CEI Today: FTC closes Google probe, Rick Santelli asks, "Who is Richard Windsor?", and how much does EPA really cost the economy?

FTC v GOOGLE - RYAN RADIA

Web Users Dodge Bullet as FTC Closes Google Probe

The Federal Trade Commission announced a settlement with Google, marking the end of a two-year antitrust probe of the company. While Google agreed to change certain business practices involving patent licensing and advertising portability, the FTC’s investigation concluded that Google’s search engine does not unlawfully disadvantage competitors’ websites or deliver “biased” search results.

Ryan Radia, Associate Director of Technology Studies at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, issued the following statement:

The FTC’s unanimous decision not to pursue an antitrust lawsuit against Google reflects the vigorous state of competition on the Internet – and the utter failure of Google's critics to put forward a serious antitrust case against the company.

Today’s ruling also affirms that every company is free to compete by serving its users, no matter how high its market share or how much its rivals suffer as a result. America's antitrust laws are designed not to punish companies for growing too big or too unpopular, but to ensure no company stifles competition itself. The thriving Internet sector -- a bright spot in America's otherwise lackluster economy -- shows no signs of suffering from too little competition. > View the full statement at CEI.org

> See also: Settlement: FTC Ends Google Antitrust Investigation

> Interview Ryan Radia

 

EPA LISA JACKSON EMAIL SCANDAL - CHRISTOPHER HORNER CNBC/Santelli: Who is Richard Windsor?   > View the interview with Rick Santelli and Christopher Horner > Read more about EPA's use of alias emails to dodge open records laws > Interview Christopher Horner

COST OF EPA Daily Caller: EPA costs US economy $353 billion per year Transparency is the lifeblood of democracy. Washington needs more of it, especially in the all-too-opaque world of regulation. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), for example, is the most expensive federal regulatory agency. Its annual budget is fairly modest in Beltway terms, at a little less than $11 billion, but that’s not where the vast majority of its costs come from. Complying with EPA regulations costs the U.S. economy $353 billion per year — more than 30 times its budget — according to the best available estimate.  > View the full commentary at Dailycaller.com > Interview Ryan Young

More in the news... 2012′s Year-End Regulatory Report Card New Year, New Laws Chicago Voters Reelect Legally Insane Judge CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week In Regulation

CEI is a non-profit, non-partisan public policy group dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and limited government.  For more information about CEI, please visit our website, cei.org, and blogs, Globalwarming.org and OpenMarket.org.  Follow CEI on Twitter! Twitter.com/ceidotorg.

CEI Today: Anti-trust attack on Google, reigniting a carbon tax, and the virtues of immigration

GOOGLE - RYAN RADIA

CNET: Google is many things -- but not an illegal monopoly

Perhaps no Internet leader faces as much scrutiny from government as Google, which has been the subject of a Federal Trade Commission antitrust probe for over a year. As this investigation comes to a close, the government is reportedly leaning toward suing Google before year's end. Naturally, its rivals are lobbying the feds to come down hard on the search giant.

Yet Google's critics haven't put forward a serious legal case against the company. The world's top search firm may be many things -- some of which aren't pretty -- but an illegal monopoly, it is not.  > Read the full commentary at CNET.com

 

> Interview Ryan Radia

 

CARBON TAX - MARLO LEWIS Forbes: Carbon Tax: Will Tweedle Dum Snatch Defeat From the Jaws of Victory? The big attraction of carbon taxes these days is not as a global warming policy but as a revenue enhancer. In both parties, deficit hawks and big spenders (often the same individuals) are flailing for ways to boost federal revenue. However appealing the creation of a carbon cash cow may seem, GOP endorsement of this agenda would be a blunder comparable to President George H.W. Bush’s abandonment of his “read my lips, no new taxes” campaign pledge. > Read more at Forbes.com > Interview Marlo Lewis

IMMIGRATION - DAVID BIER Openmarket.org: Immigration Policy Should Strive For The “City On The Hill,” Not The “Deserted Town” Opponents of human movement, also known as “immigration,” argue that if the U.S. government stops forcibly preventing foreign-born people from relocating to the United States, the wages of American workers will suffer dramatically. By appealing to economic terms — prices, wages, supply and demand — this argument maintains the illusion of intellectual credibility that merely shouting “they’re-taking-our-jobs” lacks. >View the article on Openmarket.org > Interview David Bier

Read more... Banking Union Means the End of the EU But Not the Eurocrisis PolitiFact Fixes Two Of Its Three Errors Related To The Supreme Court’s Ledbetter Decision

COMING NOVEMBER 15... The Competitive Enterprise Institute is proud to announce a new ambitious film project: an animated adaptation of I, Pencil by Leonard Read. > View the I, Pencil trailer

CEI is a non-profit, non-partisan public policy group dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and limited government.  For more information about CEI, please visit our website, cei.org, and blogs, Globalwarming.org and OpenMarket.org.  Follow CEI on Twitter! Twitter.com/ceidotorg.

CEI Daily - Antitrust, School Choice, and Poker

Antitrust

The Department of Justice yesterday filed a lawsuit seeking to block AT&T's acquisition of T-Mobile.

Associate Director of Technology Studies Ryan Radia released a statement.

"The Department of Justice’s lawsuit amounts to a subversion of the evolution of free enterprise and economic progress. Federal regulators and their arbitrary “merger guidelines” are woefully ill-equipped to judge the merits of proposed business deals, particularly in dynamic modern markets such as the wireless sector. To be sure, no business deal is ever guaranteed to benefit consumers or the economy. But market participants, including upstream suppliers, customers, potential entrants, and capital markets, stand ready to check detrimental concentration in telecommunications if it arises."

School Choice

In Indiana, families are taking advantage of the Choice Scholarship program.

Policy Fellow Luke Pelican comments.

"The program is welcome news for many parents concerned about the education their children are currently receiving in public schools. Yet opposition to the program is strong, and the Indiana teachers’ unions are working to thwart the program. They claim it violates the Indiana constitution by using taxpayer dollars to subsidize religious education, and runs afoul of the state’s obligation to provide 'tuition-free system of common schools.'"

Poker

D.C. is moving forward with it's online poker pilot program.

Policy Analyst Michelle Minton comments.

"The planned system in D.C. has a lot of problems from a free market standpoint. For one, a monopoly system of government run poker room eliminates competition and the benefits that come from that. In the pre-UIGEA, pre-Black Friday era of online poker, players would quickly realize if a poker website had unfair odds, shady practices, or something as simple as bad customer service and they could and did move on to other poker rooms on the Internet. There would not be such an option for D.C. online gamblers."

Shea-Porter Votes to Repeal Anti-Trust Exemptions for Health Insurance Companies

Washington, DC – Today, Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter voted in favor of legislation that she had cosponsored to repeal the health insurance industry’s exemption from federal antitrust laws. H.R. 4626, the Health Insurance Industry Fair Competition Act, passed the House 406 to 19. 

“The days of the health care industry playing by their own rules are about to end,” said Congresswoman Shea-Porter. “With health care costs continuing to skyrocket, and more Americans losing coverage each day, we must protect consumers from unethical practices like price gouging.  Just last week, it was reported that the insurance companies are planning on raising individual premium rates by double-digit percentages, including here in New Hampshire. By increasing competition, this legislation will help lower costs, improve coverage, and benefit consumers.”

The Health Insurance Industry Fair Competition Act amends the McCarran-Ferguson Act by repealing the antitrust exemption health insurance companies receive.  Under this bill, health insurers will be held accountable for price fixing, dividing up territories among themselves, and sabotaging competitors in order to gain a monopoly – all of which are illegal in other industries. 

Approximately 95 percent of health insurance markets in the U.S. are “highly concentrated,” meaning that consumers have little to no choice in choosing an insurer. In New Hampshire, two health insurance companies control 75 percent of the market. From 2000 to 2007, health insurance premiums for New Hampshire families increased by 79%. This concentration has created monopolies in many states, and has allowed insurers to hike up costs.

The Health Insurance Industry Fair Competition Act has received broad, bipartisan support and was endorsed by leading law enforcement and consumer groups, including the National Association of Attorneys General, Consumers Union, and the Consumer Federation of America. 

CEI Weekly: Cuomo's Anti-Trust Witch Hunt

>>CEI Blasts Antitrust Lawsuit Against Intel

CEI's Ryan Radia criticized New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and his groundless antitrust case again Intel. Radia accuses Cuomo of "using his authority to make headlines at consumers’ expense," and "[delaying] innovation in the computer chip market." Read the full news release here.

>>Wayne Crews and Ryan Radia's analysis of the lawsuit is cited in articles in Reuters, PC World, PC Mag, and PC Advisor. Crews' complete analysis is available on Openmarket.org

>>CEI Decries Sen. Boxer's Disregard in Passing Cap-and-Trade Bill Through Committee

Refusing to wait for a complete analysis of the economic impacts of S. 1733 (the Clean Energy Jobs and American Security Act), Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer rammed the bill through the Environment and Public Works Committee. CEI discusses what may have caused Boxer to disregard the Senate committee rule that requires at least two members of the minority party to be present.

>>CEI's Myron Ebell was quoted in USA Today on a survey of economists' opinions on climate agreements to limit global warming.

>>Shaping the Debate

New Report: Cap-and-trade is a Bust in Europe

Iain Murray's quote in the Washington Examiner

Yes, Virginia Fox

Wayne Crews and Ryan Young's op-ed in the American Spectator 

Eliminating Antitrust Exemption Will Kill Health Care Competition

Greg Conko and Kevin Hilferty's op-ed in the Investor's Business Daily

'Amazon Taxes' Fad Harmful to States, Consumers, Business

Ryan Young's op-ed in the Heartland Institute

>>Best of the Blogs

Cap-and-Trade Global Warming Bill is a Scam, Experts Reveal

by Hans Bader

Two EPA lawyers criticized the cap-and-trade energy bill passed by the House as a scam, noting in The Washington Post that it will be manipulated to profit politically connected corporations and reward certain kinds of pollution, while not cutting greenhouse gas emissions.  A similar scheme enacted in Europe in the name of fighting global warming enriched polluters, while not reducing emissions, which actually rose faster in most of Europe than in the U.S.

MPAA: Net Neutrality Will Kill Film Industry

by Elizabeth Jacobson

The Motion Picture Association of America has come out against net neutrality… sort of. In its filing with the FCC late last week, the MPAA reminded the commission of the importance of content companies in driving new infrastructure technologies, and claims that protecting these content companies (i.e. forcing ISPs to filter out file-sharers) is vital for the future health of the internet.

>>Liberty Week Podcast

Episode 67: Cash for Kids in Court

We start with the looming off-year elections, the unexpected lack of tropical storms and a cash for kids scandal in Pennsylvania. We finish with the fall of a spam king and the swine that didn’t squeal.

>>Support CEI

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