FCC Hearings, Banning Plastic Bags and Union Graft in Detroit
Federal Communications Commission chairman-designate Julius Genachowski faces a confirmation hearing in the Senate.
Cities across the country move to ban plastic grocery bags.
Trustees of Detroit’s public pension funds bill workers for hundreds of thousands of dollars in travel and perks.
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1. TECHNOLOGY
Federal Communications Commission chairman-designate Julius Genachowski faces a confirmation hearing in the Senate.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews on Genachowski’s prospects:
“Mr. Genachowski will prove to be a wise choice if he recognizes the private sector’s primacy in expanding consumer options and is aware of the harms stemming from centralized regulation of the telecommunications marketplace. To the extent Mr. Genachowski perpetuates unnecessary FCC involvement in communications and speech, or extends the commission’s reach to new turf, he is a bad choice.”
2. ENVIRONMENT
Cities across the country move to ban plastic grocery bags.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Director of Risk and Environmental Policy Angela Logomasini on the unexpected health threats posed by reusable bags:
“[Reusable grocery bags can] become breeding grounds for bacteria and other potentially dangerous agents. Writer Michael Shaw notes that in a report released on April 21, 2009, entitled ‘A Microbiological Study of Plastic Reusable Bags and First or single-use Plastic Bags,’ findings indicate that reusables are a breeding ground for bacteria and pose public health risks—food poisoning, skin infections such as bacterial boils, allergic reactions, triggering of asthma attacks, and ear infections. It is noted that in the control group (single-use plastic bags and first-use reusables), there was no evidence of bacteria, mold, yeast, or total coliforms.”
3. LABOR
Trustees of Detroit’s public pension funds bill workers for hundreds of thousands of dollars in travel and perks.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Editorial Director Ivan Osorio on why this is an alarming development:
“Such apparent graft by public officials is hardly new, but today it should ring alarm bells about defined benefit pension funds in general, and union pension funds specifically. Many union pension funds today are severely underfunded, so any workers who could be made to join such funds should be concerned. The so-called Employee Free Choice Act’s binding arbitration provision would do just that, by enjoining a federally appointed arbitrator to impose a contract on a newly unionized company that could include a provision for workers to join the pension fund of the union that now represents them, and for the employer to pay into it.”
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