring months-long wait times. (Full disclosure, I am the co-founder of AirMap which is among the companies working with the FAA to open up the airspace for drones, this information is based on those experiences).

Today, flights in controlled airspace, at certain times of day, or near sensitive locations require authorization from the FAA. Typically, these permissions are subject to lengthy waiting periods and manual approvals – creating delays and preventing commercial operations from taking off at high scale…

Judges Question FTC Data Security Standard at LabMD Argument

Jimmy H. Koo in Bloomberg BNA on June 23, 2017

The Federal Trade Commission’s data security enforcement standard came under fire June 22 from a panel of federal appeals court judges (LabMD, Inc. v. FTC , 11th Cir., No. 16-16270, oral argument 6/21/17).

As predicted, the level of harm required for the FTC to act was “front and center” during the oral argument. Attorneys for the FTC and the now-defunct medical testing company LabMD Inc. squared off before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit over what level of data breach injury is sufficient to allow the privacy regulator to take enforcement action…

The Daily Show: The Braidy Bill

The Daily Show on June 3, 2004

Illegal braiding is like a drunk driver, in that there’s nothing wrong with driving drunk until you hit somebody and kill them…

Jimmy Buffett’s home state ends ban on Margarita pitchers

Jay Reeves in The Associated Press on July 13, 2017

Welcome back to Margaritaville: Singer Jimmy Buffett’s childhood home on Thursday backed off a short-lived ban on the sale of pitchers of the drink he made famous…

Too Many Government Policies Are Limiting Opportunity for All, and Hurting the Poor

Patrick Tyrrell and Daren Bakst in The Daily Signal on July 12, 2017

Flying commercial airlines is increasingly difficult. Long TSA lines this summer only compound peoples’ anger over high fees and cramped seats. Much better to fly private — that is, if you can afford it. But is it even possible to bring private air travel to the masses?

Flytenow was designed to do just that. The company’s founders, Alan Guichard and Matt Voska, developed an online platform to match individual pilots with passengers willing to share the expenses of flying. (See Jared Meyer’s interview with Flytenow’s founders.) While Flytenow was in operation, people could fly in private planes from, for example, Boston to Martha’s Vineyard in under an hour and for less than $70…

FAA Bans Non-Commercial Avaiation, Wrongly — Flytenow Goes to the Supreme Court

Andrew Meleta and Jared Meyer in National Review on August 8, 2016

Flying commercial airlines is increasingly difficult. Long TSA lines this summer only compound peoples’ anger over high fees and cramped seats. Much better to fly private — that is, if you can afford it. But is it even possible to bring private air travel to the masses?

Flytenow was designed to do just that. The company’s founders, Alan Guichard and Matt Voska, developed an online platform to match individual pilots with passengers willing to share the expenses of flying. (See Jared Meyer’s interview with Flytenow’s founders.) While Flytenow was in operation, people could fly in private planes from, for example, Boston to Martha’s Vineyard in under an hour and for less than $70…

Neomi Rao, the Scholar Who Will Help Lead Trump’s Regulatory Overhaul

Steve Eder in The New York Times on July 9, 2017

Ms. Rao’s ability to work both sides of the ideological divide, emblematic of her career in academia and government, is about to be tested anew. On Monday, the Senate is expected to approve Ms. Rao’s nomination to lead an obscure but powerful White House agency called the Office of Infomation and Regulatory Affairs — placing her at the heart of President Trump’s politically contentious agenda to overhaul government rules and regulations…