The Competitive Enterprise Institute Daily Update
Issues in the News
1. INTERNET
Amid furious lobbying, the Senate rejects net neutrality rules, which would have regulated prices for Internet access.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Technology Analyst Peter Suderman on why net neutrality regulations would be a loss for consumers:
“The government should not be allowed to force network owners into adopting static pricing schemes or mandated access rules. Keeping network owners from realizing the profit potential of their long-term investments will only result in fewer products and choices for everyone in the marketplace.”
2. ENERGY
Congress considers lifting the ban on offshore drilling for oil and gas along the U.S. coastline.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Director of Energy Policy Myron Ebell on the need to increase access to domestic energy sources:
“Polls show that Americans now consider high energy prices to be the biggest economic threat facing the country. The only proposal that has a chance to pass the Congress that addresses this concern is the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and Outer Continental Shelf package.”
3. TECHNOLOGY
Senators endorse the idea of “broadcast flag” technology to counter copying of audio content from digital radio receivers.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews on the problems with broadcast flag regulation:
“Bans on [digital recording] devices are bans on ‘engineering free speech,’ so to speak; such bans are no more legitimate than bans on the kind of free speech the entertainment industry normally fights to defend. Creating a device capable of recording digital content is itself a type of free speech, and indeed, is itself an exercise of intellectual property rights. If Congress is attempting to sacrifice one in order to save the other, it is doing something wrong; we can’t reasonably uphold intellectual property rights for entertainment, yet deny them for engineering.”
FOR MORE INFORMATION
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