The Competitive Enterprise Institute Daily Update
Issues in the News
1. ENERGY
High summer demand for electricity in California could force rolling blackouts throughout the state.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Senior Fellow Iain Murray on the lessons we should have learned from the massive East Coast blackout of 2003:
“Much of North America has grown profoundly anti-energy over the past few years, despite our dependence on it. We don’t want nasty power plants, new or old, to pollute the countryside and rivers. We don’t want unsightly electricity transmission lines spoiling the view. And we certainly don’t want greedy power companies making a profit from giving us all the power we need for our air conditioning, refrigerators and SUVs. So we’ve tried to regulate them away.”
2. TRADE
Trade talks between the U.S. and the European Union falter over farm subsidies.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Adjunct Fellow Fran Smith on the battle to eliminate domestic agricultural subsidies:
“The farm battle is one that must be won. In both the U.S. and Europe, farmers constitute an ever smaller fraction of the economy. In the U.S., agriculture accounts for 1.5 percent of GDP and 2 percent of employment, yet in 2004 government support for farm production totaled $46.5 billion, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. We all pay more to sustain a small group of agricultural producers at non-sustainable levels. For example, U.S. sugar producers account for less than 1 percent of U.S. farm cash receipts, but end up costing U.S. consumers and taxpayers an additional $1.9 billion per year, according to a 2000 General Accounting Office report.”
3. LEGAL
New York state moves to expand its use of eminent domain to force the sale of private property for economic development projects.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Journalism Fellow Tim Carney, author of the new book, The Big Ripoff: How Big Business and Big Government Steal Your Money, on New York’s strong-arm tactics:
“With escalating interest rates and a flattening real estate market New York landowners have enough to worry about, without the government continuing its central-planning march to terraform the state.”
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