January 2012

Alcohol Regulation Roundup: January 26, 2010

by Michelle Minton on January 26, 2011

in Nanny State, Personal Liberty

Texas: Despite the fact the two-thirds of Dallas voters approved a ballot measure last November allowing grocery stores in the city to sell beer and wine (changing the rules in many “dry counties”), opponents of the measure are still fighting the issuance of licenses to sell alcohol! The group of liquor store owners and pastors filed a lawsuit in November to have the election results overturned. Luckily, a district judge said that they will not put a halt to the issuance of licensing while the lawsuit is still under consideration.

Alabama: Businessman Clay McInnis wants to open a brew pub and restaurant in Montgomery, but only if the laws are changed. While McInnis purchased a building downtown wants to split the levels and create three separate businesses: a restaurant, a brewpub, and offices. He also wants to be able to sell the beer produced in the brew pub to other restaurants. There’s a problem, though, because current law says brewpubs must also be restaurants with room for at least 80 patrons and that the beer made on-site cannot be sold elsewhere. McInnis’s ultimatum might just get legislators to reconsider the laws.

Georgia: The state might finally get a chance to vote on Sunday sales. After years of delays, the new governor said that he’d sign a bill legalizing Sunday liquor sales, so long as communities voted for it.

Kansas: A new group in Kansas, the Coalition for Jobs and Consumer Choice, which advocates for allowing grocery and convenience stores to sell full strength beer (currently not allowed in Kansas) released a study that says allowing grocery store sales could generate over 15,000 new jobs, $343 million in wages, and $72 million in tax revenue.

Mississippi: Currently in Mississippi, the amount of alcohol allowed in beer is capped at five percent by weight. Proposed legislation in the state House and Senate would boost that to eight percent. Those in favor of the legislation say if the cap is raised, gourmet beers with higher alcohol contents could be sold in the state.

Nebraska: A bill introduced by state Senator Russ Karpisek would prevent restaurants, bars, and liquor stores from selling alcohol to 21-year-olds until 6am on the day after their birthday. The reason is to prevent the dangers of “the power hour” when newly minted 21-year-olds drink as much as they can in the time between 12am on their birthday and when the bar closes. I suppose birthday boys and girls are apt to drink less if they wait until the following evening to binge drink in celebration.

Pennsylvania: Republican lawmakers in the Keystone state are inching closer to the exciting prospect of privatizing Pennsylvania’s onerous state-owned liquor control system. The GOP representatives are reportedly considering contracting for an independent study to get an idea of how privatization would impact the state’s revenue.

Obama State of the Union Flunks Fact Check; More Wasteful Spending and “A Million Points of Trite”

by Hans Bader on January 26, 2011

in Economy, Employment, Politics as Usual

The Associated Press fact-checked Obama’s State of the Union address last night, and found it to be misleading in many ways: “The ledger did not appear to be adding up Tuesday night when President Barack Obama urged more spending on one hand and a spending freeze on the other.” Michelle Malkin panned Obama’s call for even more rapid increases in education spending, calling it “Cash for Education Clunkers.” Neil McCluskey responded with an op-ed entitled, “For the Nation’s Sake, Cut Education Spending.” I earlier discussed the President’s proposed spending increases, noting that learning and studying have declined in America’s universities even as education spending has exploded, and that ever-more costly college educations aren’t yielding better jobs or economic growth.

Obama talked a lot about the need for more government “investment,” a euphemism for spending on pet projects favored by liberals. Professor Jacobson called Obama’s address “a million points of trite” for all the recycled talking points it contained. Even the liberal Robert Scheer called the speech “platitudinous hogwash.”

Image credit: Robert Couse-Baker’s flickr photostream.

Morning Media Summary

by Lee Doren on January 26, 2011

in Economy, Energy, Environment, International, Legal, Personal Liberty, Regulation, Trade

Tech:

DOJ seeks mandatory data retention requirement for ISPs:
“The U.S. Department of Justice and an organization representing police chiefs from around the country renewed calls on Tuesday for legislation mandating Internet Service Providers (ISP) to retain certain customer usage data for up to two years.”

Could Amazon’s bulk-email service spawn spam and malware?:
“Amazon Web Services (AWS) has been a boon for developers and organizations that need large-scale code-crunching power but can’t or won’t shell out for the server racks. Unfortunately, those cheap, on-tap computing capabilities are an irresistible temptation to bad guys who can, for example, use EC2 to smash passwords in mere minutes for a handful of change.”

PayPal most phished, Facebook most blocked:
“OpenDNS released statistics about which websites were commonly blocked — and which websites users were frequently given access to — in 2010. The report additionally details the companies online scammers targeted in 2010, as well as where the majority of phishing websites were hosted.”

Global Warming / Environment / Energy:

Federal Agency Headquarters Leave Lights On In DC:
“Night after night, year after year, this nightside reporter observed lights left on in federal government buildings. So I decided to see just how much taxpayers were spending to keep empty buildings illuminated.”

State tests dimmer highway lighting:
“If you drive regularly along Route 100 in Howard County, you might notice the lighting is a little dimmer than it used to be.”

Insurance / Gambling:

Kitchen table power is now legal:
“A poker game may be friendly in South Carolina — but it’s still illegal.”

Health / Safety:

Investing Obamacare Waiver-mania:
“The House GOP is stepping up to the plate. Newcomers on the congressional oversight subcommittee on health will probe the who, what, when, where, and why of the Obama administration’s HHS Obamacare waiver program.”

Economics:

Obama’s Sputter-nik moment: Cash for Education Clunkers:
“My column today contrasts President Obama’s State of the Union hype about “innovation” and “investment” in education with the abysmal failures of massive federal spending on America’s schools. The White House love to talk about global “competitiveness,” but refuse to support competition in our government-run K-12 schools monopoly. “Sputnik moment” — or Sputter-nik moment?”

For more on this issue: Time for Big Cuts in Education Spending?

Price Drop Points to Likely Double Dip in Housing Market:
“U.S. single-family home prices fell for a fifth straight month in November and could plumb new lows soon, a closely watched survey showed on Tuesday.”

Legal:

DOJ seeks mandatory data retention requirement for ISPs:
“The U.S. Department of Justice and an organization representing police chiefs from around the country renewed calls on Tuesday for legislation mandating Internet Service Providers (ISP) to retain certain customer usage data for up to two years.”

Labor:

Federal Agency Headquarters Leave Lights On In DC:
“Night after night, year after year, this nightside reporter observed lights left on in federal government buildings. So I decided to see just how much taxpayers were spending to keep empty buildings illuminated.”

Berresford ‘Berry’ Bingham, political director of the SEIU Local 1021, found slain in his home:
“Berresford “Berry” Bingham, the political director of SEIU Local 1021, was found dead in his West Oakland home and investigators are treating the death as a homicide, police said.”

Transportation/ Land Use:

State tests dimmer highway lighting:
“If you drive regularly along Route 100 in Howard County, you might notice the lighting is a little dimmer than it used to be.”

‘New’ energy, high-speed rail stars of speech:
“President Obama’s recipe for economic recovery and re-emergent innovation, as laid out in Tuesday evening’s State of the Union address, may leave many Americans unmoved. One thing, however, is clear.”

Afternoon Links: January 25, 2011

by Nicole Ciandella on January 25, 2011

in Odds & Ends

1. An Alabama law firm has filed suit against Taco Bell on the grounds that the restaurant falsely advertises its products as containing “beef” even though the meat isn’t up to USDA standards.

2. The Scottish Whiskey Association is trying to stop the sale of whiskey-in-a-can.

3. A Kansas woman is pushing for a federal law against posting jokes or insults on memorial websites.

4. There’s a grand piano on a sandbar in Biscayne Bay. No one knows how it got there.

5. Will anyone outside of D.C. watch the State of the Union tonight? (And will those who do watch it actually remember any of it?)


Photo Credit: Flickr Photostream

Newt Gingrich Panders to Corn Belt, Eyes 2012 GOP Bid

by Brian McGraw on January 25, 2011 · 1 comment

in Energy, Ethanol

Today, Newt Gingrich spoke at the Iowa Renewable Fuel Association Annual Summit. Here is a link to his speech. Remember, Gingrich is no dummy, he is an accomplished author and holds a doctorate from Tulane University. Despite this, he engages in the usual pandering to the farm state promoting policies that are fiscally irresponsible and destructive towards America. Unfortunately, this pandering has been shown to be widely successful in helping launch presidential campaigns.

An excerpt of the important parts of his speech:

5:40 in: “This is why the people who talk about food versus fuel are just plain, flat wrong. (HUGE APPLAUSE). It is factually untrue. If anybody has created a problem with food on the planet it is the European opposition to scientifically developed food…

And I feel this very deeply. We have had a problem of farm income back to the 1890s and 1880s. The fact is that everytime the farmers start to do well someone starts to attack them. And it makes no sense. If you take the current price of corn and you realize that the diesel fuel to carry the box of corn flakes to market is 3 times the cost of the corn that is in the box of corn flakes. So why are we attacking the farmers for being productive.

And the fact is if you look at ethanol production you are getting both ethanol and food-stock out of exactly the same bushel, because we are more and more sophisticated about how to do this, and as productivity goes up over the next 10 or 15 years we are going to want to have increased production of biofuels not decreased, because we are going to be able to meet both the worlds food needs and increasingly help the world meet its food needs by using modern science and modern technology.

And frankly, the other thing I find infuriating about the big city attacks is, this is one industry which brings high paying jobs and highly skilled people back to rural America, and there are now counties where the 1st or 2nd largest taxpayer and employer in the county is in fact producing biofuels, and I think that is a good thing for rural America. It is great to have jobs that our young people can go to so they can stay at home if they want to and have a good job being productive, earning a good living and doing something they find interesting, and I find it distressing sometimes when folks in big cities decide they will dictate on their terms having ridden the mass transit down to the office that they walk to that they will then decide what should happen to people in rural America, and it usually means people in rural America won’t do as well. “

It’s depressing that Gingrich, much like Bob Barr and Al Gore, is willing to shed intellectual honesty to win votes. Did Gingrich discuss the idea that “food versus fuel is plain, flat untrue” with his colleague Robert Hahn at AEI? Or his colleague Kenneth Green? Or his colleague Kevin Hassett? Or the thousands of non-partisan academic studies completed on this very subject? I am reminded of a joke told to me by a co-worker, that if the first caucus was in Hawaii we’d all be putting pineapple juice in our tanks.

He went on to suggest that the biggest impediment facing the ethanol industry is the lack of a mandate on flex-fuel vehicles, much like Growth Energy’s fueling “freedom” plan (see CEI’s take on the fueling freedom plan). If history is any indication, support for ethanol will not be going away anytime soon.

His entire speech is disingenuous. He makes a valid complaint about the slowness of EPA to approve E15 (though doesn’t suggest an alternative) yet also somehow supports the idea that the government should mandate the type of fuel Americans put in their cars.

In suggesting that someone file a FOIA request for information on the E15 decision, he acts as if it doesn’t take time for testing to be completed and sent to the EPA for their support. I would love for the EPA to not have any authority over what Americans put in their fuel, but if you’re going to have the Congress mandate biofuel usage then the auto-companies are going to need governmental approval so they don’t get sued ten different ways (and knowing American lawyers, they still might).

A final, very ironic, quote: “Nobody who testifies against it comes in with engineering tests. They come in with opinions normally based on interest groups.” If you’re looking for an honest conservative leader to run the country, look elsewhere.

What’s Expected on Trade in the State of the Union Address

by Fran Smith on January 25, 2011

in Agenda for Congress, International, Trade

In his State of the Union address tonight, President Obama will finally set out his agenda and timetable on three pending free trade agreements — with South Korea, Colombia, and Panama, with few surprises. As expected and as announced earlier this month by U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk, the president will announce that he’ll send implementing legislation to Congress on the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement by July 1 of this year.  That’s good news, since this FTA is expected to deliver significant economic and geopolitical benefits to both countries.

Disappointing though will be the president’s declaration that both the Colombia and Panama FTAs still have problems to be worked out before Congress can consider those agreements.  This, after the Colombia pact was signed in 2006, and the Panama FTA in 2007.  And, in 2007, the Democrat-controlled House also insisted that stringent new labor and environmental provisions be added to both FTAs and to all subsequent trade agreements.  What else does the administration — and union supporters — want to force on our close trading partners and allies before they can trade freely?

Given that the new House Ways and Means Committee chairman Dave Camp and major business leaders — at a hearing today — said that all three FTAs should be considered in the next six months, President Obama could announce a timetable for the Colombia and Panama trade pacts that gives the Administration wiggle room for trade union opponents. I expect he’ll move that timetable up a bit for the Korea FTA.

Also expected in the SOTU address will be the president’s heavy emphasis on the economic importance of increased exports, especially in creating jobs — and his National Export Initiative announced last year. Forgotten about, though, will be mention of the benefits of imports — in also providing jobs, but, more importantly, in providing consumers with greater choice in goods, including products that are inexpensive and lets them keep more of their hard-earned money, and in increasing competition so that better products emerge.

Congress Considering “Kill Switch” for Capitalism

by Dennis Grabowski on January 25, 2011 · 12 comments

in Economy, Property Rights, Regulation, Tech & Telecom

Introduced last summer, a bill affording President Obama executive power over private Internet companies in the event of a “national cyberemergency” is returning this year, albeit with a few tweaks. The CBS News article, “Renewed Push to Give Obama an Internet ‘Kill Switch,‘” insists that the bill should not cause Internet companies any alarm, citing government promises to limit the bill’s use to “crucial components of national infrastructure.” We must question, then, why it is the case that these promises aren’t built into the bill.

The revised version includes new language saying that the federal government’s designation of vital Internet or other computer systems “shall not be subject to judicial review.” Another addition expanded the definition of critical infrastructure to include “provider of information technology,” and a third authorized the submission of “classified” reports on security vulnerabilities.

For the layperson, information technology is “the use of technologies from computing, electronics, and telecommunications to process and distribute information in digital and other forms.” If it seems as though “provider of information technology” is applicable to literally any website you’ve ever been on, that’s because it is. And if the comprehensiveness of the list of those sites potentially subject to government intervention wasn’t enough, the legislation also includes clauses for government secrecy and unaccountability; that judicial review has gone by the wayside serves as a clear indication that this legislation is intended to envelop the private sector.

But last month’s rewrite that bans courts from reviewing executive branch decrees has given companies new reason to worry. “Judicial review is our main concern,” said Steve DelBianco, director of the NetChoice coalition, which includes eBay, Oracle, Verisign, and Yahoo as members. “A designation of critical information infrastructure brings with it huge obligations for upgrades and compliance.”

In some cases, DelBianco said, a company may have a “good-faith disagreement” with the government’s ruling and would want to seek court review. “The country we’re seeking to protect is a country that respects the right of any individual to have their day in court,” he said. “Yet this bill would deny that day in court to the owner of infrastructure.”

The government practice of ignoring private-sector rights is certainly common enough; it’s when one branch of government is liberated of any checks whatsoever, including those of other branches of government, that Americans have an even greater cause for concern. This is especially true when our patronizing representatives are considerably less-qualified, good intentions and all, to understand the ins-and-outs of Internet security than are major Internet corporations.

Other industry representatives say it’s not clear that lawyers and policy analysts who will inhabit Homeland Security’s 4.5 million square-foot headquarters in the southeast corner of the District of Columbia have the expertise to improve the security of servers and networks operated by companies like AT&T, Verizon, Microsoft, and Google. American companies already spend billions of dollars on computer security a year.

The article highlights the following restrictions, strapped across an otherwise a limitless pool of sites subject to executive overhaul:

Under the revised legislation, the definition of critical infrastructure has been tightened. DHS is only supposed to place a computer system (including a server, Web site, router, and so on) on the list if it meets three requirements. First, the disruption of the system could cause “severe economic consequences” or worse. Second, that the system “is a component of the national information infrastructure.” Third, that the “national information infrastructure is essential to the reliable operation of the system.”

That the definition has been meaningfully “tightened,” however, remains to be seen. A closer look at these requirements reveals as much:

1) The first requirement only stipulates that the disruption of the site might impact the economy (the word “severe” is open to unchecked executive interpretation, so we ought to disregard it altogether). Ironically, government intervention to a given website in a time of crisis is likely to involve shutting the site down (leading critics of the legislation to label it a government “kill switch”) — this most certainly qualifies as a “disruption.”

2) The Department of Defense defines the national information infrastructure (NII) as:

The nationwide interconnection of communications networks, computers, databases, and consumer electronics that make vast amounts of information available to users. The national information infrastructure encompasses a wide range of equipment, including cameras, scanners, keyboards, facsimile machines, computers, switches, compact disks, video and audio tape, cable, wire, satellites, fiber-optic transmission lines, networks of all types, televisions, monitors, printers, and much more. …

A good rule of thumb: when your personal keyboard qualifies for the NII, then so does the technology being used to generate a website.

3) Combined with (2), the final requirement only necessitates that the website be in some way dependant on technology within the United States to operate (it doesn’t even require that the site be based in the U.S.).

How wide a net does this legislation cast? A website should be concerned if it meets the following criteria: it’s big, and it utilizes some technology in the U.S. (one or two websites come to mind). The article does, however, leave us with these words of comfort:

For their part, [bill sponsors] Lieberman and Collins say the president already has “nearly unchecked authority” to control Internet companies.

It’s unclear why the author bothered to qualify his statement with “nearly,” though the message itself is as clear as crystal: private Internet companies exist under the government’s thumb, and they can’t do anything about it.

State of the Union Live-Blogging

by Ryan Young on January 25, 2011 · 3 comments

in Economy, Features, Regulation, Zeitgeist

CEI’s Ryan Young will be live-blogging the 2011 State of the Union address.  Follow on below and feel free to leave or post comments. Coverage begins at 8:30 PM EST, January 25, 2011.

Thoughts on the State of the Union and Education in America

by Hans Bader on January 25, 2011

in Culture, Economy, Employment, Politics as Usual, Zeitgeist

In the Washington Examiner, I discuss some of the president’s anticipated proposals in his State of the Union address today. The president is expected to call for even more increases in education spending. That might not be a good idea, judging from the recent book Academically Adrift. George Leef, of the Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, argues in the New York Times that rising college attendance rates have led to “lower academic standards” as colleges cater to marginal students who are interested in getting paper credentials, not learning. Leef says that due to “the mistaken notion that the country needs to have far more people going through college, the federal government is making it easier for students to borrow the money for it. Consequently, we will lure more marginal students into college, further increasing the pressure to lower standards. It has been accurately said that college is the new high school; the way we are going, soon it will be the new middle school.”

Biofuels and the Military: Reality Strikes Back

by Brian McGraw on January 25, 2011

in Energy, Ethanol

Lots of news bits over the past few years have covered the military’s PR effort to produce a significant amount of biofuels for its own use. The idea is that being able to produce biofuels will make the military more energy independent and reduce the number of lives lost securing fuel in dangerous areas. See here, here, here, here, here, etc. Today, the New York Times reports on a RAND Corporation study urging the military to give up on its biofuel-science experiment.

CEI’s Marlo Lewis has repeatedly pointed out that the only reason the military has been experimenting with biofuels is that it faces no real budget constraint, allowing it to pay as much as $65/gallon for jet fuel. As Marlo wrote in the summer of 2010:

Renewable Energy World also reports that the Navy ordered 200,000 gallons of camelina-based jet fuel for 2009-2010 and has an option to purchase another 200,000 gallons during 2010-2012. Sounds impressive, but let’s put those numbers in perspective. In just three months in peacetime, the flight crew of a single vessel — the USS NASSAU, a multi-purpose amphibious assault ship – flew more than 2,800 hours and burned over 1 million gallons of jet fuel.

Neither Renewable Energy World nor the QDR mentions how much camelina-based jet fuel costs. Hold on to your (toilet) seat! According to today’s ClimateWire (subscription required), the price is $65.00 per gallon. That’s about 30 times more expensive than commercial jet fuel.

A quote from the NYT article:

The report also argued that most alternative-fuel technologies were unproven, too expensive or too far from commercial scale to meet the military’s needs over the next decade.

In particular, the report argued that the Defense Department was spending too much time and money exploring experimental biofuels derived from sources like algae or the flowering plant camelina, and that more focus should be placed on energy efficiency as a way of combating greenhouse gas emissions.

The report urged Congress to reconsider the military’s budget for alternative-fuel projects. But if such fuels are to be pursued, the report concluded, the most economic, environmentally sound and near-term candidate would be a liquid fuel produced using a combination of coal and biomass, as well as some method for capturing and storing carbon emissions released during production.

Neither the biofuel industry nor the military was happy with the report. A military energy-czar wrote (in EENews) that:

We have been engaged with the biofuels industry.We know what they are capable of doing, and we are confident they will be able to deliver the fuels at the quantities and at the price point we need,” he said. The Navy is calling for 8 million barrels of biofuel per year by 2020, he said.

Eight million gallons by 2020 isn’t exactly an ambitious goal, as the U.S. produced over 10 billion gallons of ethanol (which, admittedly, is a “mature” technology relative to the fuels the military is experimenting with). If that is their end goal they will likely achieve it, but it would also represent an insignificant amount of total fuel consumption at present rates.

Here is a link to the report.

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →