Fairness Doctrine, Wind Power and Flood Insurance

Lawmakers debate the return of the “Fairness Doctrine” for news broadcasts.

Famed Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens launches a multimedia campaign to replace oil use with wind power.

The Government Accountability Office reports that the federal government’s flood insurance program is billions of dollars in debt.

1. MEDIA

Lawmakers debate the return of the “Fairness Doctrine” for news broadcasts.

CEI Expert Available to Comment: Technology Policy Analyst Cord Blomquist on the threat to freedom of speech:

“Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes famously wrote that the best test of truth ‘is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market.’ Yet today many are turning away from this ideal, calling for greater government intervention in media ownership over the perceived lack of fairness in the press. As Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) recently proclaimed, ‘We really do literally have five or six major corporations in this country that determine for the most part what Americans see, hear, and read every day.’

 

2. ENVIRONMENT

Famed Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens launches a multimedia campaign to replace oil use with wind power.

CEI Expert Available to Comment: Adjunct Fellow Steven Milloydistorts the truth: on how Pickens’ campaign

“His TV commercials feature images of American soldiers fighting in Iraq and he likens the annual $700 billion cost of foreign oil to ‘four times the annual cost of the Iraq war.’ But hold the phone. Only 16 percent of our imported oil comes from the Persian Gulf — barely up from 13.6 percent in 1973, according to the DOE. Imports from OPEC countries are actually down — from 47.8 percent in 1973 to 44.5 percent in 2007.”

 

3. BUSINESS

The Government Accountability Office reports that the federal government’s flood insurance program is billions of dollars in debt.

CEI Expert Available to Comment: Senior Fellow Eli Lehrer on the need for reform:

“Three-and-a-half decades after it emerged in its modern form, the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) remains deeply troubled. Although modestly successful in improving the quality of land use planning in the United States—at least relative to what came before—the program has enormous weaknesses. In particular, it has cost taxpayers billions of dollars despite promises that it would sustain itself, encouraged some development in environmentally sensitive flood plain areas that would not have occurred absent the program, and has impeded the development of superior, private sector models to deal with flood risk.”