Dissent Finds Constitutional Violations

Washington, D.C., August 22, 2008— In a 2-1 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit today rejected a constitutional challenge to the Sarbanes-Oxley Public Company Accounting Oversight Board. The challenge had been brought by the Free Enterprise Fund and Beckstead & Watts, a small Nevada accounting firm that was being investigated by the Board.

The plaintiffs claimed that the Board violated the Appointments Clause of the Constitution, because the Board’s members were selected by the Securities and Exchange Commissioners acting as a body, rather than by the President. They argued that this resulted in a lack of the individual accountability that the Framers viewed as crucial to reining in government.

The majority rejected this argument, ruling…

Bill Dubbed ‘Marlboro Monopoly Act’

Washington, D.C., July 17, 2007—The Senate health committee on Wednesday is scheduled to mark up a bill that would put the Food and Drug Administration in charge of regulating tobacco, despite major problems associated with the agency’s current regulatory duties.

“Tobacco does not need FDA regulation, and regulating tobacco is the last thing that FDA needs to being doing,” said Sam Kazman, General Counsel for the Competitive Enterprise Institute. “The agency is already performing poorly in making new drugs available to the public, and a major new regulatory program would only worsen that situation.”

A recent CEI survey of orthopedic surgeons, for example, showed that most of these specialists view the current FDA approval process as already…

Financial and Legal Experts Available for Interviews

Washington, D.C., December 20, 2006—Tomorrow the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia will hear arguments in a lawsuit brought by the Free Enterprise Fund and the Competitive Enterprise Institute to have the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board declared unconstitutional. The Board was created under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 to regulate the auditing of American businesses.

The Fund and CEI, along with a small accounting firm nearly forced out of business by the Board, are asking the Court to declare it unconstitutional under the Appointments Clause of the Constitution. That clause requires major government officials to be appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. However, the five-member accounting oversight board is virtually…