The Competitive Enterprise Institute Daily Update

Issues in the News

1. LEGAL

Michigan voters approve Proposal 2, a ban on race and gender-based affirmative action policies.

CEI Expert Available to Comment: Special Projects Counsel Hans Bader on the advantages to taxpayers:

“In Michigan, voters overwhelmingly approved Proposal 2, a measure to end race and gender-based affirmative action in state college admissions, public employment, and government contracts. Proposal 2 will save taxpayers money by ensuring that municipal contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, rather than based on affirmative action.”

2. TECHNOLOGY

IBM and its partners produce tracking microchips that address consumer concerns about privacy.

“Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology promises many consumer benefits.  With RFID, goods on trucks, in trains, and in warehouses can be inventoried without unloading and digging through pallets and packaging. Embedded in or attached to consumer products, RFID can improve customer convenience by permitting receipt-free returns and suppressing post-sale theft.  As a personal identification device, RFID already enables keycard holders to quickly enter secure buildings and pass through toll gates.”

3. ENERGY

The Hudson Institute holds a discussion on a new book by Dennis Avery and Fred Singer, Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years.

CEI Expert Available to Comment: Senior Fellow Marlo Lewis on the latest congressional action on global warming:

“In a recent letter to ExxonMobil Chairman and CEO Rex Tillerson, Sens. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and John Rockefeller (D-WV) urge Tillerson to end his company’s support of “climate change denial front groups.” The only group they identify by name is the one for which I work—the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). I guess the Senators haven’t been keeping up with the news, because ExxonMobil stopped funding CEI months ago.”