CEI Daily Update
Issues in the News
1. TECHNOLOGY
Microsoft presses the Federal Communications Commission to make broadcast spectrum available for wireless service.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews on why the best telecom reform is an elimination of the FCC itself:
…the telecom sector remains one of the most heavily regulated and taxed segments of the U.S. economy. That’s why the most pressing business is to reform regulation by striking at the heart of the administrative burden. Instead of creating justifications for new laws that will out of date in a few years, if not months, reform needs a sunset agenda, a phaseout of the FCC.
2. INTERNATIONAL
Russia, Canada and the U.S. tussle over territorial claims to natural resources lying under the Arctic Ocean.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Adjunct Scholar Jeremy Rabkin on the UN treaty which may determine rights to Arctic resources:
The Law of the Sea treaty does not simply set rules for commercial activity beneath the high seas. It establishes a new international tribunal and new international bureaucracies to interpret and apply a wide range of rules for activities on the seas—and to proceed with such rules even against U.S. objections. It threatens to introduce international legal complications into national security missions of the U.S. Navy. It threatens to complicate not only deep-sea mining—if it ever becomes a realistic commercial prospect—but also fishing and other commercial activities at sea and perhaps even on adjacent lands. Above all, it sets a very bad precedent.
3. BUSINESS
Florida officials investigate State Farm’s decision to drop 50,000 homeowner policies in high-risk coastal areas.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Senior Fellow Eli Lehrer on how political mismanagement of insurance policy could drive Florida into bankruptcy:
‘Our insurance situation is like one of those kitchen timers you wind up,’ says J. Robert McClure, president of Florida’s James Madison Institute. ‘In a while, it’s going to ring, and Florida will be in quite a mess.’ The state has basically offered lower property insurance rates to residents, by assuming enormous financial risks itself. If a truly major storm happens, the legislature has authorized the sale of nearly $30 billion in bonds to cover its exposure. Any way you slice it, that’s almost three times as large as the $11 billion California issue that stands as history’s largest municipal debt sale. That’s where the risk of bankruptcy comes in: If it can’t raise enough money through the sale of bonds to pay for hurricane damages, the state won’t be able to pay the claims it’s on the hook for.
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 [email protected].