American governments are facing several growing problems – such as how to address climate change despite rising carbon emissions, how to preserve privacy despite the spread of new technology, and how to ensure affordable housing despite rising housing costs.

These issues are crucial everyday problems for all Americans but the regulations proposed and enacted to address them are often complex and contested. And these regulations sometimes limit our freedom and economic security.

To hold our governments accountable for managing these crucial problems and inevitable tradeoffs, voters must understand these complex regulations. That’s why the Regulatory Transparency Project is introducing a new podcast, the Explainer podcast series, to explain these central regulations and proposals.

The goal of this series is to explain and debate how various regulatory policies affect average Americans in half an hour. There are eight episodes so far.

In the first episode, Professor Ann Carlson of UCLA School of Law and I explain the Green New Deal. We explain this proposal to remake America’s energy sector and its wider economy, how it relates to past climate proposals, and how it could affect Americans.

Here are two more examples of the wide breadth of topics covered by this new podcast:

  • In Episode Six, the Committee for Justice’s Ashley Baker and the Mercatus Center’s Jennifer Huddleston explain new regulation of facial recognition technology.
  • In Episode Eight, the Brookings Institution’s Aaron Klein and the Cato Institute’s Diego Zuluaga explain regulation under the Community Reinvestment Act, which is supposed to encourage banks and other financial institutions to lend to lower-income individuals in their communities.

We would love to hear from you about what other topics we should be covering on the show and what we can do to make the podcast more useful to you.

Episodes So Far: