By Brad Johnson. Published in Think Progress. February 1, 2011.
At a Washington DC press conference, U.S. Chamber of Commerce officials blasted President Obama’s call for a clean energy future. Christopher Guith, vice president for policy at the Chamber’s Institute for 21st Century Energy, said a national clean-energy standard is “ridiculously premature,” even though 25 states have renewable and alternative energy standards, the first established in 1983. The Institute’s president, former Bush official Karen Harbert, said that the United States should instead allow “increased access to land for oil and gas drilling both onshore and offshore,” drilling a deeper hole with fossil fuel dependence.
By Donald Cohen. Posted on Huffington Post. January 21, 2011.
You may think it's a way to help your spouse or aging parent recover from a devastating illness, but to the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) California's Paid Family Leave (PFL) law, enacted in 2002, is a "job killer" that costs employers billions of dollars and drives jobs out the state.
By Donald Cohen and Peter Dreier. Posted on Huffington Post. January 5, 2011.
Newly emboldened as chair of the House’s key investigative committee, California Cong. Darrell Issa, the conservative Republican, sent letters to more than 150 business lobby groups, asking them to identify government rules that they want eliminated.
Issa wants to hand the government over to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and a who’s who of corporate America. The new Republican Congress is their opportunity to get rid of those pesky environmental laws, consumer product safety laws and even rules to prevent another Wall St. financial train wreck.
By David Rosner and Gerald Markowitz. Posted on Huffington Post. January 4, 2011.
On July 28, Alex Pacas, 19, and Wyatt Whitebread, 14, of Mount Carroll, IL were suffocated to death, sinking into several thousand tons of quicksand-like shelled corn in the grain bin where they were working. The Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) quickly determined that their deaths were preventable if Haasbach, LLC, the grain elevator's owner, had followed proper safety regulations.
By Stephanie Luce. Posted on Huffington Post. December 9, 2010.
For more than 100 years, we've heard opponents "Cry Wolf" when governments tried to establish living wage or minimum wage laws, threatening higher unemployment and inflation. Introductory economic textbooks warn of just that. But fortunately economic analysis has advanced beyond the introductory level. More economists are testing theories once taken for granted, and using better methodologies they are proving wrong those who "Cry Wolf" about living wage laws.