The Competitive Enterprise Institute Daily Update

Issues in the News

1. CONGRESS

Democratic leaders in Congress begin work on their first 100 hour agenda.

CEI Expert Available to Comment: CEI staff on what to expect from the new session:

“With the opening of the 110th Congress, the new majorities in the House and Senate are preparing to embark on an ambitious domestic policy agenda. A higher minimum wage, lower Medicare drug prices, changes to oil and gas royalties and subsidies for renewable energy are all on the front-burner.”

2. REGULATION

The city of Washington, D.C. bans all smoking in bars, clubs and restaurants.

CEI Experts Available to Comment: Policy Analyst Brooke Oberwetter on the threat to business owners:

“The interest groups that pushed for the ban are hailing the ban as a victory for non-smokers’ rights. Making this an issue of rights—a right to clean air versus a right to smoke—is a ploy designed to illicit sympathy for non-smokers, but it’s a gross mischaracterization of what smoking bans are all about. To a certain extent, it’s a matter of personal liberty; certainly in places where smoking is banned outdoors–everywhere from sidewalks to beaches to public parks, personal liberty is at stake. But in the case of DC, the bigger threat behind the ban is the threat to the economic liberty of business owners.”

3. SCIENCE

The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) accuses oil companies of conducting a misleading public information campaign on global warming.

CEI Expert Available to Comment: Director of Energy & Global Warming Policy Myron Ebell on the UCS agenda:

“The policies promoted by groups such as the UCS would do much more harm than the warming itself. Nearly 2 billion people around the world live without electricity.  Building coal-fired power plants in China and Africa will provide inestimable benefits to people with only slight risks of minor harms from global warming. Yet, the Union favors keeping people in poverty and opposes the technological advances and economic growth that will alleviate risks we may experience from warming.”