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Dr. John P. Holdren

William Yeatman — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Full document available in PDF

In December 2008, President-elect Barack Obama nominated Dr. John P. Holdren to be White House Science Adviser. The White House Science Adviser heads the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), which “serves as a source of scientific and technological analysis and judgment for the President with respect to major policies, plans and programs of the Federal Government,” according to the OSTP web site.

John Holdren’s 40-year record of outlandish scientific assertions, consistently wrong predictions, and dangerous public policy choices makes him unfit to serve as White House Science Adviser. The Senate should not confirm his nomination.

The Five Dumbest Product Bans

Eli Lehrer — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 23:00:00 -0800

Even as the array of consumer products available to the average American expands each day, a bewildering variety of government regulations serve to limit consumer choice. From the aircraft on which Americans fly to the food they buy in the grocery store, government regulation limits product choice at every turn.

There are different types of product bans. Some limits on product choice—bans on child pornography and personal possession of atomic weapons—have widespread popular support and appear wise by any standard. A great many more product bans are likely to remain subject to ongoing debate. For example, there are strong arguments for allowing the sale of meat that has not been government inspected and drugs not yet approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Even if the costs of these regulations exceeds their benefits—and they well may—many still bring some benefits to society. But there is another type of ban—the kind that limits consumer choice but have no social benefit.

This paper focuses on five clearly absurd product bans that seem to serve no social good. While the selection obviously involves some degree of subjective judgment—no means exist to review every product ban in existence—the bans selected meet four criteria:

• No one can present a strong case for marginal social harm from the product or service banned. This does not necessarily mean that the product is harmless by all accounts, simply that the act of banning it without banning a much broader category of products has no social utility. For example, banning all alcohol would have some positive social effects—outweighed by the negative ones. Banning sangria simply restricts the availability of a type of beverage without doing anything to restrict the sale of alcohol or the negative consequences of drunk driving and alcoholism.

• The product should have utility to the general public. In other words, it should be something that almost anybody might have a theoretical interest in using. Some pig farmers complain of limitations placed on the drugs they can use on livestock, but these limitations have little relevance for those who do not raise pigs, so would not qualify.

• A government must have actually enforced the ban within the recent past. Many amusingly archaic laws remain on the books that are not enforced and are today a source of public amusement. Arizona, for example, bans the sale of imitation illegal drugs but no record exists of an attempt to enforce this law.

• The ban should, at least, exist at the state level. This paper does not deal with local laws, which allow for easier exit from their reach.

By necessities of space and brevity, many delightfully absurd product bans remain unexplored here. The five bans selected are:

Sangria (Virginia) . The Commonwealth of Virginia bans most preparations of the popular fortified wine drink (typically red wine with brandy and fruit) even though the state not only allows drinking of substances with the same alcoholic composition as Sangria and actually operates stores that sell all of the alcoholic ingredients needed to make Sangria.

Playing Online Poker in a Legal Casino (U. S.). Although 48 states have legal gambling in some form (and several run casinos), the federal government has made it illegal to place bets online—even in jurisdictions that allow almost all other types of gambling.

The Cardio-Pump (U. S.). No one has ever contended that anybody could do harm using this American-designed device intended to help resuscitate heart attack victims, which may actually help save lives. Although it has found wide use in other countries, the Food and Drug Administration bans its use in the United States.

Wildflower Bouquets (Louisiana). Louisiana's unique-in-the nation florist licensing statute makes it illegal for anybody to arrange two or more types of flowers without passing a largely subjective state licensing exam. In theory, a child could face a fine for picking a bouquet of flowers and selling it at a roadside stand.

Feathers in provocative packaging (Texas, Louisiana, and Georgia). Ridiculously broad laws banning sexual toys in these states could serve to ban the sale of simple feathers if packaged with suggestions that they might be used for sexual purposes.

DOWNLOAD THE FULL REPORT IN PDF

Human Achievement Happy Hour

Michelle Minton — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 11:31:56 -0700

Start: 03/27/2010 - 19:30

End: 03/27/2010 - 22:00

Timezone: Etc/GMT-4

Date: March 27, 2010
Time: 7:30pm-10:00pm
Location: RiRa Irish Pub & Restaurant back room
2915 Wilson Boulevard
Arlington, VA

View the Flyer here

Join CEI and local area human achievement celebrants from around the DC area at RiRa Irish Pub. Instead of sitting in silence in the dark like those celebrating Earth Hour occurring at the same time, join us at RiRa for drinks, live music, and lively discussion. Find out more about the happy hour here:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=362208123913
Learn more about Human Achievement Hour here:
http://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#!/group.php?gid=75853650967&ref=ts

Obama Wants to Tax Good Banks, Protect Bad Ones

Charles Huang — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0800

The Obama administration wants to increase taxes on productive banks that are self-supporting, while exempting the mortgage giants and other companies that got massive taxpayer bailouts. For more details, click on this graph, “Bank-robbing tax lets ‘bad guys’ go free,” courtesy of a Washington think-tank, the Heritage Foundation. It shows that the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are exempt and will never have to pay a dime, despite being bailed out by taxpayers at a cost of more than $200 billion, while Bank of America and Wells Fargo, which are solvent and returned all their TARP money, would be forced to pay billions under the administration’s proposed tax.

General Motors and Chrysler won’t have to pay a dime, either, even though the government claimed they were “financial institutions” just like banks in order to use bank bailout money to bail them out at a cost of at least $70 billion (a bailout that would not even have been needed to save the companies if they had simply been reformed to make them competitive, and received relief from burdensome red tape, like poorly-drafted CAFE and global-warming regulations that may backfire. Instead, the Obama administration effectively gave the companies, at taxpayer expense, to the UAW, a powerful union opposed to much-needed reforms).

In other news, economists and real estate experts say that a mortgage bailout program the Obama administration spent $75 billion on has backfired and harmed the real estate market.

Obama recently expanded the bailout of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and lavished money ($42 million) on their CEOs.

Under the Bush administration, federal regulators took over Fannie and Freddie in the name of stopping their risky practices. But the Obama administration has increased their purchases of risky mortgages in a vain attempt to inflate the economy. Worse, it forced them to run up to tens of billions in losses to bail out deadbeat and at-risk mortgage borrowers, and then tried to conceal those losses, in conduct reminiscent of Enron. But their management hasn’t objected, because the costly requirements are accompanied by massive taxpayer bailouts and lavish pay for the mortgage giants’ CEOs.

Fannie and Freddie helped spawn the mortgage crisis by acting as loan toilets, buying up risky mortgages and thus creating an artificial market for junk. “From the time Fannie and Freddie began buying risky loans as early as 1993, they routinely misrepresented the mortgages they were acquiring, reporting them as prime when they had characteristics that made them clearly subprime.”

Why did they buy these risky loans? They put up with Clinton-era affordable-housing regulations that required them to buy up lots of risky loans, in order to curry favor on Capitol Hill and thus retain their annual $10 billion in tax and other special privileges (which they possessed owing to their status as “Government-Sponsored Enterprises” or GSEs). They paid their CEOs millions in the process, and engaged in massive accounting fraud — $6.3 billion at Fannie Mae alone — to increase the size of their managers’ bonuses. As GSEs, they were exempt from the capital requirements that apply to private banks, so they did not have enough reserves to cover their losses when their mortgages started defaulting.

At the direction of the Obama administration, Freddie Mac is now running up $30 billion in losses to bail out mortgage borrowers, some of whom have high incomes. Federal regulators sought to make Freddie Mac hide the resulting losses from the SEC and the public.

Under Obama’s proposed financial “reforms,” banks will be pressured to make even more risky, low-income loans. Obama has sent to Congress his proposal to create a politically correct entity called the Consumer Financial Protection Agency, tasked with enforcing the Community Reinvestment Act. Government pressure on banks to make low-income loans was a key reason for the mortgage meltdown and the financial crisis. Yet Obama’s proposals would empower the new agency to enforce the Community Reinvestment Act, which was a key contributor to the financial crisis, without regard for banks’ financial safety and soundness.

Moreover, Obama’s proposed financial rules do absolutely nothing to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, admits Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, even though he admits that “Fannie and Freddie were a core part of what went wrong in our system.”

Meanwhile, a new law backed by the Obama administration, the CARD Act of 2009, has effectively forced responsible credit-cardholders to subsidize irresponsible people, leading to the return of annual fees on many credit cards, and the elimination of many cash-back and rewards programs. My wife, who has an excellent credit rating, was recently informed that one of her cards will now have an annual fee — of $60! (She promptly canceled the card).

5 Reasons Why America Should Steer Clear of a National ID Card

Alex Nowrasteh — Tue, 9 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0800

The Senate is working toward a ghastly compromise on immigration reform that includes a biometric national identification card for all Americans. The stated purpose of this national ID, which an employee must present before getting a job, is to prevent undocumented workers from being employed. Back in December I warned that a national ID is the inevitable conclusion of the anti-immigration movement. The failure of E-Verify to catch 54% of undocumented workers is only accelerating the call for a national ID.

A national ID hurts American workers while pretending to help them.

First, every worker would have to ask permission from the federal government to get a job. American workers shouldn’t have to beg or plead to anybody to get permission to work. Being employed should be a private agreement between an employer and employee. Period. The government should get out of the way.

Second, carrying around government papers with biometric identification on it conjures up images of a more technologically savvy Oceania or East Germany. No thanks.

Third, the system will exclude millions of legal workers by accident and fail to catch the majority of undocumented immigrants. For instance, if E-Verify were instituted nation-wide 3.6 million Americans would be denied employment each year and have to visit the Social Security Administration to correct their records. The employer either fires them or delays training. Will a biometric ID card make this system better? How does that help American workers?

Fourth, it will cost businesses up to $800 to buy a scanner. Or as Senator Chuck Schumer says, employers can just go down to the DMV. Senator Schumer doesn’t know squat about running a business. The last thing an employer wants to do is spend time at the DMV when he could be spending it improving his business. And all this during an economic slump!

Fifth, it would treat every American like a criminal by requiring them to enter their most intimate and personal data into a government database. One of the benefits of not having committed any crimes is that my information is not in a government record office. I’d like to keep it that way.

Has the very notion of liberty been so diluted in this great nation that no-one is willing to decry this as the naked government power grab that it is? Must every American now ask government permission to get a job? Think what you will about undocumented immigration, is ending it so important that every single American must be entered into a massive government database and given an ID they must present when applying for a job?

It most emphatically is not.

This Land Ain’t your Land; this Land Is my Land

Marc Scribner — Wed, 3 Mar 2010 04:17:00 -0800

Full Document Available in PDF

Eminent domain jumped to the fore of America’s political consciousness on June 23, 2005, when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the City of New London, Connecticut’s decision to condemn several parcels of privately held property using eminent domain. At issue in Kelo v. City of New London was a comprehensive redevelopment plan designed to support a new research facility of pharmaceutical giant Pfizer.

Homeowners of the affected parcels attempted to save their homes from the wrecking ball. But in a 5-4 decision, the Court held that the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause—“nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation”—sanctioned local governments’ condemnations of private property solely for the purposes of economic redevelopment. Most of the Kelo petitioners’ homes were soon demolished.

Since the Kelo decision, the debate over eminent domain has only grown more heated. Proponents of eminent domain claim that its use for economic redevelopment is a valuable tool for local policy makers and that a blanket ban on using eminent domain to foster economic growth would tie the hands of government officials in their ongoing battle against blight.

Opponents argue that economic redevelopment does not constitute “public use,” which the Constitution requires governments to show in order to justify takings. They argue that increased takings weaken private property rights due in part to the lack of a bright-line standard on what specifically constitutes “public use.” They also note that eminent domain takings are inherently politicized, so local governments may be biased in favor of larger, politically connected property owners and interests, at the expense of small business owners, entrepreneurs, and homeowners—particularly those at the lower end of the income scale. Moreover, use of eminent domain circumvents market processes that could better promote economic development.

This paper examines the economic relationship between eminent domain and entrepreneurship. It discusses the economics of eminent domain and property law; analyzes the relationship between eminent domain, entrepreneurship, and public-financed redevelopment; and warns local policy makers of the negative effects that eminent domain abuse has upon entrepreneurs, especially lower-income ones.

Late-Breaking Events Trigger New Call for EPA to Reconsider its Global Warming Decision

Sam Kazman — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 13:43:21 -0800

In two separate filings Tuesday, the Competitive Enterprise Institute challenged massive energy regulations forthcoming from the Environmental Protection Agency. The actions come in the wake of damaging disclosures this week by Phil Jones, head of the disgraced British Climate Research Unit, who reversed himself on several basic issues in a BBC interview.

CEI, along with nonprofit ally FreedomWorks and the Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP), filed a lawsuit in federal appeals court challenging EPA plans to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act. The lawsuit asks the court to review the EPA’s regulation.

In addition, CEI joined with SEPP and the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change in updating its petition demanding that EPA reconsider its decision.

View the press release

View the lawsuit

View the supplemental petition to the EPA

View the original petition to the EPA

Shackling Innovation

Sigrid Fry-Revere — Wed, 3 Feb 2010 14:47:12 -0800

by Sigrid Fry-Revere, Alison Mathey and David Malmstrom

Full Document Available in PDF

Over the past three decades, collaborative arrangements between academic biomedical researchers and private industry have grown dramatically, resulting in medical innovations that have benefited society greatly. However, a growing chorus of criticism directed at private companies that sponsor and conduct biomedical research casts doubt on the very ethos of science. Academics and anti-business activists have waged a campaign against industry-sponsored clinical trials that denies the fundamentally commercial nature of such research and hinders medical progress. These critics point to a small number of unfortunate and tragic cases in which financial conflicts of interest may have played a role in research-related injuries and deaths in order to unjustifiably condemn the profit motive in biomedical research as a whole.

The debate over conflicts of interest, once confined to the pages of medical journals, has jumped aboard a runaway train. In response to public outcry, the Obama administration and the 111th Congress have promised stronger federal regulation and a far more aggressive role for federal and state governments in the nation’s biomedical economy. Industry critics, however, are pushing for even stricter regulations, including the abolishment of industry-sponsored clinical trials altogether.

Prohibition or even greater regulation of industry sponsorship makes no sense. Given the paucity of evidence linking financial conflicts of interest to research-related mishaps, these new regulations elevate isolated incidents to the norm, and confuse correlation with causation. The way to prevent dangerous or ineffective drugs from reaching the market is not to eliminate financial incentives, but quite the opposite — to make well-conducted successful research so rewarding, both financially and otherwise, and errors in research so costly, that the only logical choice for researchers is to do their absolute best to produce accurate results. If the profit motive is removed, so is the most immediate benefit of doing good work and the long-term cost of doing poor work. The net result of policies that restrict industry-sponsored clinical trials will be a slowing of medical advances and a delay in the development and marketing of new medical technologies that have the potential to save thousands of lives. Suggestions for restricting financial incentives are being made without any clear evidence, let alone proof, that doing so will prevent the tragic incidents that fuel today’s movement to restrict industry-sponsored clinical trials.

After a careful analysis of both the facts and the arguments for and against restricting industry-sponsored clinical trials, we suggest that regulators should be moving in a totally different direction. Educating people about drug development, clinical trials, risks and benefits, and figuring out ways to increase compliance with medical instructions is likely to go much further toward reducing adverse reactions to medications than trying to eliminate conflicts of interest.

Celling Fear: The Cell Phone Scare that Refuses to Die

Michael Fumento — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 07:18:32 -0800

Full Document Available in PDF

Soon would-be cell phone buyers in Maine might be checking out the latest models, only to find a jarring red box on each unit with the image of a brain next to a phone. On it, the alarming words:

WARNING, THIS DEVICE EMITS ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION; EXPOSURE TO WHICH MAY CAUSE BRAIN CANCER. USERS, ESPECIALLY CHILDREN AND PREGNANT WOMEN, SHOULD KEEP THIS DEVICE AWAY FROM THE HEAD AND BODY.

The above notice would be mandated by Maine’s Children’s Wireless Protection Act, which was recently introduced as emergency legislation following a unanimous vote by the state’s legislative council. Does this mean science shows that cell phones really are harmful? On the contrary. The real problem comes from misinformation from activists and a policy called “the precautionary principle” that could be devastating if it makes inroads into public policy.

Unfortunately, the Maine legislature is not the only government body considering such a hysterical action. This month, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors is expected to consider a resolution already approved unanimously by a commission as well as by the mayor. Among other things, it requires radiofrequency emission levels for each phone to be displayed as large as the price and asks for “warning labels [to] be placed on all cell phone packaging regarding exposure to radiation, especially for children.”

The idea, says San Francisco Toxics Reduction Program Manager Debbie Raphael, is that since the city cannot require manufacturers to redesign phones, requiring a label presumably warning of health risks will influence them to redesign their products. However, there is no call to require the same labels on other radiofrequency emitting devices, such as televisions and personal computers.

Congressional Misdiagnosis

Gregory Conko — Tue, 8 Dec 2009 06:33:18 -0800

Full document available in PDF

As Congress moves forward with its health care reform efforts, a last-minute proposal to revoke the 64-year-old exemption from federal antitrust laws for health insurers has flown under the media radar. Proponents of the repeal proposal tout it as a broadly popular effort to slow the consolidation of the health insurance industry and promote more vigorous price competition. But the change would do nothing to prevent insurance firm mergers, which are already subject to federal oversight. However, federalizing antitrust enforcement over the insurance industry would unnecessarily duplicate existing state insurance regulations and jeopardize practices that help small insurers compete.