Category: reason

The Associated Press is
running a terrific and long investigative article, “The
Secret, Dirty Cost of Obama’s Green Power Push,” on the
environmental downsides of the ethanol fuel mandate. From the
AP…

…the ethanol era has proven far more damaging to the
environment than politicians promised and much worse than the
government admits today.

As farmers rushed to find new places to plant corn, they wiped
out millions of acres of conservation land, destroyed habitat and
polluted water supplies, an Associated Press investigation
found.

Five million acres of land set aside for conservation — more
than Yellowstone, Everglades and Yosemite National Parks combined —
have vanished on Obama’s watch.

Landowners filled in wetlands. They plowed into pristine
prairies, releasing carbon dioxide that had been locked in the
soil.

Sprayers pumped out billions of pounds of fertilizer, some of
which seeped into drinking water, contaminated rivers and worsened
the huge dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico where marine life can’t
survive.

The consequences are so severe that environmentalists and many
scientists have now rejected corn-based ethanol as bad
environmental policy. But the Obama administration stands by it,
highlighting its benefits to the farming industry rather than any
negative impact.

Farmers planted 15 million more acres of corn last year than
before the ethanol boom, and the effects are visible in places like
south central Iowa.

Besides these negative effects, it is doubtful that producing
corn ethanol has much, if any effect, on reducing the greenhouse
gas emissions that are thought to be contributing to man-made
global warming. Nevertheless, industry lobbyists fought hard to get
the EPA to jigger the numbers so that ethanol would look good in
this respect. As the AP explains:

Writing the regulations to implement the ethanol mandate was
among the administration’s first major environmental undertakings.
Industry and environmental groups watched closely.

The EPA’s experts determined that the mandate would increase
demand for corn and encourage farmers to plow more land.
Considering those factors, they said, corn ethanol was only
slightly better than gasoline when it came to carbon dioxide
emissions.

Sixteen percent better, to be exact. And not in the short term.
Only by 2022.

By law, though, biofuels were supposed to be at least 20 percent
greener than gasoline.

The AP reports that the EPA bowed to lobbyist pressure and
changed its assumptions, i.e., boosting its estimates of average
yields to 230 bushels per acre and corn prices leveling off at
$3.22 per bushel. In the 2013 bumper crop year, the U.S. Department
of  Agriculture estimates yields will be just over
160 bushels per acre and corn prices are currently around
$4.30 per bushel.

It is worth your while to read the entire depressing article.
For more background see my 2010 article about my
visit to an ethanol plant in Aberdeen, SD. Also see Reason
TV’s 2008 video in which I outline the harms of ethanol
subsidies below:

The Associated Press is
running a terrific and long investigative article, “The
Secret, Dirty Cost of Obama’s Green Power Push,” on the
environmental downsides of the ethanol fuel mandate. From the
AP…

…the ethanol era has proven far more damaging to the
environment than politicians promised and much worse than the
government admits today.

As farmers rushed to find new places to plant corn, they wiped
out millions of acres of conservation land, destroyed habitat and
polluted water supplies, an Associated Press investigation
found.

Five million acres of land set aside for conservation — more
than Yellowstone, Everglades and Yosemite National Parks combined —
have vanished on Obama’s watch.

Landowners filled in wetlands. They plowed into pristine
prairies, releasing carbon dioxide that had been locked in the
soil.

Sprayers pumped out billions of pounds of fertilizer, some of
which seeped into drinking water, contaminated rivers and worsened
the huge dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico where marine life can’t
survive.

The consequences are so severe that environmentalists and many
scientists have now rejected corn-based ethanol as bad
environmental policy. But the Obama administration stands by it,
highlighting its benefits to the farming industry rather than any
negative impact.

Farmers planted 15 million more acres of corn last year than
before the ethanol boom, and the effects are visible in places like
south central Iowa.

Besides these negative effects, it is doubtful that producing
corn ethanol has much, if any effect, on reducing the greenhouse
gas emissions that are thought to be contributing to man-made
global warming. Nevertheless, industry lobbyists fought hard to get
the EPA to jigger the numbers so that ethanol would look good in
this respect. As the AP explains:

Writing the regulations to implement the ethanol mandate was
among the administration’s first major environmental undertakings.
Industry and environmental groups watched closely.

The EPA’s experts determined that the mandate would increase
demand for corn and encourage farmers to plow more land.
Considering those factors, they said, corn ethanol was only
slightly better than gasoline when it came to carbon dioxide
emissions.

Sixteen percent better, to be exact. And not in the short term.
Only by 2022.

By law, though, biofuels were supposed to be at least 20 percent
greener than gasoline.

The AP reports that the EPA bowed to lobbyist pressure and
changed its assumptions, i.e., boosting its estimates of average
yields to 230 bushels per acre and corn prices leveling off at
$3.22 per bushel. In the 2013 bumper crop year, the U.S. Department
of  Agriculture estimates yields will be just over
160 bushels per acre and corn prices are currently around
$4.30 per bushel.

It is worth your while to read the entire depressing article.
For more background see my 2010 article about my
visit to an ethanol plant in Aberdeen, SD. Also see Reason
TV’s 2008 video in which I outline the harms of ethanol
subsidies below:

California’s new law
acknowledging transgendered students adds the following to the

state’s code:

“A pupil shall be permitted to participate in sex-segregated
school programs and activities, including athletic teams and
competitions, and use facilities consistent with his or her gender
identity, irrespective of the gender listed on the pupil’s
records.”

The concerned social conservative response can be summarized as
“OMG! Boys in the girls’ bathroom! And you can’t stop it!”
Opponents have used this tactic to get enough signatures to
possibly force Assembly Bill 1266 to a vote. From the
Associated Press:

A coalition of conservative groups called Privacy for all
Students submitted 620,000 signatures to get the initiative on the
November 2014 ballot, said Frank Schubert, the political strategist
handling the signature gathering effort.

To qualify, at least 505,000 valid signatures must be submitted.
To verify the signatures are real, each of California’s 58 counties
will first check that the count is correct, then conduct a random
sampling of signatures to make sure they are legitimate. After
that, it is likely the state would order a full review to ensure
the integrity of the signatures.

If, after all of the reviews, the group has the requisite number
of valid signatures, the initiative would qualify for the
ballot.

This fight has the potential to get really nasty. The Pacific Justice
Institute (not to be confused with the totally unrelated
liberty-minded Pacific Legal Foundation) caused a bit of a
shitstorm by targeting a single transgendered student at Florence
High School in Florence, Colo., claiming the biologically male
student was “making sexually harassing comments toward girls he was
encountering” in the bathrooms. Some media outlets apparently
reported the story as gospel only to discover later that these
incidents are disputed and the school believes no incident actually
happened. The National Review Online, for example, reported the
claims and then
updated later with the school’s response that they hadn’t had
any incidents of harassment. Others apparently deleted the story
entirely.

Cristan Williams, a writer at Transadvocate,
tracked down the school’s response that the transgendered teen
isn’t harassing anybody and that just one parent is upset. She
found a post from a girl from the same school saying she’s never
seen the student harass anybody else and nobody had a problem with
the student using the girls’ bathroom. Parents apparently got upset
after he was outed as transgendered in a Facebook message
somewhere. Also, the commenter claimed the student gets beaten up
trying to use the boys’ bathroom.

This is going to be the kind of fight where everybody is arguing
over who the true victims are. Opponents are insisting that some
sort of privacy violation is taking place in the school bathrooms,
like these filthy holes are sacred spaces. The Pacific Justice
Institute has a video of a woman in
tears – actual tears – over being unable to stop a biological
boy from using the same bathroom as a girl. If this makes the
ballot, the fight is going to be very unpleasant to watch.
Conservative Republican member of the State Assembly Tim Donnelly
made news for pulling a son out of public school after this law
passed. He just recently announced plans to run for governor and
posted
about his outrage, so he clearly wants it to be an election
issue.

I have yet to see any actual real-world examples that indicate
granting transgendered students some leeway here will result in any
sort of victimization of non-transgendered students. Thinking that
boys will game the system (because that’s really what we’re talking
about, right?) to harass girls ignores that boys honestly don’t
need to go through all this effort if they want to do so. And any
sort of actual harassment could result in discipline and even
criminal charges. Girls can sexually harass other girls and the
same holds true for boys. The increasing acceptance of gay students
didn’t make it legal for gay teens to harass their peers. The
predatory fears of what transgendered folks may be up to may make
for some interesting movie plots, but it’s not a real-world
thing.

Of course, more school choice would help solve all of this, and
all students could find education choices that suit their interests
and needs better. Failing that, this whole effort smells of faux
outrage by adults who are still (and will perpetually be) terrified
of the development of teen sexuality and individual identity.

Venezuelan
President Nicolas Maduro wants to put price controls on all
consumer goods.

From the
BBC:

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro says he plans to extend
price controls to all consumer goods, if he is given powers to
govern by decree.

In a televised address, Mr Maduro said that he wanted to set
legal limits on businesses’ profit margins.

The news comes after electronic stores accused of selling
products at inflated prices were seized in Venezuela. 

From the
Los Angeles Times:

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro ordered the “occupation” of
a chain of electronics stores after the socialist government
accused the company of overcharging its consumers.

Troops went to the Daka chain’s five stores and ordered the
company to start selling its products at lower prices, Reuters
reported. Several managers of the company were arrested.

What could possibly go wrong?

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at @reason247.

California’s workplace safety guardians have proposed an
amendment to a bill that would
require porn stars to wear protective goggles while
filming.

The bill, which has so far
stalled in the state senate, establishes numerous mandates for
the porn industry to follow with the goal of curbing the spread of
sexually transmitted diseases. Among these mandates is the
requirement that “personal protective equipment” be used to
“prevent contact of an employee’s eye, skin, mucous membranes, or
genitals with the blood or OPIM-STI of another.” (OPIM-STI
includes pre-ejaculate, semen, vaginal secretions, and fecal
matter.)

According to the
bill, which was originally posted on a NSFW
adult entertainment blog:

The employer shall provide, at no cost to the employee,
appropriate personal protective equipment such as, but not limited
to, condoms, gloves for cleaning, and, if contact of the eyes with
OPIM-STI is reasonably anticipated, eye protection.

So basically, cum shots sans eyegear would be illegal.

The bill would also require employees to wear condoms during
vaginal and anal sex, gloves when touching “contaminated laundry,”
and create a specific exemption for condom wearing during oral sex
to be reviewed in January 2018.  

Porn actors are actually already required to follow these rules,

says Deborah Gold, the deputy chief for health of California’s
Division of Occupational Safety and Health. They just rarely do. In
an interview with Salon, Gold said that “these draft
guidelines are an attempt to tailor existing workplace-safety rules
relating to blood-borne pathogens specifically to the adult
industry.”

The bill follows in the footsteps of last year’s 
Safer Sex in the Adult Film Industry Act (or Measure B),
the much-discussed, voter-approved measure that requires porn
actors in Los Angeles County to wear condoms on set.

James Deen, an
award-winning porn star and a staunch opponent of condom
mandates,
spoke with the Huffington Post
after the measure passed:

“It will be interesting to see what happens next. People will
most likely move production out of Los Angeles and take out tax
money with us. Hopefully this measure passing will help us [adult
entertainers] get more organized in the future and that, along with
Los Angeles losing our business, will allow people in politics to
start seeing us as an asset.”

There’s evidence that Deen’s prediction came true: After the
measure passed, the number of requests for porn production permits
in Los Angeles
dropped from an annual norm of 500 to two. Now it appears that
California politicians are looking to implement even more expansive
protective barrier mandates. 

In a satirical video protesting Measure B, James Deen and
co-star Jessica Drake show what a scene with mandatory safety
goggles and latex barriers everywhere could look like. NSFW! You’ve
been warned. Watch it after the jump.

Last week, news wires, blogs and pundits lit up with the
horrifying story of David Eckert, a New Mexico man who last January
was subjected to a series of invasive and degrading drug search
procedures after a traffic stop. The procedures, which included
x-rays, digital anal penetration, enemas and a colonoscopy, were
all performed without Eckert’s consent…

Days later, a second resident of New Mexico came forward with
similar allegations. Timothy Young says that after a traffic stop
in October 2012, he too was subjected to x-rays and a digital anal
exam without his consent. New Mexico news station KBO-TV was
first to report both incidents, which were performed by
physicians at the Gila Regional Medical Center in Silver City, New
Mexico. In both cases, doctors and police failed to find any
illegal drugs.

A third alleged victim has since come forward, although
this woman says her anal and vaginal searches, x-rays and CAT scans
came courtesy of federal border patrol agents, and without a
warrant.

These incidents raise troubling questions about how the criminal
justice system and medical establishment could allow for such
extreme and invasive measures based on such little suspicion for
nonviolent drug offenses. Oddly, according to constitutional
scholars and medical ethicists I’ve consulted, the indignities
imposed upon Eckert and Young were both illegal
and unethical. And yet it also may be that (a) none of the law
enforcement officials or medical personnel responsible for the
violations are likely to be held accountable in any way, and (b)
they could probably do it all again tomorrow, and still wouldn’t
likely be held accountable.

Read this full article at The Agitator

Gallup finds that three-fourths of Americans favor raising the
federal minimum wage to $9 an hour, whereas 22 percent oppose such
a proposal. This is similar to what the Reason-Rupe poll
found earlier this year; however, support flips and 56 percent
oppose if it caused employers to lay off workers. All policies come
with a price and polling questions constantly phrased as
benefits-only propositions will continue to overestimate support.
Instead, questions should measure what Americans would be willing
to give up in order to raise the federal minimum wage.

This month New Jersey voters
approved raising their state’s minimum wage from $7.25 to $8.25
an hour by a margin of 61% to 39%. Two-thirds of the California
state
legislature also voted to increase the state’s minimum wage to
$10 an hour by 2016. In light of these numbers, Gallup’s results
suggest that national popular support is even higher.

However, simply asking if Americans favor or oppose a minimum
wage increase suggest to survey respondents there are no costs
associated with such a proposal. For those who haven’t thought much
about the issue, it’s like asking if they want people to be paid
more or less—not surprisingly they say more.

Instead, a Reason-Rupe
poll delved deeper to understand how Americans make trade offs.
First, it found a similar number to Gallup, that roughly 7 in 10
Americans support raising the minimum wage to $9 an hour assuming
no costs. But a follow up question reveals that support plummets to
37 percent if doing so caused “some employers to lay off workers,”
and opposition raises to 56 percent.

The key is determining whether Americans actually believe
raising the minimum wage will shrink the number of jobs in the
economy. Reason-Rupe found 42 percent believe raising the minimum
wage will reduce the number of jobs and 41 percent say it will have
no impact. Thirteen percent actually thought it would increase the
number of jobs.

Looking at the data’s crosstabs, 58 percent of Americans who
believe raising the minimum wage will lead to fewer jobs in the
economy oppose the proposal. In contrast 88 percent of
Americans who believe raising the minimum wage to $9 would have no
impact on jobs favor raising the federal minimum
wage. In other words, Americans who don’t associate job costs with
raising the minimum wage find little reason to oppose the proposal;
those who expect a trade-off are less supportive.

These data suggest Americans’ support for increasing the minimum
wage is in large part contingent upon whether such a proposal would
in fact actually impact jobs in the economy.  

Moreover, rather than poll questions essentially asking
respondents if they favor or oppose their fellow Americans making
more money, questions should be designed to measure what Americans
would be willing to give up to raise minimum wage floors.

• Suicides are
  down 22 percent across the military this year; defense
  officials are reticent to attribute the decline to new prevention
  programs or to the drawdowns in Iraq and Afghanistan, since many
  suicides have been of military personnel who have served in neither
  theater and the causes are still poorly understood.
• One Senate Democrat is
  collecting signatures from other senators for a letter
  requesting an investigation of the Obamacare website roll out. Kay
  Hagan voted for Obamacare and is up for re-election in North
  Carolina, a state Obama won in 2008 but lost in 2012, next
  year.
• She’s no Charles Curtis but Elizabeth Warren may run
  for the 2016 Democrat nomination for president.
• Gonzaga University will
  review its anti-gun policy; two students are facing probation
  and other disciplinary measures after using a legally registered
  firearm in off-campus university housing to deter a would-be home
  intruder.
• Police in Atlanta
  shot a dog in the head while responding to a 911 call placed
  accidentally.
• North Korea
  held a round of public executions earlier this month for
  offenses including watching American films and reading the
  Bible.
• Less than a week after being cleared of graft charges,
  hardliner Avigdor Lieberman was
  re-appointed foreign minister of Israel.

Follow Reason and Reason 24/7 on
Twitter, and like us on Facebook.  You
can also get the top stories mailed to
you—sign
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Have a news tip? Send it to us!

As President Obama’s
signature legislative accomplishment (read: debacle bigger than
stimulus, debt, TARP, kill lists, etc.) continues to founder,
expect more misinformed stories such as this one from the AP:

Medicaid is health overhaul’s early success story

The underdog of government health care programs is emerging as
the rare early success story of President Barack Obama’s
technologically challenged health overhaul.

Often dismissed, Medicaid has signed up 444,000 people in 10
states in the six weeks since open enrollment began, according to
Avalere Health, a market analysis firm that compiled data from
those states. Twenty-five states are expanding their Medicaid
programs, but data for all of them was not available….

Read the article here.

This is not good news either for recipients of Medicaid or for
taxpayers footing the bill for the program’s expansion.

It can’t be said enough that there is little evidence that
Medicaid improves health
outcomes:

There’s little evidence that Medicaid coverage improves the
health and longevity of beneficiaries. For instance, a major 2010
University of Virginia study found
that for patients undergoing major surgical procedures, those on
Medicaid were 93 percent more likely to die than patients with
private insurance, while the uninsured were just 74 percent more
likely to die. Such
awful outcomes for Medicaid patients are found in a
variety of studies looking at cancer, heart problems, and other
maladies.

Evidence from the widely respected Oregon Health Insurance
Experiment, which compared the health of Medicaid recipients to a
control group, found “that
Medicaid coverage generated no significant improvements in measured
physical health outcomes in the first 2 years.” Such results are
broadly consistent with findings that insurance status has little
or no impact on longevity. In 2009, for instance, Columbia
economist Frank Lichtenburg published a study looking at longevity
in states between 1991 and 2004 and concluded that
“growth in life expectancy was uncorrelated across states with
health insurance coverage and education.”

If it’s not clear
that Medicaid helps people get and stay healthy, one thing is for
sure: The program, which is already either the single-biggest or
second-biggest annual budget item for every state in the country,
spends huge amounts of money and that will only
increase.

Medicaid has for a long time posted year-over-year spending
increases. Between 2000 and 2011 (PDF),
the average increase was 6.8 percent and total expenditures on the
program came to $432 billion in 2011 (PDF).
The Department of Health and Human Services estimates that annual
increases will average about 6.4 percent until 2021, when the
federal government and states will spend $795 billion on the
program.

Read more here.

You got that? “The rare early success story” of Obamacare is
that a massively expensive program that doesn’t actually accomplish
its core objective has jacked up the number of people enrolled in
it. The one benefit of Medicaid is that it reduces the likelihood
of medically induced bankruptcy for some recipients.
There’s an easier and more effective way to accomplish
that.

So break out the champagne because Medicaid is booming? We
really can’t afford to do that now and will be even less likely in
a few years.

As President Obama’s
signature legislative accomplishment (read: debacle bigger than
stimulus, debt, TARP, kill lists, etc.) continues to founder,
expect more misinformed stories such as this one from the AP:

Medicaid is health overhaul’s early success story

The underdog of government health care programs is emerging as
the rare early success story of President Barack Obama’s
technologically challenged health overhaul.

Often dismissed, Medicaid has signed up 444,000 people in 10
states in the six weeks since open enrollment began, according to
Avalere Health, a market analysis firm that compiled data from
those states. Twenty-five states are expanding their Medicaid
programs, but data for all of them was not available….

Read the article here.

This is not good news either for recipients of Medicaid or for
taxpayers footing the bill for the program’s expansion.

It can’t be said enough that there is little evidence that
Medicaid improves health
outcomes:

There’s little evidence that Medicaid coverage improves the
health and longevity of beneficiaries. For instance, a major 2010
University of Virginia study found
that for patients undergoing major surgical procedures, those on
Medicaid were 93 percent more likely to die than patients with
private insurance, while the uninsured were just 74 percent more
likely to die. Such
awful outcomes for Medicaid patients are found in a
variety of studies looking at cancer, heart problems, and other
maladies.

Evidence from the widely respected Oregon Health Insurance
Experiment, which compared the health of Medicaid recipients to a
control group, found “that
Medicaid coverage generated no significant improvements in measured
physical health outcomes in the first 2 years.” Such results are
broadly consistent with findings that insurance status has little
or no impact on longevity. In 2009, for instance, Columbia
economist Frank Lichtenburg published a study looking at longevity
in states between 1991 and 2004 and concluded that
“growth in life expectancy was uncorrelated across states with
health insurance coverage and education.”

If it’s not clear
that Medicaid helps people get and stay healthy, one thing is for
sure: The program, which is already either the single-biggest or
second-biggest annual budget item for every state in the country,
spends huge amounts of money and that will only
increase.

Medicaid has for a long time posted year-over-year spending
increases. Between 2000 and 2011 (PDF),
the average increase was 6.8 percent and total expenditures on the
program came to $432 billion in 2011 (PDF).
The Department of Health and Human Services estimates that annual
increases will average about 6.4 percent until 2021, when the
federal government and states will spend $795 billion on the
program.

Read more here.

You got that? “The rare early success story” of Obamacare is
that a massively expensive program that doesn’t actually accomplish
its core objective has jacked up the number of people enrolled in
it. The one benefit of Medicaid is that it reduces the likelihood
of medically induced bankruptcy for some recipients.
There’s an easier and more effective way to accomplish
that.

So break out the champagne because Medicaid is booming? We
really can’t afford to do that now and will be even less likely in
a few years.