China Under Fire, Free Trade and High Gas Prices
Demonstrators disrupt the Olympic torch ceremony in Paris to protest China’s human rights record.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi objects to the U.S.-Colombia trade agreement negotiated by the White House.
Government forecasters predict gas prices could rise to $4 a gallon by this summer.
1. ENVIRONMENT
Demonstrators disrupt the Olympic torch ceremony in Paris to protest China’s human rights record.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Energy Policy Analyst William Yeatman on how China’s increasing prosperity has opened it up to greater international criticism:
“[Chinese] officials are fast learning that there are drawbacks to joining the elite club of successful sovereign nations. When China was a mere ‘developing’ nation, its poverty was a shield, and no one cared about things like Tibet or China’s greenhouse gas emissions. Now, China is important enough to host the Olympics, which means that it is rich enough to be criticized. Today, it’s the ‘Sinefication’ of Tibet. But tomorrow, it will be global warming. After all, China is the world’s leading emitter of greenhouse gases. Before, Chinese officials were spared the obloquy heaped upon the world’s #2 emitter, the United States, because they were ‘developing.’ After the Olympics, that argument won’t work anymore.”
2. TRADE
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi objects to the U.S.-Colombia trade agreement negotiated by the White House.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Adjunct Fellow Fran Smith on the struggle the agreement faces in Congress:
“…prospects for its passage are uncertain, given the anti-trade, anti-globalization sentiment among Democratic policymakers, spurred on by union campaigns against free trade. Leading Democrats have singled out this agreement for fierce opposition charging that violence against union leaders in Colombia is condoned by the Colombian government. In this election year, Democratic presidential candidates in their bitter primary battles have focused on trade as the cause of all economic ills in industrial states and have ignored more valid reasons, such as technology and increased productivity.”
3. BUSINESS
Government forecasters predict gas prices could rise to $4 a gallon by this summer.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Director of Energy Policy Myron Ebell on who is to blame for high oil and gas prices:
“Continuing high oil prices expose the folly of America’s current energy policies. The Congress has passed and the President has signed a huge new ethanol mandate that will raise gasoline prices further. The Congress is also trying to pass new taxes on domestic oil companies, which will depress domestic production. At the same time, the Congress is not considering any legislation to increase domestic oil production by opening federal lands and offshore areas that are closed by congressional moratorium. Offshore areas and the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge potentially contain colossal reserves of oil and natural gas, but that won’t do us any good until Congress allows exploration and production.”
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