The Competitive Enterprise Institute Daily Update

Issues in the News

1. CONGRESS

Al Gore testifies before committees in both the House and Senate today on global warming.

CEI Experts Available to Comment: Senior Fellow Marlo Lewis on Gore’s climate claims:

“While it purports to be non-partisan, non-ideological expositions of climate science and moral common-sense, An Inconvenient Truth, in both its versions, is actually a colorfully illustrated lawyer’s brief for global warming alarmism and energy rationing. The only facts and studies Gore considers are those convenient to his scare-them-green agenda. And in numerous instances, he distorts the evidence he cites.”

2. HEALTH

A new study suggests that a high-fat diet increases a woman’s risk of developing breast cancer.

CEI Experts Available to Comment: Adjunct Analyst Steven Milloy on the disputed link between dietary fat and cancer:

“Low-fat diets didn’t reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, colorectal cancer or invasive breast cancer, according to three large studies published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The researchers divided 48,835 women into two groups based on diet– one group with 19,541 women consumed a low fat diet and the other group with 29,294 women consumed their usual diets—and followed the women for 8.1 years.”

3. BUSINESS

The Securities and Exchange Commission prepares to relax some of the Sarbanes-Oxley corporate accounting rules.

CEI Expert Available to Comment: Center for Entrepreneurship Director John Berlau on the burden of the regulations: 

“Rushed through Congress after the Enron and WorldCom scandals, Sarb-Ox ended up imposing many mandates that greatly encumber honest entrepreneurs. Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus recently told IBD that his company could not have gone public as a four-store firm ‘in today’s legal and regulatory climate.’ This means that Home Depot’s early investors would also have lost out if Sarb-Ox had been in place.”