The Competitive Enterprise Institute Daily Update
Issues in the News
1. CONGRESS
The House of Representative prepares to pass new energy policy legislation, including expanded subsidies for alternative energy sources.
“There is nothing wrong with alternative energy technologies, but unfortunately thirty years of enormous subsidies have not made these technologies competitive in the marketplace. Instead, subsidies have made the companies that produce alternative energy, such as ethanol and wind power, into corporate welfare dependents. Just as reforming the welfare system has benefited millions of Americans who had become dependent on government handouts, removing subsidies from all types of energy would force producers to become competitive. This would lower energy prices and benefit all consumers.”
2. TECHNOLOGY
The incoming head of the UN’s telecommunications agency rejects the creation of a new international agency to oversee Internet governance.
“…the ‘U.N. for the Internet’ crowd say they want to ‘resolve’ who should have authority over Internet traffic and domain-name management; how to close the global ‘digital divide’; and how to ‘harness the potential of information’ for the world’s impoverished. Also on the table: how much protection free speech and expression should receive online.”
3. WEATHER
Winter storms in the Midwest and New England leave 54 dead and hundreds of thousands without power.
“Cold winter storms kill a lot of people. More people die from blizzards and cold spells than from heat waves. Increased death rates usually persist for weeks after the unusually cold temperatures have passed, which suggests that the cold is killing people who would otherwise live into another season at least. Mortality rates during heat waves are just the reverse. The increase ends and often the rate drops below normal as soon as temperatures cool, which suggests that the higher temperatures are killing people who are likely to die soon anyway. It is true that mortality rates from both cold and hot weather have been declining in rich countries for a long time. That’s because wealthier societies can adapt and protect themselves better from temperature extremes. But it also appears that deaths from hot weather have been declining more rapidly than those from cold.”