CEI Weekly: CEI Defends Internet Freedom

CEI Weekly is a compilation of articles and blog posts from CEI’s fellows and associates sent out via e-mail every Friday. Also included in the Weekly newsletter is a brief description of CEI’s weekly podcast and a feature on a major CEI breakthrough made during the week. To sign up for CEI Weekly, go to http://cei.org/newsletters.


CEI Weekly
May 13, 2010


>>CEI Fights Government Campaign to Regulate the Internet
Bureaucrats at the Federal Communications Commission want to impose new rules on Internet providers, opening the door to greater government regulation of the Internet. To counter this serious threat, CEI has joined with several other free market groups to ask Congress to step in and defend Internet freedom. This week, CEI’s Ryan Radia spoke alongside leading activist group presidents and a member of Congress at a Capitol Hill press conference. Radia called on Congress to enact a new Communications Act for the 21st century — a comprehensive deregulatory agenda aimed at unleashing competition, innovation, and choice. Watch the news conference here (CEI remarks begin at 20:18).


>>Crews to FCC: First Amendment Doesn’t Need A Bailout
Wayne Crews, CEI Vice President for Policy, filed comments (PDF) with the FCC on May 7 in the agency’s “Future of Media” proceeding. Crews argued that the FCC’s duty is to expand communications liberty, not further subjugate private media to government control. The only prerequisite for free speech, Crews argued, is freedom. Crews summarized his FCC filing in an op-ed last Wednesday in the Washington Times.


>>Shaping the Debate
Does the Climate Bill Have a Chance?
Myron Ebell’s commentary in the New York Times’ Room for Debate
The chance that the Senate will pass a comprehensive energy-rationing (a k a climate) bill this year remains close to zero. BP’s big oil spill in the Gulf changes very little. The global warming movement peaked last June 26 when the House passed the Waxman-Markey bill. When members went home for the Fourth of July, many who voted for it discovered that their constituents were angry and mobilized. Seeing the public reaction, the Senator majority leader, Harry Reid, dropped plans to move a cap-and-trade bill before the August recess and turned to health care reform. It’s been all downhill since then. The Kerry-Boxer bill, which is very similar to Waxman-Markey, passed the Environment and Public Works Committee last fall, but it was clear that it couldn’t get 51 votes, let alone 60, on the floor. That’s when Senator Kerry began working on a “middle-of-the-road” package with Senators Graham Lieberman.

Dodd’s Bank Bill: Worse Than ObamaCare. It’s the Nationalization, Stupid!
John Berlau’s op-ed in Biggovernment.com

Schumer’s Hypocritical Assault on Facebook
Ryan Radia’s op-ed on Townhall.com

The FCC’s “Third Way,” Will it Work?
Ryan Radia’s citation in CBSNews.com

FCC Offers Regulation Lite for Broadband Providers, Pleasing Few
Wayne Crews’ citation in Wired.com


>>Best of the Blogs
Risky Alternatives for Online Gamblers Post-UIGEA
by Michelle Minton

Lindsey Graham: “It’s not a Global Warming Bill to me.”
by Marlo Lewis

>>LibertyWeek Podcast
Episode 92: FCC Power Grab
Richard Morrison and Marc Scribner team up with William Yeatman, Ryan Radia and Iain Murray to bring you episode 92. We take on the prospects for cap-and-trade climate legislation, the FCC’s broadband power grab, tales from a hung parliament and an exciting new job opportunity in Venezuela.

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Charles Huang

Web and Media Associate

Competitive Enterprise Institute

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