Cato Daily Dispatch for December 9, 2003
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Congress Approves Spam BanChinese Premier: Don't Block Imports from China
Energy Department May Bury Carbon Dioxide
Congress Approves Spam Ban
"The U.S. Congress approved on Monday a bill outlawing some of the most annoying forms of junk e-mail and creating a 'do not spam' registry," Reuters reports. "By a voice vote, the U.S. House of Representatives approved the bill containing jail time and multimillion-dollar fines for online marketers who flood e-mail inboxes with pornography and get-rich-quick schemes."
In "Wishful Anti-Spam Thinking," Clyde Wayne Crews Jr., Cato's director of technology policy, writes: "[I]f legislation merely sends the worst spammers offshore, we've only created regulatory hassles for small businesses trying to make a go of legitimate e-commerce, and mainstream companies that already follow 'best practices' like honoring 'unsubscribe' requests. Proposed legislative penalties can easily keep many small businesses out of Internet marketing altogether, for fear of a costly misstep. Is that really our goal?"
Crews continues: "It may be that today's system, in which originators of messages remain anonymous, is altogether inappropriate for the commercial information society of tomorrow. While the government must not outlaw anonymous e-mailing, maybe it needs to be impossible, not merely illegal, to send a commercial e-mail if the network owner can't discern who you are or charge you. If so, those are jobs for the industry that can't be replicated by passing a law."
Chinese Premier: Don't Block Imports from China
"Wen Jiabao, China's premier, on Monday urged the U.S. administration to resist demands that it block imports from China, and said he would not engage in tit-for-tat retaliation against recent U.S. moves," the Financial Times reports. "The conciliatory words came against a backdrop of increasing U.S.-China tensions over trade, fueled by a growing U.S. trade deficit with China and charges from U.S. manufacturers that China is manipulating its currency to hold down exports."
In the Cato Handbook for Congress, Cato Vice Presidents James A. Dorn and Ted Galen Carpenter write: "Protectionists in the United States who point to large and growing trade deficits with China and to increased U.S. investment in China should not be allowed to block trade liberalization by injudicious use of national security and human rights arguments. Further liberalization of U.S.-Chinese trade is a win-win strategy and can play an important role in promoting peace and prosperity. Containment would do the opposite.
They go on to say: "Continued trade liberalization and engagement on a number of fronts, including a more liberal visa policy that permits Chinese students to study in the United States, especially law, economics, and the humanities, will have positive long-term benefits. Visa procedures should be reexamined. So long as individuals pose no threat to our national security, they should be encouraged to learn about our free society firsthand. Free trade can help normalize China and transform it into a modern economy and a civil society under the rule of law. Backsliding into protectionism cannot."
Energy Department May Bury Carbon Dioxide
"This summer, scientists began drilling deep into the earth of West Virginia. Their goal: to determine whether a spongy layer of rock 9,000 feet beneath the surface can hold a gas that causes global warming," reports USA Today.
"The project is being closely watched by the Bush administration, which is funding it, and by the power industry. Both see burying the gas, carbon dioxide, as a possible long-term solution to keeping gases from power plants out of the atmosphere."
In light of the importance of global warming, the Cato Institute will host leading experts on both sides of the global warming debate for a day-long conference on Friday, Dec. 12. The event, entitled "Global Warming: The State of the Debate," will feature discussions on the current state of the science, economics, and politics of global climate change.
The program is committed to a review of what we know and don't know about climate change. The conference is a balanced roster of speakers representing both the skeptics and advocates of more aggressive government intervention to control greenhouse gas emissions.
Wyatt Dubois, editor, wdubois@cato.org
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