The Competitive Enterprise Institute Daily Update
Issues in the News
1. BUSINESS The Small Business Administration celebrates “ National Small Business Week ” in Washington , D.C. . CEI Expert Available to Comment: Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews on the scope of the federal regulatory burden , which often falls disproportionately on small businesses: “ The exact cost of federal regulations can never be fully known. Firms generally pass along to consumers some of the costs of the taxes they are required to pay. Similarly, some regulatory costs, although generally imposed on businesses, get passed on to consumers. Governmental and private data exist on scores of regulations and the agencies that issue them, as well as on regulatory costs and benefits… Extrapolating from an assessment of the federal regulatory enterprise by economist Mark Crain, regulatory costs hit an estimated $1.13 trillion in 2005.”
2. SAFETY The House Commerce Committee investigates the Food and Drug Administration's recent record on food safety , following contamination scares of pet food, peanut butter and spinach. CEI Expert Available to Comment: Director of Food Safety Policy Gregory Conko on the organic spinach that was behind last summer's E.coli outbreak : “Last summer's outbreak of E. coli contamination i n packaged spinach that killed at least three people and sickened more than 200 others has now been confirmed to have come from a 50-acre organic farm in California's San Benito County. According to the Associated Press , at a legislative hearing in Sacramento on Tuesday, California Department of Health Services officials said that ‘investigators identified the grower who was farming that plot, which was in the second year of a three-year transition to organic production.'”
3. FARMING The Senate Agriculture Committee holds a hearing on economic issues facing producers of sugar and similar crops. CEI Expert Available to Comment: Adjunct Fellow Fran Smith on the details of the sugar subsidy program in the U.S. : “As is true with many government programs, the sugar program's benefits are concentrated and the costs are diffuse. It principally benefits large sugar cane producers in Florida and Louisiana and sugar beet farmers in 14 upper-Midwestern and Western states. For those who benefit, the rewards are significant—the General Accounting Office estimated in 1991 that 42 percent of the sugar grower benefits went to only 1 percent of all sugar farms, or 150 farms. Some 33 sugar farms received over $1 million in annual benefits.”
Blog feature : For more news and analysis, updated throughout the day, visit CEI's blog, Open Market .