The Competitive Enterprise Institute Daily Update
Issues in the News
1. TRADE
President Bush plans to ask Congress to grant him renewed “fast track” authority to negotiate new trade agreements.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Adjunct Fellow Fran Smith on the prospects for fast track approval:
“The Trade Promotion Act of 2002 expires at the end of June 2007. TPA gives the president the authority to negotiate trade deals and have them voted up or down by Congress without amendments. However, Democratic Congressional leaders have said that to renew fast-track, the Administration would have to agree to include even more labor and environmental mandates in trade agreements.”
2. PRIVACY
State legislators in Maine object to the creation of a national ID card.
CEI comment: CEI policy staff on the problems with the Real ID Act:
“The first troubling aspect of the license provisions is the requirement that states link their identity databases and join a proposed interstate compact dubbed the ‘Driver License Agreement.’ This would enable states and provinces of Mexico and Canada to join in this database without further input from the Congress. Making Americans’ sensitive identity information available to foreign government officials is not a sensible or coherent method for making Americans safe.”
3. ENVIRONMENT
Big business joins up with environmental activist organizations to push for limits on greenhouse gas emissions.
CEI Experts Available to Comment: Adjunct Analyst Steven Milloy on the emerging eco-industrial complex:
“The call for immediate action came on the eve of President Bush’s State of the Union address in which he is expected to reiterate that the industry on its own is making progress in curtailing the growth of heat-trapping emissions without the need of government intervention. But the executives and leaders of four major environmental organizations said in a letter to Bush that mandatory emissions caps are needed to reduce the flow of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere.”