CEI Today: The EU's Nobel Peace Prize, solar panel and biofuel snafus, and California's scheme for GE food labeling

NOBEL PEACE PRIZE - IAIN MURRAY

National Review: Nobel Peace Prize Goes to Destabilizing Force

On October 12, it was announced that the European Union had won the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize. The announcement was greeted with warmth in Brussels and distinct coolness elsewhere — including throughout Europe. The award is notably odd because the EU’s policies are currently helping to destabilize the continent. Indeed, because of the euro, it may not survive another year without a secession crisis, or worse. Only a reversal of course on the EU project itself can restore hope and guarantee peace. > View the full commentary at Nationalreview.com

> Interview Iain Murray

NEW TARIFF ON SOLAR PANELS - WILLIAM YEATMAN Globalwarming.org: We Should Forfeit the “Great” Green Race with China On Wednesday, the Commerce Department levied tariffs from 18 percent to 240 percent on solar panels imported from China. At best, this silly policy will increase the price of electricity in America; at worst, it could be the first salvo in a harmful trade war. Renewable energy sources like solar and wind power are expensive and unreliable, so they cannot compete with conventional energy sources in the electricity market. Instead, demand for green energy is established by Soviet-style production quotas, known as renewable energy standards. More than 30 states have enacted such standards, which force consumers to use increasing amounts of green energy.   > Read the analysis at Globalwarming.org   > Interview William Yeatman

BIOFUELS VS FOOD     Globalwarming.org:  U.S. Biofuel Expansion Cost Developing Countries $6.6 Billion: Tufts U.S. biofuel expansion has cost developing countries $6.6 billion in higher food costs, estimates Tufts University economist Timothy A. Wise in Fueling the Food Crisis, a report published by ActionAid. A 10-minute video interview with Wise about his research is available here. The 2007 Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), established by the Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA), exerts long-term upward pressure on grain prices by diverting an ever-growing quantity of corn from food and feed to auto fuel. This is great for corn farmers but not good for U.S. consumers and harmful to millions of people in developing countries, many of whom live in extreme poverty. > Read more at Globalwarming.org > Interview Marlo Lewis

CALIF. PROP 37 FOOD LABELING - GREGORY CONKO & HENRY MILLER Orange County Register: A losing proposition on food labeling - Prop. 37 is deceptive, anti-consumer, abuses taxpayers and makes no sense California's initiative process – which allows "propositions" to be placed on the ballot quite easily – can lead to laws that are muddled, intentionally misleading to voters, and bad public policy. One of these is Proposition 37, which would require labeling of "genetically engineered" foods. Labeling advocates claim that GE foods are somehow "unnatural" and might be unsafe. And what could be wrong with letting consumers know what's in their food and letting them decide what to buy?  >Read the full report commentary on ocregister.com > Interview Gregory Conko

Horner Book: Gore’s green money machine So, Al Gore came to do good and ended up doing really, really well, according to the Washington Post. That’s actually not unique for Washington, except possibly as a matter of scale: Gore went from being worth $2 million when leaving office to about $100 million now. Gore, of course, “invested” in or otherwise found profitable arrangements with many companies whose financing mostly comes courtesy of the taxpayer, either directly, or indirectly in that private money flocks to that which politicians wed themselves to — the “halo effect” — on the knowledge that once the spigot opens it is difficult to turn off for fear of having a taxpayer-funded flop on their hands. I couldn’t help but be reminded, by this story, of the personnel executing these programs for President Obama, he of the $90 billion in “green energy” money squandered on boondoggles whose own owners’ sales pitch for the dough was unless you give me this money, I won’t exist. > Read more

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: Europe's carbon compensation fund, immigration, and genetically engineered food

IMMIGRATION - DAVID BIER

Forbes: Low-Skilled Immigrant Workers Are Vital Contributors To The Economy

The Republican National Committee reformed its immigration platform this month to favor a new guest worker program. Unfortunately, the party still seems unwilling to accept permanent low-skilled immigrants. These workers are critical to America’s future competitiveness, yet they have received little GOP attention compared to high-skilled workers from Asia to whom Mitt Romney is promising green cards. The disparate treatment stems from a fundamentally flawed view of the economy. > Read the full commentary on Forbes.com

> Interview David Bier

GENETICALLY ENGINEERED FOODS - GREGORY CONKO & HENRY MILLER Forbes: Labeling Of Genetically Engineered Foods Is A Losing Proposition   As Joe Six-pack munches Fritos and popcorn during the opening games of the NFL season, does he care what variety of corn was used to make them? Should he? Should the government require labels that tell him? Most rational people would say no. But California’s Proposition 37, which will appear on the state’s ballot in November, would create just such a requirement. Supporters claim it is a simple measure designed to provide useful information to consumers about so-called genetically engineered (“GE”) foods. It is not, and the deceptive measure fails every test, from science and economics to law and common sense. > Read the full commentary on Forbes.com > Interview the authors

EUROPE'S CARBON COMPENSATION FUND - MARLO LEWIS Globalwarming.org: EU Gropes — in Vain — for Carbon Price Sweet Spot Two stories reprinted in Climatewire today provide a funny reminder that politicians can’t set the ‘right’ price even when the ‘commodity’ is carbon and the goal is saving the planet. On Tuesday, Norway decided to follow European Union (EU) policy and establish a carbon ‘compensation fund.’ The program will bribe pay some 80 energy-intensive firms $90 million not to move their operations overseas. The government contends that without such payments, the EU Emission Trading System (ETS), adopted to implement the Kyoto Protocol, will trigger (or accelerate) the flight of capital, jobs, and emissions abroad.  > Read the full commentary on Globalwarming.org > Interview Marlo Lewis

Also featuring... Unions Seek To Make Michigan A Mediterranean State CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week In Regulation Regulation Of The Day 228: Peyton Manning’s Jersey

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.

ALG's Daily Grind: What if Greece defaults?

May 29, 2012

What if Greece defaults?

If Germany and the ECB cut off funding to Greece, it will have no other choice but to restore the drachma. By why stop there? Why even bother paying any of the debt?

Video: The War With Plastic Bags Shows That Environmentalism Is At War With Sanity

Los Angeles is barring plastic bags from grocery stores and parts of Maryland are charging for them. This is just one more ridiculous idea that has come from America's environmentalist movement.

Obama's Deficit Chutzpah

Obama: "They run up these wild debts and then when we take over we have to clean it up."

Rare corporate courage and common sense

Despite intense pressure by anti-biotechnology activists, the retailing giant didn't cave in to demands that it "reject" Monsanto's genetically engineered (GE) sweet corn (maize).

CEI Today: Global ice age, Obama regulation week, and food biotech

REGULATION - WAYNE CREWS

Forbes.com: Why Regulations Aren't Good -- Again

The first week of Spring is also “hooray, regulation” week at the White House.

Regulatory policy chief Cass Sunstein, one of the most accomplished and cited legal scholars of all time, has been busy. He penned a Chicago Tribune oped called “Why Regulations are Good — Again“; issued guidance to Federal agencies on “Cumulative Effects of Regulations; appeared on an hour-long Politico breakfast-time panel with Mike Allen, and testified as lead witness in a House Judiciary Committee hearing on regulatory policy.

An explicit cumulative or redundancy burden assessment of regulation is welcome. > Read more on Forbes.com

> Interview Wayne Crews

GLOBAL WARMING - MARLO LEWIS Globalwarming.org: Antarctica: New Evidence Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age Were Global Did the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) and Little Ice Age (LIA) occur only in Europe, or were they global in scope? This is a hotly debated question, because it is harder to make the case that the warmth of recent decades is “unusual,” ”extraordinary,” or “unprecedented” and therefore something to stress about if global climate oscillates naturally between warming and cooling periods. The catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (CAGW) crowd tend to write off the MWP (~1000-1200 A.D.) and LIA (~1300-1850 A.D.) as regional phenomena, largely confined to Northern Europe. A new study finds evidence of the MWP and LIA in a region 10,000 miles south of Northern Europe: the Antarctic Peninsula. >View the full commentary on Globalwarming.org > Interview Marlo Lewis

FOOD BIOTECHNOLOGY - GREG CONKO Monday, March 26: Agricultural Innovation in the 21st Century, CEI on Capitol Hill Today, CEI's Greg Conko will speak on U.S. and foreign regulation of food biotechnology and how an over-precaution has made it more difficult for scientists to develop, breed, and sell innovative new crop varieties that increase agricultural productivity and lighten farming’s environmental footprint. > Come to the Capitol Hill event > Interview Greg Conko > Read about biotech issues on CEI.org

HUMAN ACHIEVEMENT HOUR Saturday, March 31 HAH is an annual event to recognize and celebrate human achievement and innovation. During the hour, participants are asked to listen to music, surf the internet, have a glass of beer, and generally enjoy the fruits of the human mind which would not have been possible in a world where conservation restrains advancement. HAH can be celebrated anywhere from 8:30pm to 9:30pm. In addition, CEI will be hosting a celebration at our headquarters in Washington, DC and live streaming our event online. Join the HAH Facebook group.

CEI Weekly - Frankenfoods Are Here to Stay

Video: Greg Conko talks about genetically-modified foods on Stossel

FEATURED STORY: Frankenfoods Are Here to Stay As more genetically-modified products become available on the market, more and more natural foodists protest that genetically-modified foods are "tampering" with nature. CEI Senior Fellow Greg Conko appeared on Fox Business' Stossel this week to defend the merits of so-called "Frankenfood." Watch the interview here.

SHAPING THE DEBATE

It's Time to End the Ethanol Boondoggle

Fred Smith and Brian McGraw's op-ed in The Richmond Times-Dispatch

Never Ready for Prime Time

Chris Horner and William Yeatman's op-ed in The McClatchy-Tribune News Service

The Ecological Monster Who Said . . . Peep

Ben Lieberman's op-ed in The Washington Times

What's Good for GM is Now Terrible for America

John Berlau's op-ed in The American Spectator

GM Selling at a Loss Should Tell You Something

Iain Murray's op-ed in The Daily Caller

FDA Criticized for Banning Alcholic Energy Drinks

Greg Conko's citation on MSNBC.org