CEI Daily Update
Issues in the News
1. AUTOMOBILITY
Indian carmaker Tata Motors unveils the world’s least expensive new car.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Editorial Director Ivan Osorio on activists’ reaction to the announcement:
“On January 8, India’s Tata Motors unveiled the Nano, the world’s cheapest car, which will retail for about $2,500. A new means of transport may be good news for the poor—but don’t tell green activists, some of whom are already complaining. ‘There is this mad rush towards lowering the prices to achieve mass affordability,’ Anumita Roychoudhury of the Centre for Science and Environment in Delhi, told Britain’s Observer newspaper. [Emphasis added] On what universe is ‘mass affordability’ of something useful a bad thing?”
2. ENERGY
New energy legislation increases demand for corn to manufacture ethanol.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Energy Policy Analyst William Yeatman on the problems with stricter ethanol mandates:
“Recently, however, environmental scientists have turned against biofuels. New research has shown the significant ecological impact of farming more corn, a resource-intensive crop. And last September, an article in the prestigious journal Science demonstrated that global ethanol production emits two to nine times the greenhouse gas emissions ‘saved’ by substituting it for gasoline. So ethanol is bad for the environment, and Congress stopped supporting it, right? Wrong. Rational decision-making doesn’t apply when two of the nation’s most successful special interests are involved.”
3. ECONOMICS
President Bush proposes a tax rebate to serve as an economic stimulus.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Special Projects Counsel Hans Bader on the misguided nature of the rebate proposal:
“In The Washington Post, a columnist points out that such “stimulus” packages are often misfocused, since they are designed by the very politicians who missed repeated warning signs of a recession; and even if not misfocused, often are implemented too late, after a recession has already ended and recovery is already underway, resulting in inflationary pressures rather than ending a recession. (Universal, $800 rebates might also, under some circumstances, aggravate trade deficits by promoting increased consumer spending, including spending on imported goods, spending not matched by any increase in wages).”
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