The Competitive Enterprise Institute Daily Update

1. ENERGY

Environmentally-correct “compact fluorescent” light bulbs face an unfriendly reception from consumers.

CEI Expert Available to Comment: General Sam Kazman considers the relative merits of  fluorescent and traditional incandescent bulbs:

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“Incandescent bulbs don’t need to warm up. Over the years I’ve seen lots of claims about how much money compact fluorescents will save you, but I’ve never seen any mention of some warm-up time:  not in the federal government’s Energy Star Program (‘change a light, change the world’), and certainly not in [energy efficiency guru] Amory Lovins’s over-the-top paeans. Only after I actually bought one did I learn about the phenomenon (though, in all fairness, it was mentioned in the fine print on the back of the bulb’s package).”

2. INTERNET

Advocates of “net neutrality” regulations prepare for a lobbying campaign in the Senate.

CEI Expert Available to Comment: Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews on how legislating neutrality would slow down the Internet:

“We all can probably agree that we want tomorrow's Internet at the speed of light, not at the speed of government. But a better starting point is to appreciate that we have no broadband today: cable and DSL are a trickle compared to the <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags” />Niagara needed tomorrow. Freezing today's Internet into a regulated public utility via net neutrality's inevitable price-and-entry regulation would be the worst possible move, slowing investment and innovation, meaning fewer new companies, networking deals, products and technologies.”

3. ENVIRONMENT

Al Gore calls Canada’s plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions a “fraud”.

CEI Expert Available to Comment: Senior Fellow Marlo Lewis on Gore’s own global warming plan:

“Gore’s proposals would create a breathtaking expansion of government power over the lives of everyday Americans citizens and put the U.S. economy in a deep freeze. Normally such radical measures would be rejected out of hand – which is why the former Vice President has had to rely on alarmist predictions which mislead his audiences and distort the relevant science.”

Blog feature: For more news and analysis, updated throughout the day, visit CEI’s blog, Open Market.