Government is often said to be bedeviled by “unintended
consequences.” That doesn’t mean that
the consequences cannot be foreseen. Two
great examples present themselves this week. First, in Boiling Springs Lake, North Carolina, the endangered red
cockaded woodpecker has been spotted. As
a result, local land-owners have been rushing
for the chainsaws to protect their property investments:
The [Federal Fish and Wildlife Service] issued a map marking
15 active woodpecker “clusters,” and announced it was working on a new one that
could potentially designate whole neighborhoods of this town in southeastern
North Carolina as protected habitat, subject to more-stringent building
restrictions.
Hoping to beat the mapmakers, landowners swarmed City Hall
to apply for lot-clearing permits. Treeless land, after all, would not need to
be set aside for woodpeckers. Since February, the city has issued 368 logging
permits, a vast majority without accompanying building permits.
The results can be seen all over town. Along the roadsides,
scattered brown bark is all that is left of pine stands. Mayor Joan Kinney has
watched with dismay as waterfront lots across from her home on Big Lake have
been stripped down to sandy wasteland.
Meanwhile, in Fairfax County, Virginia, county officials
wanted to save money by cutting government-owned cars from their fleet that are
driven fewer than 4500 miles annually. The result?
From homeless-outreach workers to zoning inspectors, Fairfax
employees are driving hundreds of vehicles across the county — or are swapping
cars with those who drive more — simply to run up the odometers. They know
that if they don’t use their cars, they could lose them.
(Hat tip: Knowledge
Problem)
Government: creating more problems than it solves since 3000
BC.
An op-ed
I wrote for last Sunday’s Washington Times
talked about the battle over the interchange fees that banks and credit card
companies charge to retailers. The retailers, including some big chains, are
whining about the fees they have to pay and want the government to step in to
control how much the card companies charge them. This is another example of the
phenomenon described in CEI Warren Brookes Journalism Fellow Tim Carney’s book The
Big Ripoff, in which businesses lobby for big government when it favors
their bottom line. And given the experience in Australia when the government
imposed price controls on retailer fees, American consumers certainly will be
ripped off if the government gives in to retailer demands.
What the retailers are asking for is sort of a “net
neutrality” regime for credit cards. The credit card companies, on the retailer
side, would be considered a “common carrier.” However, as with “net neutrality”
for the Internet, this would leave consumers paying the full costs for
improvement and innovations in the system.
We were all happy to see the World Health Organization
finally take steps to embrace wider anti-malarial
deployment of DDT, but our friend Steve Milloy reminds us it’s hardly a moment to
break out the champagne:
Overlooked in all the hoopla over the announcement,
however, is the terrible toll in human lives (tens of millions dead — mostly
pregnant women and children under the age of 5), illness (billions sickened)
and poverty (more than $1 trillion dollars in lost GDP in sub-Saharan Africa alone) caused by the tragic, decades-long ban.
Much of this human catastrophe was preventable, so why
did it happen? Who is responsible? Should the individuals and activist groups
who caused the DDT ban be held accountable in some way?
Yes, Steve, they
should.
You really have to give it to the U.S. Census Bureau. Even when they prove they’re pathologically unable to keep track of important computer equipment containing potentially sensitive data on millions of Americans, they’re still able to produce exact data on how many they’ve lost: 672.
California’s attorney
general has sued carmakers DaimlerChrysler, General Motors, Ford and
subsidiaries of Honda, Nissan and Toyota for global
warming impacts on the state. Interesting that the state isn’t trying to
hold individual car owners — the ones who actually drive and produce the
emissions at issue — liable for the alleged damage.
This suit seems rather reminiscent of the lawsuits first filed
by U.S. cities against gun
manufacturers in the late 1990s. Critics at the time pointed out, of
course, that it’s the people who actually shoot the guns who should be held
liable for any damage caused by them. Congress was sufficiently alarmed by the
prospects, however, to pass the Protection
of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, shielding firearms manufacturers from such
extended liability claims. Perhaps the House and Senate should put their heads together
on a Freedom to Traffic in Automobiles Act.
In what, for now at least, seems like good news, the
president’s Identity
Theft Task Force has recommended that the federal government stop forcing
citizens to reveal their Social Security numbers to officials and for reasons
that have nothing to do with their Social Security benefits:
Under the plan, the task force urges the government to
review the uses of Social Security numbers as employee identification and
determine ways in which it can conceal or eliminate their use in agency systems
and paper and electronic forms.
[…]
The initial recommendations come as the government has
struggled with high-profile data breaches. At least 10 agencies in recent
months have reported incidents, which included the loss of a laptop and
external drive containing information for 26.5 million veterans and active-duty
troops. That equipment was later recovered.
As always, the best in cybersecurity
analysis is available from Wayne and Brooke, here and here.
The National Indian Gaming Commission has recently been
getting hot under the collar over a vital matter of native gambling policy -
the display elements and parameters of video
bingo consoles. Apparently they want (among other things) for the video
screen to look more like traditional bingo cards and for the games to be played
more slowly. They’re just old fashioned like that.
Lest you think, however, that these proposed changes are of little importance,
listen to this voice of the Casino-American community, Marjorie Mejia, of California’s Pomo Indians: “This is serious. This is people’s lives at stake here. …
It’s really termination for my people.”
Vulnerable people threatened with termination?
In California? Clearly, the Golden State already has the right man for the job.
Following up on Fred’s
post, here’s an even better headline: “Thai PM cancels U.N. speech after coup”
ran the headline in Reuters. It seems that the prime minister of Thailand was in New York at the United Nations, when word came about a coup by the military who took over the government in Bangkok. Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra canceled
his speech scheduled for 7 p.m. before the General Assembly.
Today the Senate
approved for the second time the U.S.-Oman Free Trade Agreement, another in
the now lengthy list of
bilaterals. The Oman treaty also marks further outreach through
trade with Arabic countries that are considered friendly to the U.S. Earlier FTAs
were completed with Bahrain, Morocco, and Jordan. Increased trade and investment between the countries could result — and that would be good.
But already the protectionist veil of “national security”
interests was being spread by Sen. Byron Dorgan, who said in the floor debate that
the agreement with Oman could
open the doors to that country taking over U.S. ports.—or even the United
Arab Emirates could gain port control through Oman.
Remember the brouhaha about “national security” that arose
when a company in Dubai, DP World Ports, planned to manage
six U.S. ports? DP World Ports, controlled
by the government of the United Arab Emirates — another country with which the
U.S. was negotiating a trade agreement — dropped those plans amid the
controversy. And the UAE dropped plans
for a speedy free trade agreement with the U.S. Tit for tat.
It’s an added irony that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is
bound for China to discuss a host of contentious issues. He expressed worry
about signs of protectionism in that country, which recently set new
restrictions on foreign investors. Maybe China is just following the U.S. protectionist lead.
Hmm — the headline of
today “Thailand has peaceful coup while PM at UN” suggests that we provide free
airfare to the United Nations to as many nations as possible. Add why stop
there? Perhaps, we could persuade all members of Congress and the
Administration to visit those august quarters too. The thought of changing
political leaders on a wholesale basis is one of few encouraging things that’s
been reported recently.
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