CEI Daily Update
Issues in the News
1. CONGRESS
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee hears testimony on the controversial United Nations “Law of the Sea” treaty.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: President Fred L. Smith on why the treaty is a bad deal for the U.S.:
“The treaty’s best provisions—covering navigation, for instance—largely codify existing international law. Its worst provisions—those creating the seabed regulatory regime—would discourage future minerals production as well as punish entrepreneurship in related fields involving technology, software, and intellectual property that have an ocean application.”
2. BUSINESS
The New York Times continues to field criticism for giving a discount to MoveOn.org for an advertisement criticizing the performance of Gen. David Petraeus.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Center for Entrepreneurship Director John Berlau on how the Times could be running afoul of the Sarbanes-Oxley accounting regulations the paper has endorsed in the past:
“Unless the company was lying to [Public Editor Clark] Hoyt and the public, it didn’t know for three-plus days what kind of discounts its sales force were handing out, and could not verify compliance with basic policy. This admission of internal chaos is startling. But Sarbanes-Oxley (Sarbox) could make it much worse. The control system problem arguably could qualify as a ‘material weakness’ in the arcane jargon of the Sarbox-generated regulatory apparatus. If judged so, The New York Times Company was required to disclose it and could face severe consequences for not doing so. The harsh responsibilities imposed by Sarbox could end up biting the hand of friendship offered all these years by the Times.”
3. HEALTH
The House of Representative prepares to consider a bill that would broaden the Food and Drug Administration’s regulatory authority over tobacco.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: General Counsel Sam Kazman on why the tobacco bill could lead to more smoking:
“…as Commissioner von Eschenbach himself noted, the bill’s approach of empowering FDA to reduce cigarette nicotine levels could itself easily backfire from a health standpoint. It could actually increase the consumption of cigarettes, and of the harmful tar they contain, by smokers determined to obtain the nicotine they crave.”
Blog feature: For more news and analysis, updated throughout the day, visit CEI’s blog, Open Market.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
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