The Gulf Oil Spill, GM’s Bailout Troubles and the Costs of CO2 Regulation
Environmentalists call for a stop to offshore drilling in reaction to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
CEI files a complaint against General Motors with the Federal Trade Commission to protest GM’s ad campaign on loan repayments.
Technology analyst Mark Mills published a study in 1998 on the compliance costs of the EPA regulation of CO2 under the Clean Air Act.
1. ENERGY
Environmentalists call for a stop to offshore drilling in reaction to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Vice President Iain Murray on why we should not ban offshore drilling.
“If we seek to reduce these risks by banning offshore drilling, as some now demand, we will undoubtedly raise the price of energy. That creates its own risks: increased consumer costs, further economic stress, job losses and hardship—all of which lead to worse health and reduced well being. The spill has been bad enough already. A legacy of more expensive energy would only make the disaster worse, and endanger our national welfare will be badly affected.”
2. FINANCE
CEI files a complaint against General Motors with the Federal Trade Commission to protest GM’s ad campaign on loan repayments.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Director of the Center for Investors and Entrepreneurs John Berlau on other lies by GM’s financing branch, General Motors Acceptance Corporation (GMAC).
“The Federal Reserve made the unprecedented move of granting GMAC the status of a bank holding company able to access the Fed’s coveted discount window and other facilities. It is unprecedented for a bank affiliated with a non-financial company — and GM still owns 49 percent of GMAC — to have this access to Fed support. So why the lack of outrage and attention to GMAC? Perhaps because the firm cleverly but deceptively changed its name for a large part of its operations. Much of GMAC is now Ally Bank. You know Ally Bank. It has the commercials with cute kids to illustrate the supposed bad practices of the Ally (GMAC’s) competitors. ‘Even kids know it’s wrong to hide behind fine print,’ one of the commercials states. Yet the whole basis of the commercials is to hide the ‘fine print’ that Ally (GMAC) has received massive bailouts from our tax dollars.”
3. ENVIRONMENT
Technology analyst Mark Mills published a study in 1998 on the compliance costs of the EPA regulation of CO2 under the Clean Air Act.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Senior Fellow Marlo Lewis on why the study is still relevant today.
“A Stunning Regulatory Burden was a direct response to the April 1998 Memorandum by then EPA General Counsel Jonathan Z. Cannon asserting EPA’s authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate CO2 and other greenhouse gases (GHGs). Petitioners in Massachusetts v. EPA partly relied on the Cannon memorandum to press their claim that EPA had a statutory obligation to issue an endangerment finding and regulate GHG emissions from new motor vehicles under Sec. 202 of the Act. Most importantly, the June 1998 Mills study reminds us that EPA had to know all along that a victory for petitioners in Massachusetts v. EPA would dramatically expand its regulatory reach beyond any plausible delegation of regulatory authority from Congress.”