EPA in Court, Anti-Terrorism Policies and the Hidden Health Care Tax
Recent greenhouse gas regulations issued by the Environmental Protection Agency are sparking legal opposition.
Security agencies respond to a suspected terrorist incident onboard a Detroit-bound flight on Christmas Day.
Health care legislation currently before Congress contains a hidden tax on over-the-counter medications.
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1. ENVIRONMENT
Recent greenhouse gas regulations issued by the Environmental Protection Agency are sparking legal opposition.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Senior Fellow Marlo Lewis on the constitutional crisis the EPA is creating:
“Regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act leads inexorably to ‘absurd results,’ including an economically-chilling administrative quagmire. To prevent greenhouse gas regulation from overwhelming agency administrative resources and stifling economic development, EPA proposes to suspend, for six years, the ‘major’ source applicability thresholds for the Clean Air Act pre-construction and operating permits programs. That is, EPA proposes to amend the Act. This violation of the separation of powers compounds the constitutional crisis inherent in the Court’s substitution of its will for that of the people’s elected representatives.”
2. SAFETY
Security agencies respond to a suspected terrorist incident onboard a Detroit-bound flight on Christmas Day.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Senior Attorney Hans Bader on the Administration’s reaction:
“Despite this utter failure, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano claims that ‘the system worked’ because no one died. Her agency is now planning to make overseas air travel much more onerous, by banning passengers from getting out of their seats during the last hour of a flight (even though a passenger who did just that that foiled the terrorist attempt) and by restricting carry-on luggage and items like blankets on flights.”
3. HEALTH
Health care legislation currently before Congress contains a hidden tax on over-the-counter medications.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Director of the Center for Investors and Entrepreneurs John Berlau on what this could mean for consumers:
“…this tax change will almost certainly cost the health care system billions more dollars in unnecessary spending both to the government and private insurance plans. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that the tax hike will bring in $5 billion in revenues over ten years – itself a drop in the bucket when compared to the bill’s new trillion-dollar entitlement – but that estimate doesn’t take into account behavioral changes as a direct result of this provision. OTC drugs are much cheaper those available for prescription, but they could now be more expensive to individual consumers given that prescription drugs would still be eligible for favored treatment in the tax plans, and that insurance companies would be mandated to cover many of them. Consequently, any time a consumer has the slightest headache, the financial incentive would often be to see a doctor and get a prescription rather than go to the store and get medicine off the shelf.”
Listen to LibertyWeek, the CEI podcast, here.