This chapter is about the agency that polices unfair business. It asks whether firms use green and social goals as cover. It wonders if they hide deals to fix prices. It also looks at how apps treat children.
The document says “should”Who acts: FTCHow: internal managementp. 873 in the PDF
What the document says
“The FTC should set up an ESG/DEI collusion task force to investigate firms”
The chapter suggests some firms use environmental, social and governance commitments and diversity programs as what it calls reputational laundering to avoid enforcement of potentially criminal activity. It asks that the task force look particularly at private equity, to see whether the practice is used to meet targets, fix prices or reduce output, and separately that Congress investigate the same question.
What the document actually says
“The FTC should set up an ESG/DEI collusion task force to investigate firms”
That sentence, in plain words
Set up a team to look into this. It would check whether firms use these goals to fix prices.
What this is about
Firms often announce green and social goals. The book asks whether some use them as cover. It suspects deals to keep prices up.
Section 3(b)(i) of the order directs the FTC Chairman to investigate whether proxy advisors are conspiring or colluding, explicitly or implicitly, to diminish the value of consumer investments, and the order frames those firms' conduct around diversity, equity, and inclusion and environmental, social, and governance policies. So an FTC inquiry into collusion tied to social and environmental practices exists. Three things the chapter asked for are absent. No task force is created; the work is assigned to the Chairman. The inquiry covers two named proxy advisory firms rather than firms generally, and private equity, which the chapter singles out, is not mentioned. The collusion theory is diminishing the value of consumer investments, not using the practices as cover to meet targets, fix prices or reduce output, and nothing asks Congress to investigate the same question. EO 14364 of December 6, 2025 does create FTC and Justice Department task forces to investigate collusion, which shows the instrument in use, but its subject is the food supply chain.
In plain English
The order tells the trade commission to look into whether proxy advisers act as a bloc. Their conduct is framed around diversity and green investing aims. But no task force is set up, and the work goes to the chairman alone. It covers two named firms, not firms at large.
The document says “can”Who acts: FTCHow: regulationp. 874 in the PDF
What the document says
“This type of behavior can rise to the level of an unfair trade practice when the business is (1) publicly traded; (2) highly regulated;”
The full list of conditions continues: enjoys legal privileges, enjoys market power, and appears to pursue its own political or social agenda unrelated to any conceivable branding concern. The chapter says such decisions would normally receive deference as business judgment but that this is harder in what it calls a highly partisan, ideologically divided America, and that businesses enjoying government privileges or market power should not replace democratic decision-making with their own judgment on controversial matters.
What the document actually says
“This type of behavior can rise to the level of an unfair trade practice when the business is (1) publicly traded; (2) highly regulated;”
That sentence, in plain words
This can count as an unfair trade practice. It depends on what kind of firm it is.
What this is about
Some firms take public stands on politics. The book says that can be unfair trading. It lists the conditions, such as having market power.
Section 3 of the order directs the FTC Chairman, in consultation with the Attorney General, to investigate whether proxy advisors engage in unfair methods of competition or unfair or deceptive acts, and the order's stated reason for singling them out is that they hold more than 90 percent of their market and use it to advance what it calls politically-motivated agendas such as diversity, equity, and inclusion and environmental, social, and governance policies. That is the chapter's route, market power plus a political agenda examined under the FTC's unfair practice authority. The fit breaks down on the firms and the grounds. The chapter's conditions describe publicly traded, highly regulated companies with legal privileges, while the order targets two privately held, foreign-owned advisory firms and asks the SEC to consider whether they should have to register at all. The unfair practice grounds the order lists are collusion, undisclosed conflicts of interest, misleading information, and undermining informed choice, not the political character of the conduct by itself. It also directs an investigation rather than issuing the regulation the chapter contemplates, and it reaches firms that advise shareholders rather than companies taking political positions of their own.
In plain English
The order tells the trade commission to look at whether proxy advisers use unfair methods. That is the chapter's route: market power plus politics, tested under trade law. But the chapter meant large public firms, while these two are private. The order asks for a study rather than a rule.
The document says “should”Who acts: FTCHow: regulationp. 875 in the PDF
What the document says
“The FTC should examine platforms’ advertising and contractmaking with children as a deceptive or unfair trade practice, perhaps requiring written parental consent.”
The chapter says the agency can and should bring unfair trade practice proceedings against entities that enter into contracts with children without parental consent, and that while personal parental responsibility is key, the law must respect rather than undermine lawful parental authority.
What the document actually says
“The FTC should examine platforms’ advertising and contractmaking with children as a deceptive or unfair trade practice, perhaps requiring written parental consent.”
That sentence, in plain words
Look at how platforms sign up children. Written consent from a parent may be needed.
What this is about
Children sign up to apps by clicking agree. The book says that is a contract. It wants a parent's written consent instead.
Read against the documents indexed here on August 26, 2026, and nothing was found that answers this. The TAKE IT DOWN Act, Public Law 119-12, approved May 19, 2025, requires covered platforms to run a notice and removal process for nonconsensual intimate imagery, gives the FTC enforcement, and provides that a failure to comply is treated as a violation of a rule defining an unfair or deceptive act or practice under the Federal Trade Commission Act. That is the same authority over the same kind of company, and minors are among the people it protects. It does not answer the proposal. The Act says nothing about advertising to children, nothing about the contracts platforms make with children, and nothing about parental consent; its requirement in writing applies to a removal request, not to a parent's permission. Its subject is the imagery a platform hosts, not the terms on which a platform deals with a child. That is a record of a search, not a finding that nothing has happened: an act this site does not hold, or one that answers the proposal in words unlike its own, would not be caught by it.
The document says “should consider”Who acts: FTCHow: internal managementp. 876 in the PDF
What the document says
“The FTC should consider returning authority to these offices.”
The chapter says regional offices are substantially more in touch with local issues but that their reach and influence has shrunk dramatically over recent decades.
What the document actually says
“The FTC should consider returning authority to these offices.”
That sentence, in plain words
The agency's local offices have lost power. It should think about giving it back.
What this is about
This agency has offices around the country. They know local business. The book says they have lost influence.
Read against the documents indexed here on August 26, 2026, and nothing was found that answers this. Nothing indexed addresses the authority held by the FTC's regional offices, or by any agency's regional offices. The nearest candidate, the Memorandum of January 20, 2025 on Return to In-Person Work, directs agencies to end remote work arrangements and bring employees back to their duty stations. That changes where federal employees sit, not what a regional office is empowered to decide, and it is government-wide rather than directed at the FTC. That is a record of a search, not a finding that nothing has happened: an act this site does not hold, or one that answers the proposal in words unlike its own, would not be caught by it.
The document says “must”Who acts: FTCHow: regulationp. 872 in the PDF
What the document says
“the consumer welfare standard must guide FTC action, but, in appropriate situations and with strong evidence, this standard must be expanded to include more factors than just price.”
The consumer welfare standard asks whether conduct harms consumers, in practice mostly through higher prices. The chapter asks that the same standard of proof used to show harm to competition also apply to the efficiencies offered to justify a practice, and separately says the agency must consider the role of government itself in maintaining market concentration, since compliance costs favor large firms.
What the document actually says
“the consumer welfare standard must guide FTC action, but, in appropriate situations and with strong evidence, this standard must be expanded to include more factors than just price.”
That sentence, in plain words
Keep judging by harm to shoppers. But weigh more than price alone.
What this is about
Antitrust asks whether shoppers are harmed. In practice that means higher prices. The book says other harms should count too.
What is disputed
What this means is contested
The chapter records that conservatives disagree about the agency's role at the most basic level. It asks directly whether the Commission should enforce antitrust or even continue to exist, and notes that some conservatives think antitrust enforcement should sit solely with the Department of Justice.
Read against the documents indexed here on August 26, 2026, and nothing was found that answers this. Nothing indexed states or revises the standard the FTC applies. EO 14366 of December 11, 2025 comes nearest in substance: it directs the FTC to investigate practices that harm consumers by undermining their ability to make informed choices and by diminishing the value of their investments, which are theories of harm that do not run through price. But the order names no standard, says nothing about the evidence required to prove harm or to credit a claimed efficiency, and does not touch the chapter's separate point about compliance costs and the government's own role in market concentration. EO 14254 of March 31, 2025 directs the FTC toward ticket price transparency and price gouging, which is the price-centered application the chapter wants expanded beyond, not an expansion of it. That is a record of a search, not a finding that nothing has happened: an act this site does not hold, or one that answers the proposal in words unlike its own, would not be caught by it.
Adam Candeub, “Federal Trade Commission,” in Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, edited by Paul Dans and Steven Groves (The Heritage Foundation, 2023), pp. 869-881. https://static.heritage.org/project2025/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf
This page
“Federal Trade Commission,” Project 2025, chapter 30. Read the Mandate, https://readthemandate.org/project-2025/chapter-30/ (retrieved October 7, 2026).
Cite the document when the claim is about what the document says. Cite this page when the indexing, the wording or the record of what has happened is what is being relied on.
What This Page Covers, and What It Leaves Out
Recommendations on antitrust standards, corporate social and environmental practices, platforms and children, and the agency's regional offices.
The chapter's extended argument about antitrust theory and the economics of market concentration.
The chapter records that conservatives disagree about whether this agency should enforce antitrust at all, or continue to exist. That disagreement is recorded on the proposal it concerns.
