The southeast African country of Malawi is about to make farting illegal. The government there is trying to “mould responsible and disciplined citizens.” Enforcement will be a problem. Even in places where the law allows gas to pass, fouling the air still violates social norms. People routinely shift blame, making claims such as “He who smelt it, dealt it.”
A Malawian woman told the Daily Mail, “Children will openly deny having passed bad air and point at an elder. Culturally, this is very embarrassing.” It also makes it difficult for a court to determine guilt.
While this particular regulation is quite humorous, it is a symptom of a serious problem in Malawi. The rule of law is weak there, and this has human consequences. Malawi ranks 106th out of 141 countries in the most recent edition of James Gwartney’s Economic Freedom of the World Index. Countries ranked that low usually suffer from predatory governments and arbitrary justice systems. They also tend to have crushing poverty rates.
It is easy to imagine officials using this ordinance against political opponents, or even people they simply don’t like. Nor is breaking wind the only new offense in the government’s new morality initiative. The Daily Mail hints at the potential consequences:
The crime will be enforceable in a new “Local Court” system which will also have powers to punish a range of other crimes in the bill set to be debated in the country’s parliament.
These include insulting the modesty of a woman, challenging to fight a duel, and trespassing on a burial place.
It also outlaws pretending to be a fortune teller, according to local press in the country.
Opposition leaders complain the new courts will be “kangaroo courts.”
With much fanfare, the Obama administration has lifted its moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. But don’t expect much actual drilling any time soon, thanks to all of the administration’s other red tape strangling domestic oil and natural gas production.
Even before the April 20th Deepwater Horizon spill, the Obama administration had clamped down on new leasing on federally controlled offshore and onshore areas. In fact, 2009 saw less oil and gas leasing than in any year under Bush or Clinton, and 2010 was on track to be no better.
Nonetheless, the Obama administration Department of the Interior used the spill as an excuse to crack down further by imposing a six-month moratorium, until November 30th, on issuing any new deepwater drilling permits in the Gulf of Mexico. For all practical purposes, the administration also put an end to nearly all shallow water drilling in the Gulf, as well as exploration activities off Alaska.
Studies estimating thousands of lost jobs as a consequence of the moratorium — not to mention strong bipartisan opposition from Louisiana’s Congressional delegation — made for bad politics as well as bad policy. Whether or not influenced by the upcoming elections, the Department of the Interior announced that the moratorium is being lifted more than a month ahead of time.
The moratorium is gone, but all the pre-spill hurdles are still in force. In addition, Secretary of the Interior Salazar announced several tough new provisions and stated that only those operators who “clear the higher bar can be allowed to resume.” Interior concedes that these new requirements “may delay development of some OCS oil and gas resources.” Additional delays piled onto a policy that had already ground drilling to a near halt is not good news for American energy production.
Notwithstanding the official end to the moratorium, the real test is whether and to what extent drilling activity resumes. The American people need more energy, not to mention the thousands of high paying jobs an expanded domestic oil and gas sector would bring. If 2010 goes into the books as the second year in a row of sharply curtailed domestic energy production, the new Congress should take a close look at reversing this worrisome trend.
Coming from the UK, CEI Senior Fellow Iain Murray knows a little something about the history of political empires. Today, however, we find ourselves faced with a new era of eco-imperialism, particularly in the field of global warming policy. Iain explains:
“Eco-Imperialism” = efforts by the developed world to impose its environmental priorities on the developing world. Developed countries seek to pressure the Third World into reduce greenhouse gas emissions “for the sake of the planet,” regardless of its impact on the standard of living and prospects for economic growth in those nations. Cost-effective energy use is critical for Third World people, and is the fastest path toward ending poverty.
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