Global Warming Research, Financial Regulation and Transportation Projects
Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli is investigating the state-funded global warming research of a former University of Virginia professor to see if he defrauded taxpayers; UVA is refusing to cooperate.
The Senate passes the Restoring American Financial Stability Act.
Concession projects—in which private firms temporarily retain management rights to publically-owned projects—are currently the most common form of private-public transportation projects.
1. ENVIRONMENT
Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli is investigating the state-funded global warming researchUniversity of Virginia professor to see if he defrauded taxpayers; UVA is refusing to cooperate. of a former
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Senior Fellow Christopher Horner on why UVA should respect Cuccinelli’s requests for documents.
“This request for documents, indeed the statute authorizing it, put academics on notice that they must do their work openly, honestly, and using the traditional approach of the observer who is indifferent to the outcome of the experiment. That is in grave doubt in the instant case. It is troubling how saying so is considered unacceptable, amid escalating name-calling against an attorney general who is operating under a unanimously enacted law, which plainly applies, about which no one previously complained.”
2. FINANCE
The Senate passes the Restoring American Financial Stability Act.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Director of the Center for Investors and Entrepreneurs John Berlau on what’s wrong with the bill.
“[The bill] will hurt Main Street investors and entrepreneurs, and worsen the problem of ‘too big to fail’ bailouts. The numerous flaws of the bill add up to one basic problem: The bill’s omission of reform of Fannie and Freddie, combined with the overly-broad expansion of cumbersome regulation of legitimate investor and entrepreneurs, is exactly the wrong prescription for an economy struggling to climb back from the brink.”
3. TRANSPORTATION
Concession projects—in which private firms temporarily retain management rights to publically-owned projects—are currently the most common form of private-public transportation projects.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Policy Analyst Marc Scribner on what’s wrong with concession projects.
“For the most part, the problems stem from the fact that merely transferring management fails to shift risk to the appropriate parties. Feasibility studies and traffic forecasts are often overly optimistic, and political factors—such as opposition to tolls out of principle, changing regulatory frameworks, and cronyism and a lack of competition in procurement and contracting—exacerbate the risk-sharing problems.”