The Tobacco Loophole: How FDA Tobacco Regulations Let Underregulated Products Slide

Posted on Categories FDA

On September 2nd, 2026, U.S.-based tobacco companies Helix Innovations, LLC and NJOY, LLC (collectively, Altria) filed a lawsuit against the FDA to vacate its 2021 Pre-Market Tobacco Applications (PMTA) rule. Specifically, Altria seeks to block the enforcement of pre-market review requirements for pending tobacco products which primarily affect smokeless tobacco products and electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS). Under the Tobacco Consumer Act (TCA), the FDA is mandated to approve or deny applications for tobacco products within 180 days. However, Altria argues that the promulgation of the 2021 PMTA rule coupled with the 2016 “Deeming” Rule has caused extensive regulatory backlogs for the FDA, resulting in their numerous violations of the statutory deadline to review tobacco product applications.  

Altria’s complaint contends that delays have harmed both domestic business and public health by creating a regulatory gridlock. Under the 2021 PMTA rule, tobacco manufacturers are required to submit substantial evidence reports with distinct materials for each product, including risk investigations, marketing plans, environmental and population impacts, and other uniquely relevant documentation. While U.S. manufacturers seeking to comply face excessive red tape stalling scientifically backed products from reaching the market, foreign-sourced tobacco products have flooded the U.S. market with unregulated alternatives that expressly target American youth. By failing to issue timely decisions, the FDA has inadvertently undermined consumer safety and penalized companies attempting to follow the law.   
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Cleared for Takeoff, Rough Landing Ahead: Compliance Issues in CORSIA Implementation

Posted on Categories Environmental, International Affairs

A sky suffocating with carbon must still carry the metal weight of its inhabitants. Every day, more than 100,000 planes release carbon emissions. A solution for this strain on the environment was to build the first market-based compliance framework, holding airlines accountable for any excessive emissions they produced. This framework is the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA), which is administered by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). 

On paper, CORSIA fueled optimism that international environmental accountability for aviation was possible. Airlines were to monitor and report their emissions, and those exceeding an agreed baseline would be required to purchase carbon credits that finance emission reductions elsewhere. In practice, its design provides transgressors with ample room to participate in name while limiting what they actually owe. Through voluntary participation, easy withdrawal, filed differences, and state-by-state enforcement, countries have found ways to stay inside the framework while keeping much of their aviation footprint outside it. CORSIA’s shortcomings expose how weak international environmental accountability remains, leaving aviation emissions free to fly under the radar. 
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How Burdensome is Transparency: Practical Considerations of the SEC Proposed Semiannual Reporting Framework

Posted on Categories SEC

The SEC’s proposed rule to permit public companies to file semiannual reports in lieu of quarterly reports may create one of the worst shifts in access to timely and reliable information for investors in the last 50 years. U.S. securities markets are the deepest, most liquid capital markets in the world, and have undoubtedly benefited from consistent and reliable reporting of public companies. Nonetheless, the SEC and others highlight that this rule change gives public companies flexibility and reduces costly compliance burdens. Additionally, they believe the proposal will reduce the short-term effects on stock prices and their corresponding volatility, allowing company management to focus on longer-term strategies over short-term returns. Others, including the SEC’s Investor Advisory Council (IAC), argue that the proposed rule harms investors by widening the information gap between the investing public and corporate insiders. Under the SEC’s proposed rules, investors lose a key source of information while bad actors gain a significant advantage on material nonpublic information between reporting cycles. 
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When Data Centers Become Toxic: Turning Public Backlash into Lasting Regulation

Posted on Categories Energy, Environmental, technology

Data centers have rapidly emerged across the country to support the AI boom. Originally, policymakers were supportive of data center construction in their communities because they promised an influx of construction jobs, tax revenue, and community investment. To compete for data center construction in their communities, policymakers relaxes permitting requirements, offered tax subsidies, and signed non-disclosure agreements to keep development plans hidden. This competitive deregulation began to devolve into a race to the bottom; then, the public realized promises of construction fell short. 

Data centers’ enormous energy consumption has spiked demand, forcing utility companies to build additional infrastructure and drive up rates for everyone on the grid. The rising energy prices—coupled with impacts on water resources, the environment, and community character—have made the public resentful of data centers in their communities. In response to the growing public resentment, elected officials facing reelection in the November midterm races are pivoting away from pro-data center policies toward increased regulation. Those officials should use the political momentum to build coordinated approaches that will prevent competitive deregulation and protect ratepayers long after the midterms. 
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Flock Cameras and the Modern-Day Panopticon

Posted on Categories Privacy & Security

In 2017, three Georgia Tech University graduates sought to create a dynamic automated license plate reader (ALPR) system to combat unsolved crimes in their community. Today, their company, Flock Safety, has rolled out more than 100,000 ALPRs in 6,000 communities across the United States. Additionally, as of August 9, 2026, the surveillance equipment company has solidified partnerships with nearly 5,000 law enforcement agencies. Partners of Flock Safety enjoy unfettered access to the company’s AI-powered database, where individual ALPRs record and upload traffic data into a searchable catalog of license plate numbers and other automobile identification markers, such as make, model, color, and even unique characteristics like scratches on automobiles. While ALPRs have historically been employed to regulate traffic safety and crime, Flock Safety has distinguished itself by allowing partnered law enforcement agencies the ability to provide government organizations access to data gathered on individuals across the country. Critics of the Flock Safety surveillance system note that the manipulation of such a sensitive compilation of data allows virtually any Flock Safety partner to surveil American citizens without a uniform system of compliance to regulate their access. Ultimately, the absence of federal regulation to restrain the authority of AI-powered ALPR systems allows both local law enforcement and federal agencies to abuse their access to these systems and violate the privacy of U.S. citizens.
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The FDA’s Handle on AI Regulation

Posted on Categories FDA, Healthcare Compliance

Imagine a patient suffering from sporadic unconsciousness is hooked up to a heart monitor. Suddenly, an irregular heart rhythm begins but is flagged almost instantaneously. The irregularity was not spotted by a cardiologist analyzing an EKG but rather by AI trained on millions of other heartbeats. That’s not a scene from the future. It’s already routine. 

The FDA has authorized the marketing of over 1,500 AI-enabled medical devices in the United States. The first one dates back to 1995, but the number of devices has sharply increased since then and continues to do so. However, the main caveat for AI devices is that their software can change after authorization, but the FDA’s monitoring of those changes doesn’t. In light of this, the FDA needs stricter and more continuous regulation of AI-enabled medical devices.
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Closing the Gap: The CFTC’s Role as Prediction Markets Move Into Sports Media

Posted on Categories CFTC

On August 5, 2026, On3, a sports media company whose coverage focuses primarily on collegiate sports and recruiting, announced a rather eye-opening partnership with Polymarket, one of the leading prediction markets in the world. On3’s partnership with Polymarket will entail original and sponsored content and market-based storytelling in the world of college sports. Interestingly, the partnership will not feature content related to high school recruiting and the transfer portal, areas in which On3 has become a national leader. However, this is not the first partnership between sports entities and prediction markets. As these partnerships become increasingly common, they raise several questions regarding the integrity of sports leagues and media, in addition to the seemingly endless regulatory headaches. To maintain the highest order of honesty in sports and the media, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the leading regulatory body for prediction market compliance, must carefully monitor these partnerships and close the gaps in its current framework.  
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What Colorado’s AI Rewrite Tells Us About the Future of AI Compliance

Posted on Categories Artificial Intelligence

The Colorado AI Act (CAIA), formally known as the “Consumer Protections for Artificial Intelligence” Act, was set to take effect on June 30, 2026. It would have required companies deploying high-risk AI (AI that makes, or is a substantial factor in making, a consequential decision about a person, unlike a low-risk tool such as a spam filter) in hiring, lending, housing, healthcare, and other areas to run a review of how an AI system affects the people subject to it, operate an AI-focused risk-management program, and satisfy a reasonable care duty to avoid discrimination. But on May 14, 2026, Governor Jared Polis signed SB 26-189 (the AI Replacement Law), scrapping the CAIA before any of the burdensome requirements came due. Because the AI Replacement Law lets companies deploy AI first and only offers protection after someone has been harmed, it is an insufficient safeguard for the people affected by AI-driven decisions.  
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The Cyclospora Outbreak and the Difficulty of Governing Food Safety Through Funding Restrictions

Posted on Categories FDA

This summer, a microscopic parasite exposed a hole in America’s food safety system. More than 12,000 people got sick, hundreds were hospitalized, and two people in Michigan died after eating contaminated iceberg lettuce. After weeks of research, investigators were able to trace the contamination to Taylor Farms de México. The CDC closed the investigation on September 11, 2026, but classifying the investigation as closed is not the same as resolving the issue, and it certainly does not mean future incidents will be prevented. The delay in tracing the contamination was not an accident but a predictable consequence of a recent legislative decision. In 2022, the FDA finalized the Food Traceability Rule, implementing Section 204 of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), a regulation designed to make this exact type of tracing fast. However, Congress, after a proposal by the FDA, quietly delayed enforcement until 2028, allowing the rule to sit idle through the very season it was meant to help. This restriction should be repealed and authority over the compliance timeline returned to the FDA, so the agency can revisit any delay as new risks emerge. Otherwise, as the 2026 Cyclospora outbreaks show, the American public will bear the costs of an FDA constrained by funding restrictions.
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Surveillance Pricing and Consumer Protection: Developing a Legislative Framework for Algorithmic Transparency

Posted on Categories FTC, Privacy & Security

Surveillance pricing is an emerging practice whereby companies use highly complex algorithms, rooted in consumer data, to determine individual prices on goods and services. Rather than tailoring prices on market-wide supply and demand conditions, companies engaging in surveillance pricing individualize the cost of goods to consumer-specific behavior and characteristics. With this rampant form of price fixing affecting numerous markets—from rideshare services and hospitality to merchandise retailers—government regulation is necessary to prevent consumer discrimination.
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