CEI Planet: January – February 2006
President Concedes Moral High Ground on Energy
by Myron Ebell
"America is addicted to oil." With these five words in his State of the Union speech, President George W. Bush confounded steadfast allies on energy policy and emboldened his bitterest enemies. Political sages often counsel paying more attention to deeds than to words, but in this case, the President’s irresponsible rhetoric is likely to have far more damaging consequences than the minor policy changes to counter our collective “addiction” that he went on to recommend. And all for naught—for Bush, the political payoff has been nil.
In Memoriam: R.W. Bradford
by Fred L. Smith, Jr.
My recollections of Bill deal mostly with his enthusiasm for challenging the conventional wisdom, for documenting the case for economic liberty, and for pushing all of us who knew him to put into writing some of our better thoughts. His ability to tease more out of us than we thought was there—to edit it into a manuscript that we wished we had written—was wonderful.
How Sarbanes-Oxley Hinders Technology Transfer
by John Berlau
This is a story about American entrepreneurs, salesmen, and inventors of the kind you often hear about—Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, the Wright Brothers—tinkering around their homes. Usually nothing comes of this experimenting and tinkering, but sometimes these entrepreneurs hit upon something really big and start their own companies. That’s the way it’s supposed to work.
Jason Talley heads the Bureaucrash pro-freedom activist network—in Bureaucrash’s own parlance, he is the Crasher-in-Chief. He spoke recently with CEI Planet on his organization’s accomplishments and what he envisions for the future. In March, Bureaucrash and CEI formed a new strategic partnership to combine the strengths of each organization to help spread the ideas of liberty.
The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board: CEI Challenges an Unconstitutional Assault on Government Accountability
by Hans Bader and John Berlau
On February 9, the Competitive Enterprise Institute helped file a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), a federal agency created by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. The PCAOB enjoys broad power over the auditing and internal financial controls of America’s public companies. Sen. Phil Gramm (R-TX), who voted for its creation, confessed that it would have “massive power, unchecked power, by design” and would “make decisions that affect all accountants and…indirectly every breathing person in the country.” He was right. Now that the agency is operating, its red tape is costing the American economy over $35 billion annually.
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