Cato Daily Dispatch for November 25, 2003
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Bush, Senate Republicans Compromise on Media OwnershipRepublicans Say Lights Out on Energy Bill
British Doubts About EU Constitution
Bush, Senate Republicans Compromise on Media Ownership
"President Bush and Senate Republicans on Monday night settled their long-running dispute over media ownership rules, eliminating a major stumbling block to Congressional approval of a $330 billion catch-all spending measure covering a third of all federal programs," The New York Times reports.
"Despite the agreement, which came in the face of a White House veto threat, House and Senate aides said it was unlikely that Congress would pass the larger spending measure before adjourning for the year."
In "The Media Ownership Debate: Who Are the Real Media Masters?" in the June 16 edition of Cato's techknowledge newsletter, Adam Thierer, Cato's director of telecommunications studies and Cato Director of Technology Studies Clyde Wayne Crews Jr. argue in favor of the slightly relaxed rules. They write: "The scale and scope of private media organizations is not an appropriate target of coercive public policy, because such policy violates free speech. Government restrictions on ownership are themselves censorship and represent the real threat to democracy. Diversity, independence of voice, and democracy do not spring from government control of the means of speech, but from a separation between government and media."
Republicans Say Lights Out on Energy Bill
"Senate Republican leaders Monday declared the massive energy bill dead for this year's session of Congress after they failed to round up the two additional votes they needed to cut off debate and bring the legislation to a vote," the Los Angeles Times reports.
"Along with the legislation revising and expanding Medicare, the energy bill - a brew of government subsidies, rules changes and other incentives to step up energy production and conservation - was one of President Bush's top domestic priorities in the 2003 session of Congress."
In "The Energy Bill Follies," Peter VanDoren and Jerry Taylor, respectively, editor of Regulation magazine and director of natural resource studies, write: "The bill expands the government owned-and-operated Strategic Petroleum Reserve to 1 billion barrels even though the existence of a public inventory undermines the incentive for private inventories. Moreover, political control over inventories increases rather than decreases risk in petroleum market operations and encourages more, not less, price volatility. The GOP also saw fit to reduce the time over which electricity transmission assets are depreciated so that 'needed' transmission is built. Yet economists agree that the proper mixture of generation and transmission should be determined by market forces rather than by provisions of the tax code."
British Doubts About EU Constitution
"The British government on Monday stepped up the rhetoric over its concerns about a European constitution, saying the UK does not regard it as essential for a new treaty to be agreed," the Financial Times reports.
"Ahead of negotiations with European Union partners this week, a Foreign Office official said a new treaty was 'highly desirable but not absolutely essential.'"
In "US-EU: The Constitutional Divide," Marian Tupy, assistant director of Cato's Project on Global Economic Liberty, and Senior Fellow Patrick Basham write: "The recently drafted EU constitution is a product of 20th century welfare-state socialism. The official goal was to design a simpler, more efficient, more democratic Europe that is 'closer to its citizens.' However, the goal was never seriously pursued and, consequently, never achieved. As a result, the new constitution will have serious negative implications for liberal parliamentary democracy and the principles of self-government."
Jonathan Block, editor, jblock@cato.org
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