Sam Kazman

Excuses, Excuses

by Sam Kazman on May 10, 2013 · 0 comments

in Legal, Politics as Usual, Zeitgeist

The IRS today acknowledged that it had wrongfully targeted Tea Party groups for heightened scrutiny. In trying to explain the agency’s mistake, IRS spokeswoman Lois Lerner reportedly stated “I’m not good at math” – an excuse that now seems to be going viral.

Given the smashing success of this phrase, we wonder whether the IRS will now use a few variations of it in the new Obamacare lawsuit that it’s facing. This lawsuit challenges the legality of the IRS’ unauthorized extension of the employer mandate to states that have refused to set up their own health insurance exchanges. The plaintiffs contend that Congress limited the employer mandate to participating states, and that the IRS has no power to rewrite the law.

Perhaps, rather than present a detailed legal defense of its position, the IRS will simply claim one or more of the following:

“We’re not good at taking no for an answer”;

“We’re not good at interpreting complicated sentences written by another government body, especially when that body is Congress”;

“We’re not good at dealing with states that aren’t team players, even if those states outnumber the states on our team.” (Thirty-three states have refused to participate in the exchange program); and/or

“We’re not good at Latin, so the phrase ‘ultra vires’ (‘beyond our powers’) is Greek to us.”

Government Files Motion To Dismiss Dodd-Frank Lawsuit

by Sam Kazman on November 21, 2012

in Economy, Legal

Dodd-Frank’s destructive economic impact continues to grow week by week. Last June, CEI and two other plaintiffs, the State National Bank of Big Spring, Texas, and the 60 Plus Association, filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of several major parts of the law. In September, the states of Michigan, Oklahoma, and South Carolina joined the lawsuit.

Yesterday, the government filed a motion to dismiss the suit. The government contends that the constitutional issues raised by this massive law are not ripe, and that none of plaintiffs have standing to raise them.

Constitutional litigation, however, is not a matter of closing the barn door after the horses have bolted and rampaged the town. We believe that the issues raised in this case are ripe, and that plaintiffs are entitled to adjudicate them. And our basis for saying this will be fully set out in our response to the government’s motion.

Remembering Jack Calfee

by Sam Kazman on February 18, 2011 · 1 comment

in Health and Illness, Precaution & Risk, Regulation

The sad news of Jack Calfee’s death came out of the blue yesterday morning.

I first met Jack about two decades ago. FDA reform had not yet become a hot topic, but it soon would be, and then several years later it would go into reverse after the drug recall overreactions, and now it’s emerging again as a serious issue. Through it all, I found Jack’s writing and advice to be invariably useful. The same was true of his older work on tobacco and advertising regulation, which I continue to use to this day. And because Jack himself was so invariably cheerful and personable, I never hesitated to pester him with out-of-the-blue requests for information that I figured he’d have at his fingertips. And usually he did.

His death is a terrible loss. I’m glad to have known him, and I know I’ll keep using his work — even if, sadly, I won’t be using his phone number.

Image credit: dellacalfee’s flickr photostream.

Today’s the Day

by Sam Kazman on June 4, 2010 · 10 comments

in Health and Illness, Nanny State, Personal Liberty, Regulation

Today is National Donut Day.

Ordinarily, this would be just another cute calendar event.  But nowadays we’re bombarded by government proposals on obesity and so-called nutritional reform.  The most recent manifestation of this is Michelle Obama’s White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity, which last month released a massive report with recommendations ranging from prenatal care programs to increased support for breastfeeding to soda taxes to community planning.

Like countless other government reports, it prominently portrays obesity as a crisis; only inside the report do you find the admission that childhood obesity rates have shown “no significant increase in recent years.” (Page 4)

So how should the conscientious citizen respond to this on National Donut Day?  I say, by eating two donuts—one for himself, and one as an act of civil disobedience.

Bon appétit.

EPA Considers Closing NCEE – Dr. Alan Carlin’s Unit

by Sam Kazman on August 27, 2009

in Culture, Environment, Features, Global Warming, Politics as Usual, Zeitgeist

The EPA whistleblower saga took a new turn this week with a report that EPA was considering shutting down the agency unit in which Dr. Alan Carlin works.  Dr. Carlin is the senior EPA analyst who authored a 100-page study last March, which severely criticized the scientific basis for the agency’s position on global warming.  CEI broke the story in late June, when it unveiled a series of emails to Dr. Carlin from his boss, stating that his study would not be disclosed, and that Dr. Carlin was to stop working on global warming issues, because criticizing EPA’s position would only cause trouble.

Dr. Carlin works in EPA’s National Center for Environmental Economics (NCEE), whose function is, in its words, “analyzing the economic and health impacts of environmental regulations and policies, and … informing important policy decisions with sound economics and other sciences.”  EPA has long been criticized for the tunnel-vision, cost-be-damned nature of many of its policies.  (See, for example, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer’s 1995 book, Breaking the Vicious Circle: Toward Effective Risk Regulation, written before he joined the court.)  Economists are the most likely professionals within EPA to examine the real-world effects of its policies.  For that reason, the NCEE is potentially a major restraining force on the agency’s out-of-this-world regulatory ambitions.  Wouldn’t it be great for EPA to get this office out of the way?

Hopefully, the publicity and scrutiny that Dr. Carlin’s report has received since it became public will carry over to EPA’s plans for NCEE, and this agency, with its hollow commitment to scientific integrity and transparency, won’t get its wish.

Obama CAFE kills

by Sam Kazman on May 22, 2009

in Energy, Global Warming, Mobility

President Obama unveiled Tuesday a plan to sharply increase federal gas mileage rules for vehicles sold in the United States, eventually bringing the requirement up to an average of 35.5 miles per gallon. Unfortunately, these rules – known as the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards – have the deadly effect of causing new cars to be lighter, smaller and less crashworthy.

CAFE is among the deadliest government regulations we have, and with today’s announcement it’s going to get even deadlier. It kills consumers by reducing vehicle size, and now it may well kill car companies by forcing them to produce cars that consumers don’t want. The only redeeming aspect of the President’s announcement is that there’ll be only one standard imposed on the industry, rather both national and California standards. But that just means carmakers will have one noose around their necks instead of two.

A 2002 National Research Council study found that the federal CAFE standards contributed to about 2,000 deaths per year through their restrictions on car size and weight. An increase in the severity of the rules will only raise that death toll. Shockingly, the federal agency tasked with making Americans safer on the road – the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration – has refused to acknowledge this fact, even after being overturned by a federal court for ignoring the issue.

As bad as CAFE is, it’s an even more ominous sign that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is being joined in this initiative by the Environmental Protection Agency. Longtime observers of the EPA know that while the agency’s mission is to protect human health and the environment, it’s usually not in that order.

In addition to being sold as a global warming measure, the tightening of CAFE standards is, even less convincingly, being promoted as a boon for economic growth. Advocates have claimed that more fuel efficient cars are the future of the auto industry, yet have not explained why this should require government mandates.

Obama’s New Appliance Efficiency Mandates—Consumers Better Run For Cover

by Sam Kazman on February 5, 2009 · 5 comments

in Energy, Environment, Nanny State, Regulation

President Obama today announced that he is pressuring the Department of Energy (DoE) to speed up some long-delayed efficiency standards for appliances.  His move is being applauded by environmentalists—no surprise there.  And DoE itself will almost certainly proclaim that the new standards will give us better appliances in the future; they might cost more, but they’ll supposedly save us money in the long run.

Don’t believe it.  Here are some examples of how DoE efficiency mandates have produced, or will produce, fiascoes rather than progress:

  • In 2001, Consumer Reports found that high-efficiency dishwashers equipped with dirt-sensors were actually the least efficient of all dishwasher models.  This means that consumers who purchased them, perhaps in reliance on the government’s Energy Star program, were actually hurt twice-first when they bought the high-priced models, and then each time they ran them.

(By the way, don’t think that Consumer Reports opposes these mandates; it favors them!  But that’s a topic for another day.)

  • Current DoE standards for light bulbs will soon result in a ban on incandescent bulbs, even though many people prefer incandescent bulbs and even though a “Great Lightbulb Exchange” in one town showed no reduction in electricity use when people switched to fluorescents.  (Evidently, folks kept their lights on longer.)

Remember—if higher-efficiency appliances are really better, then we don’t need laws to force them on us.  And if there are such laws, then those appliances are probably lousy.

Perhaps some consumers realize this and will quickly purchase current appliance models before they’re replaced by the “new, improved” versions.  Could this be a White House economic stimulus plan in disguise?

Nah.

Clinton: World “Exhaling” Under Obama?

by Sam Kazman on January 27, 2009

in Politics as Usual, Sanctimony, Zeitgeist

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reportedly declared “There is a great exhalation of breath going on in the world as people express their appreciation for the new direction that’s being set and the team that is put together by the president.”  That’s a cute contrast to President Bill Clinton’s claim that he “didn’t inhale.” Different context, perhaps, but it is change.

HIGH NOON PASSES–Global Warming Doesn’t Show Up At The Inaugural

by Sam Kazman on January 20, 2009 · 5 comments

in Energy, Global Warming, Regulation

Well, the noon temperature in Washington DC at the President Obama’s swearing-in was 28 degrees F., eight degrees colder than when Bush was sworn in eight years ago.

So is that what Bush’s much bally-hooed failure to curb CO2 emissions produced in the way of climate change—a Inauguration Day for Obama that’s eight degrees colder than Bush’s inauguration eight years ago? Shouldn’t more CO2 mean warming, not cooling?

Well, as I said in my earlier post today, this is not scientifically significant. But it is funny.

It’s also in line with the lack of warming of the last decade, and with the global cooling we’ve experienced over the last three years. This has occurred even though atmospheric CO2 levels have continued to increase. That is scientifically significant—it casts quite a bit of doubt on the climate models that supposedly indicate that higher CO2 levels mean higher temperatures.

By the way, if we forget about Inaugural Day temperatures and compare Bush’s first year in office with his last year, we find global cooling as well. The British Hadley Centre shows a lower overall global temperature for 2008 than for 2001.

So here we’ve got rising CO2 and declining global temperatures. Just what kind of demon gas is this carbon dioxide?

HIGH NOON–Inauguration Global Warming Temperature Watch

by Sam Kazman on January 20, 2009 · 7 comments

in Energy, Environment, Global Warming, Regulation

When President Bush leaves office today, will the capital be warmer or colder than when he was sworn in eight years ago?

It’s not scientifically meaningful, but it is interesting.

Bush has been heavily criticized for doing precious little to curb our emissions of carbon dioxide. During his eight years in office, atmospheric CO2 levels climbed by over four percent.

So what did Bush’s dilly-dallying produce in terms of deadly global warming? The temperature at noon in Washington DC will give us one factoid. It’s a scientifically meaningless factoid, since the local temperature on any one day, let alone any one hour, tells us nothing about long-term temperature trends, but it’s heavy in symbolism.

When Bush was first sworn in, in 2001, the temperature at noon in DC was 36 degrees F. What will it be today, when he leaves office? Will the capital be warmer or colder than when he took office eight years ago?

Don’t be surprised if it’s colder. Today’s forecast is for relatively low temperatures. More importantly, despite steady increases in atmospheric CO2, and despite everything you’ve heard about climate catastrophe, there’s been no warming for about the last decade, and the planet has actually cooled over the last three years. (This is from the British Hadley Centre’s data on land and sea surface temperatures. The Centre’s global surface temperature graph shows this in somewhat compressed form, but you can easily graph its data yourself to get a better idea.)

That should lead us to ask where’s the warming?

But first, let’s see what the temperature is at noon, when President Obama is sworn in.

And I repeat–this is scientifically meaningless, but I think it’s interesting.

(As for Bush’s failure to curb CO2 emissions, I doubt that even stringent curbs would have had any effect on atmospheric CO2 levels.  More importantly, that failure was, I believe, a good thing in terms of affordable energy and human wefare.  And the CO2 curbs that Bush did support and which will soon go into effect, such as higher fuel efficiency standards for cars, will prove extremely harmful to both consumers and the auto industry.  But that’s off topic, sort of.)

← Previous Entries