Obama’s Spending Freeze, the UN’s Lack of Peer Review and FDA’s Chemical Worries
President Obama proposes a freeze on discretionary spending.
A UN scientist confirms that dramatic claims of Himalayan glaciers melting due to global warming were not verified or peer-reviewed.
The Food and Drug Administration raises its “level of concern” over the chemical BPA, widely used in plastic containers and food packaging.
Listen to LibertyWeek, the CEI podcast, here.
1. BUSINESS
President Obama proposes a freeze on discretionary spending.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: President Fred L. Smith, Jr. on why “discretionary” spending is only a part of the puzzle:
“Consider the rich array of political means: taxes, regulation, guarantees, entitlements, inflation, monetary misallocation, and ‘discretionary’ spending. Tax cuts have been a conservative nostrum for many years and taxes can be costly but, too often, they’re paid for with debt or inflation. The costs of inflation, regulation, guarantees are largely off-budget. There are no ‘accounting’ gains for cutting back on these interventions. Entitlements such as Social Security and Medicare (especially after the massive expansion of Bush and the Republican Congress) dwarf discretionary spending but Obama seems unlikely to challenge these sacred cows.”
2. ENVIRONMENT
A UN scientist confirms that dramatic claims of Himalayan glaciers melting due to global warming were not verified or peer-reviewed.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Director of Global Warming Policy Myron Ebell on how this could be the tip of the iceberg:
“This is not an isolated incident. This is a pattern of hyping the evidence to advance the alarmist agenda.”
3. HEALTH
The Food and Drug Administration raises its “level of concern” over the chemical BPA, widely used in plastic containers and food packaging.
CEI Experts Available to Comment: Adjunct Fellow Michael Fumento wonders why everyone but the U.S. government realizes BPA is safe:
“In 2006 the European Union’s Food Safety Authority conducted a risk assessment focusing on the threat to infants. It ultimately raised the Tolerable Daily Intake by a factor of five, which is to say it found BPA much safer than was first believed. Mind you, this is the same EU that has placed advisory warnings on cell phones and whose residents run in terror at the sight of a grain of genetically modified corn.”
Listen to LibertyWeek, the CEI podcast, here.