Sweet Repeal | Cato @ Liberty
-full short post-

Sweet Repeal

Posted by Jim Harper

Look at this legislative language. It’s the stuff of beauty:

(a) In general.—The following sections of the Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 151 et seq.) are hereby repealed:

(1) Section 339 (47 U.S.C. 339).

(2) Section 340 (47 U.S.C. 340).

(3) Section 341 (47 U.S.C. 341).

(4) Section 342 (47 U.S.C. 342).

(5) Section 612 (47 U.S.C. 532).

(6) Section 614 (47 U.S.C. 534).

(7) Section 712 (47 U.S.C. 612).

And there’s more.

It’s from H.R. 3675, The Next Generation Television Marketplace Act, introduced by Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA), and its Senate counterpart, S. 2008, from Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC).

Cato alum Adam Thierer’s recent Forbes column has the low-down:

There’s a common myth heard frequently in communications policy circles that America’s video marketplace was largely deregulated in the 1980s and ’90s, and that we now have a free market nirvana. Nothing could be further from the truth. When it comes to television programming, many layers of red tape still encumber this sector and prevent a truly free market in video programming from developing.

Adam goes on to discuss all the ways that players in this marketplace are working to maintain the advantages they see coming from regulation. It’s a gruesome pile-up of rent-seeking that the Scalise-DeMint bill is trying to clear up.

It sure is cool to see a bill that repeals existing regulations, for a change. Ten or fifteen thousand more like this would be a good start.

Jim Harper • March 23, 2012 @ 5:05 pm

REPEAL OBAMACARE! - Sebelius: Colleges Must Pay to Sterilize Teens

Sebelius: Colleges Must Pay to Sterilize Teens
by COLLEGE FIX STAFF on MARCH 21, 2012

HHS has a new mandate for colleges. Under Obama’s new health care regime, academic institutions must offer free sterilization to girls, including those as young as their teens.

All student health care plans covering female college students in the United States must include coverage for free voluntary sterilization surgery, the Department of Health and Human Services announced late Friday afternoon.

Women of college age who do not attend school will also get free sterilization coverage whether they are insured through an employer, their parents, or some form of government-subsidized plan…

These free “preventive services” include surgical sterilization procedures and all Food and Drug Administration-approved contraceptives, including those that cause abortions.

Read more.

You know this is bad if it's in the NY Times - Companies Face Fines for Not Using Unavailable Biofuel

REPEAL the Environmental Protection Agency!

Companies Face Fines for Not Using Unavailable Biofuel - NYTimes.com

By MATTHEW L. WALD January 9, 2012

WASHINGTON — When the companies that supply motor fuel close the books on 2011, they will pay about $6.8 million in penalties to the Treasury because they failed to mix a special type of biofuel into their gasoline and diesel as required by law.

But there was none to be had. Outside a handful of laboratories and workshops, the ingredient, cellulosic biofuel, does not exist.

In 2012, the oil companies expect to pay even higher penalties for failing to blend in the fuel, which is made from wood chips or the inedible parts of plants like corncobs. Refiners were required to blend 6.6 million gallons into gasoline and diesel in 2011 and face a quota of 8.65 million gallons this year.

“It belies logic,” Charles T. Drevna, the president of theNational Petrochemicals and Refiners Association, said of the 2011 quota. And raising the quota for 2012 when there is no production makes even less sense, he said.

Penalizing the fuel suppliers demonstrates what happens when the federal government really, really wants something that technology is not ready to provide. In fact, while it may seem harsh that the Environmental Protection Agency is penalizing them for failing to do the impossible, the agency is being lenient by the standards of the law, the 2007Energy Independence and Security Act.

The law, aimed at reducing the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions, its reliance on oil imported from hostile places and the export of dollars to pay for it, includes provisions to increase the efficiency of vehicles as well as incorporate renewable energy sources into gasoline and diesel.

It requires the use of three alternative fuels: car and truck fuel made from cellulose, diesel fuel made from biomass and fuel made from biological materials but with a 50 percent reduction in greenhouse gases. Only the cellulosic fuel is commercially unavailable. As for meeting the quotas in the other categories, the refiners will not close their books until February and are not sure what will happen.

-more at link-