A new report from the Union of Concerned Scientists finds “unacceptably large numbers of federal climate scientists [have] personally experienced instances of [political] interference over the past five years.”  At a Congressional hearing yesterday, Rep. Issa questioned the statistical validity of the survey, pointing to OMB guidelines that suggest the UCS survey’s response rate was unacceptably low.  Roger Pielke Jr doesn’t think this is a problem:

Mr. Issa focused on the statistical power of the survey, which is the wrong way to…

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By proclamation of several cities and states, Monday was Milton Friedman Day. CEI was one of many free-market groups that joined in this celebration with events celebrating the great economist’s life. But really, especially for the governments concerned, shouldn’t every day be Milton Friedman Day? We should try our best not to interfere or advocate interfering with the free market.

In that spirit, I want to share a passage of Dr. Friedman’s from The Book of Predictions published in 1980. It turns…

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This morning Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns presented the
Administration proposals for the new Farm Bill. Here’s his press
release:

Here’s the link to the proposals.

The energy program is extensive and will be costly — remember, this is a Farm Bill, known for its fat subsidies to large-scale farm operators.  For instance, the proposals would start a new program to “provide $100 million in direct support to producers of cellulosic ethanol.” But that’s only one of many boondoggles in the proposals.

The proposal for…

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Looks rather large:

Perhaps he should be called Bigfoot?

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In today’s Politico, Amy Doolittle has a light-hearted story on the tours that Members of Congress occasionally give for constituents around the Capitol. A handful of congressmen are known to be frequent guides, taking over a job generally relegated to the lowest of low-level staffers. Part way through the piece, though, we find a dark confession by Utah Republican Rob Bishop:

I find that if you say something with enough fervor, anyone will believe it, so I do that. Trying to find…

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At a House Ways and Means Committee hearing yesterday, chaired by Representative Charles Rangel, witnesses said that the effects of trade and globalization on American workers and the U.S. economy have to be carefully examined, and policies to deal with worker insecurity need to be addressed.

The panel testifying included law and business professors, economists, and business leaders, who all seemed to give credence to negative views of trade’s effects.

There were strong recommendations to include “social contracts” in trade agreements, with Georgetown…

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Today President Bush in New York City delivered his second speech on the economy. As expected, in the speech he called for a renewal of Trade Promotion Authority or “fast-track,” which gives the President the ability to negotiate trade agreements and have the Congress vote on them without amendments.

Here’s what the President said in a strong statement supporting open trade:

The only way America can complete Doha and make headway on other trade agreements is to extend Trade Promotion Authority. This authority…

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Grist magazine just published an interesting Q&A with Frank Luntz, famed GOP pollster and author of the new book, Words That Work: It’s Not What You Say, It’s What People Hear:  “And Now, a Word From Our Detractor”. Luntz explains why enviros are failing, and why he thinks they’re mean.

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In a Washington Post column, George Will questions the constitutionality of a recent vote in the House of Representatives to give delegates from Washington, D.C. and territories, such as American Samoa, the same right to vote in House committees as Congressmen.  He points out the absurdity of giving the delegate from Samoa, which has only 58,000 residents, the same vote in committee (where most important House decisions are made) as the Congressman from Montana, who represents 944,000 people.

Similar arguments can be made against recent proposals to give the District…

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California usually leads the nation in the formulation of bad public policy—which policymakers in other states often see as a model. But this week, they actually did something worth emulating. They lifted a state ban on residential use of vinyl plumbing pipes, which are made with chlorinated polyvinyl chloride or CPVC.

Unfortunately, it took the state more than a decade to lift this expensive, nonsensical mandate. The state’s change of heart came after its housing department conducted a study debunking claims that…

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The state of California is poised to claim yet another feather for its environmental-pioneer cap with a proposed ban on the sale of incandescent lightbulbs. Under the “How Many Legislators Does it Take to Change a Lightbulb Act” (seriously, that’s what it’s called) it would become a legal offense to sell an incandescent lightbulb.

The argument goes that compact fluorescent bulbs are so extraordinarily superior, there’s no reason not to ban the old fashioned kind. As usual, however, advocates are quiet on…

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American Public Radio’s Marketplace Morning Report has yet another report today on how U.S. demand for corn to make into ethanol is causing a disruption to the food supply in countries like Mexico.

Corn prices have risen 300% is recent months, putting the squeeze on millions of poor Mexicans who depend on tortillas as a dietary staple. The government has attempted to cap prices, but we know how well price controls on high-demand commodities generally work out. One wonders how many families…

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So the IPCC report that’s going to be released on Friday isn’t gloomy enough, eh?  It will find less projected temperature rise and less predicted sea level rise than it did in 2001. Good news, no?
Not even close.  That simply isn’t good enough for those who want to break the back of the world’s energy system, so they have to attack it.  For years, global warming alarmists built up ‘the consensus of scientists’ as the answer to legitimate concerns of…

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President Bush in Peoria, IL today gave one of two speeches scheduled on the economy (the next will be in NYC tomorrow). He addressed issues such as taxes, trade, technology, energy, health care, education policy. Here’s part of what the President said about the importance of trade:

We’ve pursued trade agreements. The way it works is, you have bilateral trade agreements, in other words, with the United States and, say, Chile. And we have regional trade agreements and world trade agreements.…

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Are you an aspiring journalist for Reuters? If so, you need to know how to “bury the lede,” which is insider journo-talk for ignoring the real story in favor of the story you want to tell.

Here’s a great example. From the report - “millions to go hungry, waterless” - you’d think that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had found that global warming was intensifying.

Then we have this:

The panel is to release a report on Friday in Paris forecasting global…

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There is a respectable, if (we feel) incorrect, case to be made for the idea of raising taxes to lower demand for an activity or product that causes externalities.  Politicians and economists who support this idea call themselves The Pigou Club, after the British economist who first suggested the theory.

No such respectability applies to the snuffling snouts that are trying to get into the ethanol trough.  Appropriately, Arnold Kling suggests we call politicians (few economists there) who support this boondoggle…

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I post this article, despite its breathless credulity about the imminence of a world beyond petroleum, because it reveals how Washington works. Bush and the corn lobby will ask Congress for a biofuels mandate that drives up the cost of gasoline. Congress and the Big Three will ask Bush for tax credits to sell more cars that use the more costly fuel.
Gas substitutes boost the flex-fuel car

Soon, alternative fuels might be made from corn, soybeans, and plant fiber - and…

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Over at Townhall.com, columnist Mary Katharine Ham comments on the premiere of the documentary Mine Your Own Business (the screening was co-sponsored by CEI). She quotes the World Wide Fund for Nature’s Mark Fenn, who in the film makes this gem of an admission:

“In Madagascar, the indicators of quality of life are not housing. They’re not nutrition, specifically. They’re not health in a lot of cases. It’s not education. A lot of children in Fort Dauphin do not go to school…

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Some global warming alarmists, including a few scientists, are complaining about the forthcoming Fourth Assessment Report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Apparently, the twenty-odd page Summary for Policymakers isn’t alarming enough for them. Thus, after years of establishing the IPCC reports as representing the scientific consensus — from which there is no appeal and upon which thousands of the world’s top scientists work and about which all agree that it’s perfect — now the alarmists…

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Cuban exiles have long been looking forward to the day when their homeland is no longer goverend by aging revolutionary Fidel Castro, but now the city of Miami (where more than a few ex-cubanos find themselves living) is going beyond wistful daydreams and making concrete plans for Castro Is Dead Day:

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