Yesterday, the administration rolled out their initial plans targeting methane emissions. The EPA’s rule looks to reduce 2012 methane emission levels by 45 percent in the next decade. The rule has yet to be scored for costs, but the recent slew of environmental regulations out of this administration has been anything but cheap.

The House passed a $40 billion Homeland Security funding bill that aims to curb the White House’s executive action providing work permits and federal benefits for illegal immigrants. AAF President Douglas Holtz-Eakin views the White House’s action late last year as “…a short term bandage at best” that does not fix the long term problems of our immigration system.

Eakinomics: Broadband + Title II FCC Regs = Job Killer

Veteran Eakinomics readers are well aware of the notion of “network neutrality” for the internet, its history, the key issues, and the notion of trying to implement this utopian policy vision via “Title II Reclassification” — the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC’s) attempt to defy the laws of networks, economics, and time and turn broadband into 1950s-style local phone service. Now we can also see that it is dangerous. In new research by AAF scholar Will Rinehart, he estimates that Title II reclassification would result in lower investment and fewer jobs in the broadband sector. Specifically, in 2019, there would be 174,233 fewer jobs, pushing workers to less dynamic locations in the economy.

Accordingly, it is a relief to see that Congress is cognizant of the problem. Yesterday, Congressman Fred Upton and Senator John Thune announced their intention to draft legislation alleviating the FCC of the need to regulate in this area. They wrote “Seeking a better way forward, we are working with our colleagues on both sides of the aisle to establish clear, updated and reasonable rules of the digital road to protect an open Internet.” Moreover, they argue that “As a legislative body, Congress has far more flexibility than the commission to narrowly tailor rules appropriate for today’s digital ecosystem.”

There are three key aspects of their approach. First, it avoids the unnecessary hindrance to investment, innovation, and jobs in the broadband sector. Second, it uses the legislative process that has greater flexibility and is also a more appropriate venue to achieve durable solutions to contentious policy problems. And, third, their clear intent to legislate in a bipartisan fashion makes durability much more likely. The fly in the ointment — one more time — is the White House and President Obama’s surprising and wrong-headed advocacy for the Title II approach.

The alphabet soup associated with this issue — FCC, Title II, ISP, Title I, …. — can be mind numbing. Its importance, however, as a harbinger of the future of American innovation, living standards, global leadership, and the small, efficient government that underlies them cannot be overstated.

From the Forum

Error: 174,233 Jobs Not Found Under Title II by Will Rinehart, AAF Director of Technology and Innovation Policy

Most Exchange Enrollees Will Never Reach Deductible by Conor Ryan, AAF Health Care Data Analyst