CEI Today: Treasury's carbon tax emails, businesses against deregulation, and "I,Pencil" premiere tomorrow

CEI SUES TREASURY

CEI.org: CEI Sues To Force Release of Carbon Tax E-Mails

On Tuesday, the Competitive Enterprise Institute filed suit to force the Treasury Department to release more than 7,300 emails that discuss a new “carbon tax” Obama administration allies in Congress are expected to propose in the upcoming lame duck session.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., seeks emails on official government accounts that CEI had requested under the Freedom of Information Act.  Treasury has said nothing about this topic publicly, but the existence of such extensive email traffic likely reflects extensive discussions between Treasury officials, outside pressure groups and other special interests groups.

The administration has refused to issue one of its relatively common fee waivers for the documents. It cited the cost of photocopying 7,000-plus emails and claimed disclosure “would not significantly inform the public about operations or activities of government.”  > Read more about the lawsuit

> Interview Christopher Horner, author of The Liberal War on Transparency

> Related: EPA chief’s secret ‘alias’ email account revealed

DEREGULATION - RYAN YOUNG Openmarket.org: Businesses Against Deregulation Most people believe that businesses abhor regulations and would love to do away with them entirely. This belief is often wrong. Many regulations make it harder for startups to enter the market, and can hobble smaller competitors. That’s why incumbent firms in many industries regularly welcome new regulations with open arms, and will spend millions on lobbying to pass them. It’s a way to keep the competition out. > View the full commentary on Openmarket.org   > Interview Ryan Young

COMING THURSDAY, 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

More news... Jeffrey Sachs: Macro-Keynsianism Is “Outdated And Outmoded”… So, We Need Micro-Keynsianism! Immigration Reform Resurrected! Austerity For Europeans, But Not For Europe CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week In Regulation Is Colorado's "new energy economy" still viable in light of recent setbacks in the industry? No

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: Bill Clinton ignores his own deregulation, strategy at the DNC and GOP conventions, and a new global warming report

CLINTON VS. OBAMA - JOHN BERLAU

Fox News: To save Obama, Clinton ignores his own deregulation moves

With little success on the economic front, President Obama in 2012 is embracing much of his message on the economy from 2008. And from that playbook, he has two basic strategies.

One is to blame the supposed deregulation policies of the George W. Bush administration that Obama and his surrogates endlessly say “got us into this mess.” And the second is to hug former rivals Bill and Hillary Clinton as hard as he can and harken back to the prosperity and economic growth of the 1990s.

But there is just one problem with this theme. The Obama campaign’s twin messages of bashing deregulation and embracing the Clinton years are inherently contradictory. He is telling Americans to, in essence, look at the ‘90s, but don’t look too closely. Or they might see that the ‘90s, perhaps even more than even the ‘80s, was a decade of deregulation.

> Read the full commentary on FoxNews.com

> Interview John Berlau

DNC, GOP CONVENTIONS - RYAN YOUNG Openmarket.org: The Conventions Continue Last week I pointed out that the GOP and Democratic nominating conventions will cost taxpayers as much as $136 million, and to little effect. I’m not just picking on Democrats here. The GOP has the same problem, and to the same degree. There are a lot of reasons why such a base strategy is politically successful. One is rational ignorance; people have better things to do than dissect the fineries of policy.> Read the full post on Openmarket.org > Interview Ryan Young

GLOBAL WARMING STERN REVIEW - MARLO LEWIS Globalwarming.org: Stern Review Not Fit to Guide U.K. Climate Policy, Report Finds The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) has just published The Failings of the Stern Review of the Economics of Climate Change. The  2006 Stern Review — named for Sir Nicholas Stern, head of the UK Government’s Economic Service under Prime Minister Tony Blair – is arguably the most pessimistic official assessment ever of the economic damages of global warming. Influenced by the Stern Review, the UK Government adopted a set of climate policies that cost £17,000 per household. > Read the full commentary on Globalwarming.org > Interview Marlo Lewis

Also featuring...

NEW BOOK! THE LIBERAL WAR ON TRANSPARENCY - CHRISTOPHER C. HORNER CNSNews.com: Author: Journalists 'Cover Energy And Environment Subjects As Liberal Activists,' E-Mails Show Liberals claim to support transparency in government - until conservatives start finding shady things through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. New York Times bestselling author, litigator, and Competitive Enterprise Institute senior fellow Chris Horner has been filing such FOIAs for years and has turned up Obama's "true plan" for cap-and-trade, a close relationship between an energy official and a Solyndra director - and more. Horner's quest for public information, labeled as "criminal" by one Obama agency head, will be detailed in his upcoming book, "The Liberal War on Transparency." > Read the CNSNews.com article by Julia Seymore

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 - Wall Street Protesters, Protectionism, and Deregulation

Wall Street Protesters

An "Occupy Wall Street" activist posted a list of demands on the internet, sparking debate among advocates and critics of the protest.

 

Fellow in Regulatory Studies Ryan Young responds.

"Like almost any list of demands, there is good and bad here. Two common themes animate the list. One is that the writer clearly hasn’t studied economics. Free trade promotes wealth and peace, and has almost zero net effect on employment in the long-run. High minimum wages price the lowest-skilled employees out of work, and hurt them. There is no free lunch. Nobody will lend money if they aren’t going to be paid back."

 

Protectionism

 

In a Washington Examiner column this week, Michael Barone calls attention to stalled free trade agreements. 

 

Labor Policy Analyst Ivan Osorio comments.

 

"In the new CEI OnPoint, 'Free Trade without Apology,' CEI Adjunct Fellow Fran Smith and former CEI Research Associate Nick DeLong document how  efforts at appeasing organized labor — in the hopes of blunting union opposition to trade deals — have been not only ineffective, but harmful. Union leaders have taken all concessions they’ve been offered only to ask for more. This has led to trade agreements becoming weighted down with provisions governing labor and environmental issues (to appease environmentalists) which have nothing to do with trade. And those provisions have only gotten longer and more onerous in each subsequent agreement."

Deregulation

CEI Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews released a new study this week on how Congress can better calculate and disclose the costs of federal regulations.

Read more here.

 

CEI Weekly: Obama Launches Weak Deregulation Initiative

Friday, August 26, 2011

Feature: Obama plans to cut the compliance costs of federal regulations by $10 billion over five years.

FEATURED STORY: Obama Launches Weak Deregulation Initiative This week, the Obama administration announced plans to reform government regulation on a scale that would save businesses a projected $10 billion over five years. CEI experts responded by commending the spirit of the initiative while pointing out that $2 billion per year in proposed deregulatory cuts barely touches the staggering $1.7 trillion regulatory burden. Read CEI's statement on the initiative here. SHAPING THE DEBATE Bureaucrats Have Gone Rogue Marlo Lewis' blog post in The New York Times' Room for Debate MrFuddleSticks, the Renton Police Department, and Online Civil Liberties Nicole Ciandella and Ryan Radia's op-ed in The Seattle Times Let's Put a Stop to the War on Salt Luke Pelican and Jacque Otto's op-ed on FoxNews.com Beware the Environmentalists' Left-Wing Agenda Marlo Lewis' radio interview on One News Now WaPo Gets its Pinocchio on For Dishonest 'Warming' Attack on Perry Chris Horner's op-ed on BigGovernment Louisiana Saying No to Renewable Energy Mandates William Yeatman's citation in The Pelican Post $500,000 of Green for the Greens, Red for the Rest of Us Chris Horner's citation on RedState Is Business Choking on Red Tape? Wayne Crews' citation on Wall Street Pit

CEI PODCAST August 25, 2011: Mr. Fuddlesticks Mr. Fuddlesticks is an anonymous YouTube user who posted embarrassing videos about the Renton, Washington police department. They convinced a judge to let them request Mr. Fuddlesticks’ personal information from Google, YouTube’s parent company. While the charges were eventually dropped, Research Associate Nicole Ciandella thinks this highlights a major problem in applying telephone-era laws to the Internet era. BEST OF THE BLOGS Eminent Domain, Rick Perry, and the Trans-Texas Corridor By Marc Scribner NLRB to Businesses: Tell Employees They Can Unionize By Ivan Osorio Our Space Policy Chickens Have Come Home to Roost By Rand Simberg The EPA Cannot Be Trusted to Keep the Lights On By William Yeatman Changing the Discussion on Energy and the Environment By Marita Noon

CEI Daily - Alfred Kahn, Montana Taprooms, and Taxes

Alfred Kahn

Alfred Kahn, who was instrumental in deregulating the airline industry, died this week.

Fellow in Regulatory Studies Ryan Young praises Kahn's achievement. 

"Before Kahn, airlines had to get permission from the CAB to establish new routes or terminate old ones. The CAB set ticket prices, not the market. This prevented profitable or high-demand routes from being given adequate service, and kept money-losing, little-traveled routes open. It prevented airlines from keeping up with their customers’ ever-changing needs. [...] Washington could use more people like Alfred Kahn."

Montana Taprooms Montana State Senator Ryan Zinke is trying to shift closing time for taprooms from 8pm to 10pm. Policy Analyst Michelle Minton explains current Montana law. "While Montana has relatively liberal sales laws compared to other states, (beer and wine under 16 percent abv can be sold in grocery stores and bars stay open until 2 a.m.), the laws regarding brewpubs in the state are quite restrictive. Beyond the requirement that taps shut down at 8pm, brewpubs are also only allowed to serve 48 ounces of alcohol to each customer in a business day."

Taxes

In the new CEI Podcast, Fellow in Regulatory Studies Ryan Young argues that the IRS should not be doing Americans' taxes for them.

Listen to the podcast here.