OpenMarket: Lands and Wildlife

The first indication that PBS’s new documentary on agronomist Norman Borlaug will not be overly laudatory is its title. Anti-hunger activist Leon Hesser called his biography of the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize winner The Man Who Fed the World. But film writer/director/producer Rob Rapley was only willing to call Borlaug The Man Who Tried to Feed the World. Still, while the program struggles to find fault with Borlaug and his methods, the positives cannot help but shine through.

A recent story in the Guardian alleges that almond growers are somehow uniquely responsible for substantial losses of honeybee hives, and that may eventually lead to their extinction. The article gets a large number of facts wrong, but the story really isn’t about almond farms or even honeybees. It’s about the author’s wrongheaded belief that high-yield farming is bad for the environment. Ironically, the author’s implied “solution” would actually wreak havoc on the environment.

On January 27th, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) will attempt to block travel technology company Sabre Corporation from purchasing communications protocol innovator Farelogix, Inc. This will be the DOJ’s first time back at bat after striking out in June 2018 against AT&T’s ultimately successful acquisition of Time Warner. Unfortunately, it’s a good example of overzealous antitrust regulation.

“The more things change, the more they stay the same” is a wise observation, and it’s particularly true in politics. I’ve been following solid waste management policy for about 30 years, and every so many years there is a new spin on the so-called “garbage crisis.” The circumstances may change but the problem remains the same: politicians think they can better manage waste than individuals in a free marketplace. Time and again, their fatal conceit is proved wrong.

The Department of Justice is pushing back against a federal court decision that could jeopardize the future availability and affordability of natural gas across America’s east coast.

On November 27, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously, in Weyerhaeuser v. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, that there are limits to how far the federal government can go in using the Endangered Species Act to take people’s private property. The Court appears to have grasped the fact that the ESA is increasingly being used not to protect endangered species and their habitat, but as a cost-free form of federal land-use control and federal zoning.

Most job-creating projects don’t require government subsidies―the only thing private sector builders need is less federal red tape getting in their way.   A good case in point is the Pebble Mine in Alaska, currently being held up by the Environmental Protection Agency. That is why the Competitive Enterprise Institute is filing a Petition for Correction under the Information Quality Act to help clear away EPA’s unjustified rejection of this project.

EarthJustice, the National Wildlife Federation, and other environmental pressure groups have petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency to better police the land use requirements in the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS).

The Competitive Enterprise Institute views most market failure rationales for government intervention as wrong, overstated, or unproven (or all of the above). The Competitive Enterprise Institute views most market failure rationales for government intervention as wrong, overstated, or unproven (or all of the above). That belief is very difficult to test, however, because government has seized control of the relevant resources and blocks the market discovery process. 

“In a testament to the Trump Administration's America First Energy Plan, the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) third-quarter oil and gas lease sale in New Mexico broke all previous records by grossing nearly $1 billion in bonus bids for 142 parcels,” the Department of Interior announced in a press release on September 6th.