The Competitive Enterprise Institute Daily Update

Issues in the News

1. CONGRESS

“Politicians love the minimum wage. It is a perfect issue on which to demagogue, since it promises benefits to the public while requiring no tax dollars to be spent, because the costs fall entirely on private businesses. And its costs on workers are hidden — there is no organized political pressure group of people who would have occupied jobs that an increased minimum wage kept from coming into being. But policies that create good political opportunities for populist grandstanding are often bad policy, and that’s true with the minimum wage. It is economic nonsense, premised on the idea that government can mandate a free lunch: It would be nicer for everyone to make more money, so there ought to be a law!”

2. ENVIRONMENT

California lifts restrictions on the use of more-affordable plastic water piping in home construction.

CEI Experts Available to Comment: Director of Risk & Environmental Policy Angela Logomasini on why lifting the ban is a victory for consumers: 

“The state’s change of heart came after its housing department conducted a study debunking claims that the pipes are dangerous, which were posited by a coalition of environmental activists and plumbers’ unions. In reality, the CPVC pipes are quite safe, energy efficient, and environmentally sound. They also cost much less—about a third of the alternative metal piping.”

3. SCIENCE

The United Nations prepares to release a major new report of the science of global warming.

CEI Experts Available to Comment: Director of Energy & Global Warming Policy Myron Ebell on why advance details don’t accurately represent the substance of the report: 

“The full IPCC Fourth Assessment Report won’t become available for five or six months from now. Instead, the 20-some page Summary for Policymakers is being released. The Summary for Policymakers is designed to be a propaganda document that will promote global warming alarmism. It is not written by the scientists who wrote the report, but by the governments that belong to the IPCC.”