The Competitive Enterprise Institute Daily Update
Issues in the News
1. ENERGY
Oil prices fall to early summer levels.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Director of Global Warming and Energy Policy Myron Ebell on how Americans feel about the price of gas.
“The latest Gallup poll reveals that Americans think one of the most important problems facing the country is high gas prices. Only the war in Iraq was rated the top problem by more of the 1007 adults surveyed August 7-10. But the news hasn’t reached the U. S. Senate yet. While Americans struggle to pay higher gas prices, the Senate left for its August recess after refusing to take votes on two outstanding bills passed by the House of Representatives that would significantly increase domestic oil and natural gas production.”
2. LEGAL
New Jersey Attorney General Zulima V. Farber resigns after an ethics investigation.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Special Projects Counsel Hans Bader on attorneys general who think of themselves as above the law.
New Jersey’s attorney general Zulima Farber is finally out of a job. She was appointed by New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine despite having two highly-publicized bench warrants out for her arrest for her driving. Now she has finally been forced to resign after abusing her position to cancel a traffic ticket issued to her paramour, himself a serial ethics violator and tax cheat who had been repeatedly disciplined for taking advantage of the clients of his law firm.
3. INTERNET
The U.S. extends its control over the internet by agreeing to a new contract with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Vice President Clyde Wayne Crews, Jr. on why the U.S. is right not to yield control.
“Turning control of the Internet over to an agency staffed by UN bureaucrats would a disastrous mistake. Imagine a world where the rules for what’s permissible to say and do online are written by diplomats appointed by Robert Mugabe, Fidel Castro and the Chinese Communist party.”
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