The Competitive Enterprise Institute Daily Update
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
Issues in the News
1. MEDIAA federal appeals court strikes down Federal Communications Commission’s rules for broadcast indecency.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews on why we should get rid of the FCC entirely:
“…the telecom sector remains one of the most heavily regulated and taxed segments of the U.S. economy. That's why the most pressing business is to reform regulation by striking at the heart of the administrative burden. Instead of creating justifications for new laws that will out of date in a few years, if not months, reform needs a sunset agenda, a phaseout of the FCC.”
2. LEGALThe Supreme Court rules that Safeco and Geico did not violate the Fair Credit Report Act when they used customers’ credit scores to assign premiums.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Senior Fellow Eli Lehrer analyzes the decision:
“A Supreme Court Decision handed down today, Safeco v. Burr, mostly sided with two insurance companies in a dispute over notifications related to the Fair Credit Reporting Act. The real question at hand was to what extent insurance companies had to notify policy holders when they offer them rates other than the lowest as a result of credit histories. The Court found that GEICO did not violate the law and that if Safeco did, it did not do so recklessly. This should let insurance companies breathe a little easier when they use credit scores to determine rates and, insofar as allowing the use of more information leads to rates that better reflect risk, it’s likely a good thing.”
3. BUSINESSThe documentary film “Mine Your Own Business” generates controversy over environmental activism and Third World development.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Adjunct Analyst Steven Milloy on how green activists are perpetuating poverty around the world:
“Many people are aware that the world’s poor desperately need economic development. Few realize, however, that a major obstacle to overcoming global poverty is the anti-development and anti-human environmental movement that camouflages itself under ubiquitous ‘Earth-friendly’ shades of green. This lack of awareness is no accident. It's come about through a ‘See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil’ syndrome, where ‘evil’ refers to the many ills of the modern environmental movement.”
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