by Richard Morrison
August 11, 2008

1. LEGAL

A California appeals court issues a major new ruling on home schooling.

CEI Expert Available to Comment: Special Projects Counsel Hans Bader on how the court changed its mind:

“The California Court of Appeal has reversed its earlier decision that home-schooling is generally illegal in California. I criticized the decision banning home-schooling here. The decision really stuck a nerve among California’s 166,000 homeschoolers, thousands of whom signed a petition asking the California Supreme Court to depublish the decision to deprive it of precedential significance.”

2. TECHNOLOGY

Members of Congress investigate online privacy and the use of “behavioral advertising.”

CEI Expert Available to Comment: Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews on how privacy solutions are evolving:

“To protect consumers online, we must consciously avoid entrenching regulation such that effective private alternatives and institutions, however warranted, simply cannot emerge. Online marketers are today's ‘Battered Business Bureau’ - but they need battering by competitive discipline, rather than regulators.”

3. ENERGY

New polls indicate that a large majority of Americans favor new oil drilling in the U.S.

CEI Expert Available to Comment: Director of Energy Policy Myron Ebell on why action is needed in Congress:

“For too long the federal government has tied the hands of state governments that wish to permit oil and natural gas leasing in their adjacent offshore zones. Congress should remove the moratoria on offshore gas production and share the federal royalties with the States that decide to allow offshore production, just as they share the royalties from production on federal lands with the States.”

Blog feature: For more news and analysis, updated throughout the day, visit CEI�s blog, Open Market.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

To contact a CEI expert for comment or interviews, please call the CEI communications department at 202-331-2273 or email to pr@cei.org.