The Competitive Enterprise Institute Daily Update

Issues in the News

1.  INSURANCE

A major insurer announced this week it will offer a homeowners’ insurance product for customers living in high-risk areas, after other insurers cancelled such coverage .

CEI Expert Available to Comment: Senior Fellow Eli Lehrer explains why private decisions made by prospective homeowners and insurance companies is better than the federal flood insurance program:

“The alternatives to an ever-larger government role involve difficult choices. Over 20 percent of the properties currently in the federal flood insurance program could not be built today with ordinary financing and insurance. At least in Mississippi, the same goes for many properties in the state wind insurance pool. A rational market would likely demand unaffordable yearly premiums for  these ‘ nonconforming ‘ properties. Unless lenders and local governments do more to encourage flood insurance purchase, furthermore, premiums would likely rise sharply in a private market even for safer but still flood- and wind-prone properties.”

2.  BIOTECH 

Despite a lack of evidence that food from cloned animals is harmful, the Center for Food Safety is accusing the FDA of using a flawed analysis in giving preliminary approval to such food.

CEI Expert Available to Comment: Senior Fellow Gregory Conko on the science and benefits of cloning: 

“Since there are no real questions about consumer safety, the critics have had to capitalize on scare stories and the public’s ambivalence about unfamiliar technologies.”

3.  ENVIRONMENT

A former Clinton advisor says use of biofuels might raise food prices.

CEI Experts Available to Comment: Senior Fellow Marlo Lewis and global food expert Dennis Avery on the real costs of biofuels: 

“Each additional bushel of corn bid into the ethanol plants will drive up the price of corn—and that of food. The price of feed corn for U.S. livestock could rise by 60 to 70 percent over the next two years…. ”