Bill Richardson

LibertyWeek 25: The Silver Lining to the News

by Richard Morrison on January 13, 2009

in CEI Projects, Podcast

Welcome to LibertyWeek’s Silver Anniversary with your hosts Richard Morrison and Cord Blomquist and Special Guest William Yeatman. Our 25th episode starts with timely events from years past in The Day in Wikipedia, and then moves quickly into the latest, newest New Mexican news about Gov. Bill Richardson’s bondage municipal bond scandal. We return to the salty seas to see some Somali pirates get their karmic comeuppance, listen to the bailout blather du jour coming out of Washington and New York and stand strong against attempts to demonize those violent video games we love so well. With that down, we congratulate the winners of the Golden Globes and finally turn to our Special Guest for a discussion of the President-Elect’s energy and environment team. We round out the show, as always, with an encouraging bit of Olympic News.

Listen here!

The Richardson appointment was nice, but…

by Ivan Osorio on December 3, 2008 · 2 comments

in Economy, Trade

When was the last time the U.S.’s top trade official wasn’t a strong advocate for free trade? It may happen in the new Obama Administration.

According to numerous news reports, President-elect Obama has offered the post of USTR to Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.), a 16-year member of the House, who serves on the powerful Ways and Means Committee that oversees trade and is a close ally of Speaker Nancy Pelosi — his website lists him as “Assistant to the Speaker.”

Becerra’s record on supporting free trade is a mixed bag. He voted to hold up the Colombia Free Trade Agreement. He voted for the Peru free trade agreement, but against the Oman FTA and the Central America-DR FTA. He is a strong proponent of including non-trade issues in trade agreements, particularly labor and environmental provisions that could act as protectionist trade barriers by forcing poor countries to adopt rich countries’ standards.

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