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Month: May 2023

Stephen Kent joins Consumer Choice Center to expand its media capabilities worldwide

May 30, 2023

WASHINGTON, D.C — In this new role with the Consumer Choice Center, Stephen Kent will work to strengthen the CCC’s media presence in North America, the EU and Asia, with an additional focus on government affairs and coalitions in Washington, D.C. He’ll advance its campaigns: Fit For Growth, Lifestyle Choice and Tech Innovation.

The CCC has notched significant wins for consumers in 100+ countries and tracks regulatory trends in Washington, Brussels, Ottawa, Brasilia, London, Geneva.

We’ve played a key role in the rolling back of Canada’s harmful excise tax on non-alcoholic beer, onerous professional licensing in Brazil, vaping flavor bans in several US states, and the protection of streaming content from new limits in Mexico. 

  • “Bringing Stephen on to advocate on behalf of consumers is a huge victory. As a marketing whiz, former TV host, and published author, as well as someone with significant experience placing writers and commentators into media we are thrilled to welcome Stephen into the fold of consumer choice advocates in the U.S. and beyond,” said Consumer Choice Center Deputy Director Yaël Ossowski. 

Some points about Stephen Kent:  

  • Stephen Kent comes to the Consumer Choice Center with nearly a decade of experience advocating for individual liberty including as the Spokesperson for Young Voices, where he trained countless young writers and policy analysts in the trade of communications and public speaking. 
  • He has been published in USA Today, Washington Examiner, Reason Magazine, RealClearPolitics, Charlotte Observer, Raleigh News & Observer, The Federalist, The American Conservative, The American Spectator and seen on Fox News, Fox Business, Cheddar News, Al Jazeera & more.
  • Kent was previously the host of Al Jazeera’s 2021 program, Right Now with Stephen Kent, a YouTube program for political talk and influencer interviews. He is the author of How The Force Can Fix The World: Lessons on Life, Liberty & Happiness from a Galaxy Far, Far Away (Hachette / Center Street), the definitive book on the relevance of Star Wars to contemporary politics during a time of populist movements worldwide. 

You will be able to contact Stephen by email stephen@consumerchoicecenter.org or on Twitter @Stephen_Kent89.

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CCC is a consumer advocacy group supporting lifestyle freedom, innovation, privacy, science, and consumer choice. Regulators on local, national, and supranational levels keep regulating more and more areas of consumers’ lives. This leads to less consumer choice and makes products more expensive. We empower consumers to raise their voice in media, online, on the streets and facilitate activism toward a more empowered consumer in North America, Central and South America, the EU, Asia and Africa.

The government must end spreading myths around vaping to prevent the spread of false information

KUALA LUMPUR, 25th May 2023 – The Consumer Choice Center (CCC) demands that the government must stop issuing myths or false statements about vaping being more dangerous than cigarettes in order to avoid misunderstandings and the spread of inaccurate information to consumers and the public.

Representative of the Malaysian Consumer Choice Center, Tarmizi Anuwar said: “It is time for the government to stop spreading myths or false information about vaping being supposedly more dangerous than cigarettes. Many internationally recognized scientific studies have concluded that switching completely to vaping provides important health benefits as opposed to continuing to smoke.

In September 2022, the latest research from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) at King’s College London found that the use of vaping products compared to smoking leads to a significant reduction in exposure to toxins that promote cancer, lung disease and cardiovascular disease.

In addition, Tarmizi also said that claims about vaping causing diseases such as EVALI and popcorn lung is completely deceptive as advertised and there needs to be a law based on facts and scientific studies to regulate vaping products immediately.

“So much misleading news are connecting e-cigarettes to lung injuries known as EVALI. But the root cause is the abuse of prohibited substances containing vitamin E acetate and not legal vaping products.”

“A study conducted by Research Cancer UK indicates that e-cigarettes generally do not cause pulmonary disease known as popcorn lung. To date, no confirmed cases of popcorn lung have been reported among individuals using electronic cigarettes or vaping products.”

“That is why it is important that facts and science be used as the primary means of formulating legislation aimed at setting quality and safety standards for vaping. This not only protects consumers, but also ensures that vaping is one of the effective tools in helping people quit smoking.”

Regarding the so-called many teenagers around the world becoming addicted to nicotine and taking cigarettes because of vaping, Tarmizi believes there is no data to support the view that this problem is spreading among teenagers but believes that vaping underage should not be allowed.

Recently, the Director of the Center for Tobacco Products, Food and Drug Administration, Dr. Brian King said that vaping is not a gateway to smoking for teenagers. He said the use of cigarettes and smoke-free tobacco has declined more rapidly since 2012, when the use of e-cigarettes began to rise.

In addition, the health charity that aims to end the dangers of tobacco established by the Royal College of Physicians, Action on Smoking and Health, states that youth smoking rates are at an all-time low in the United Kingdom and that the use of electronic cigarettes by youth between 11-18 years old is rare.

“However, minors should not be allowed to vape. In order to avoid or reduce the risk of this happening, the government needs to enforce age restrictions through smart rules such as using modern age verification technology for online sales,” he concluded.

If Brendan Carr is reconfirmed to the FCC, how will consumers fare?

CCC Managing Director, Fred Roder (left), FCC’s Brendan Carr (middle), CCC Deputy Director Yaël Ossowski (right)

On Monday, President Joe Biden re-nominated Brendan Carr to the Federal Communications Commission. For consumer advocates like us at the Consumer Choice Center who work on many issues related to tech innovation and the protection of our rights online, that’s welcome news.

Now, the US Senate must confirm Carr’s nomination. It would be a welcome opportunity to continue efforts and opportunities to both support and defend consumer choice.

Throughout his tenure at the chief telecom regulator, Carr has chiseled out his space as a principled voice and worthy fighter for many consumers issues.

His dedication to the expansion of rural broadband access, smart investment in telecom and Internet infrastructure, and common-sense rules to help facilitate American ingenuity and entrepreneurship stand out as some major achievements.

Whether it was the repeal of Title II classification for Internet Service Providers (net neutrality), the protection of free speech, or his desire to address the influence of the Chinese Communist Party through TikTok and other platforms, Carr has never missed an opportunity to an evidenced-based approach vital to policymaking.

We hope to continue working with Commissioner Carr in his new tenure despite some disagreements on the nuances of specific policies because we believe he is earnest, sincere, and willing to hear arguments and policy cases from all sides of the aisle. There will be many opportunities to ensure policies are in the interest of consumers.

Issues such as online free speech, upholding Section 230, and how best to avoid government interference in content moderation will prove to be pivotal issues in the next term, and it will be of great benefit to a wide spectrum of American consumers to have someone like Brendan Carr at the helm.

If US Senators confirm Carr for another tenure, we look forward to working together for smart policies to benefit consumers around the country.

Here is a clip of our conversation with FCC Commissioner Carr on Consumer Choice Radio:

EU’s whopping $1.3 billion fine shows it’s becoming a lonely island of restrictive regulation and rule

DUBLIN, IRELAND – On Monday, it was revealed that a 1.3 billion euro (1.3 billion USD) fine will be levied against the American tech firm Meta for GDPR violations stemming from the lapsing of the EU-US Privacy Shield in 2020.

The Irish Data Protection Commission is responsible for levying the fine, even though it disagrees with it, but must follow the binding decision of the European Data Protection Board, which evaluates violations of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Though negotiations between the United States and the European Union on a privacy framework are still ongoing, the EU decided to impose this record fine regardless.

Yaël Ossowski, deputy director of the global consumer advocacy group Consumer Choice Center, responds:

“This retaliatory fine imposed by the EU — in the midst of privacy shield negotiations with the US — reveals the bloc is more interested in shaking down tech firms who deliver value to their users all the while providing no clear direction for global companies that already have millions of European users. 

“A good faith effort to work with US officials on a privacy deal, who are constrained by their own institutions and laws, would have yielded a much better result for consumers on either side of the Atlantic,” added Ossowski.  

“Instead, the EU is using ex-post-facto policing power that will likely diminish the online tech experience for European users and initiate a chilling in tech innovation on the continent.

“Once again, it seems the EU is responding to the changing face of innovation with bureaucratic committees and fines, rather than responsible and clear rules that anyone can follow.

“Rather than making Europe ‘fit for a digital age,’ these record fines and inability to work with global innovators demonstrates that the European Union is becoming an lone island of restrictive regulation and rule — and that’s at the expense of consumers,” concluded Ossowski.

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The Consumer Choice Center is an independent, non-partisan consumer advocacy group championing the benefits of freedom of choice, innovation, and abundance in everyday life.

We champion smart policies that are fit for growth, promote lifestyle choice, and embrace tech innovation for tens of thousands of our members and society-at-large, using research and educational outreach to policymakers and the broader public. Learn more at consumerchoicecenter.org.

GOVERNMENT ARROGANCE DEFIES SCIENTIFIC FACTS

It may surprise those who need to become more familiar with how politics works in Hungary. Still, it is just business as usual for those familiar with the government’s stand on policy issues.

Whenever opposition members of parliament raise a sensible policy issue, the Hungarian government finds a way to either discredit the MP, shove the topic off the table, or completely disregard the issue. This was no different when László Lukács, the party group leader of Jobbik-Conservatives, asked the Minister of the Interior a question about revisiting the regulation regarding e-cigarettes. (It might be worth another article on what the Minister of the Interior has to do with health issues, but Hungary has not had a Health Ministry since Fidesz took over 13 years ago).

MP Lukács enquired about the possibility of changing the law since it has been in effect for seven years and new scientific evidence has come to light in many countries; people have experienced positive results due to more flexible legislatures and common sense.

But this is Hungary, where many policy issues meet with the arrogance of government officials who disregard facts and only focus on humiliating their colleagues in opposition.

The reply by the State Secretary was relatively straightforward. The Hungarian government considers vaping harmful and would not plan on changing the present legislation: no consideration, no openness to new studies, and no interest in looking at best practices.

The attitude of the State Secretary has shocked Michael Landl, the director of the World Vapers’ Alliance (the guest on our podcastsome months ago), who issued a press release about the official statement presented by the Hungarian government. According to Mr. Landl, “It is shocking that the Hungarian government still pedals worn-out and debunked myths about vaping. Rétvári systematically ignores scientific evidence proving the benefits of vaping, not to mention the first-hand experience of millions of vapers. Vaping is 95% less harmful than smoking and a more effective method to quit smoking than traditional therapies such as gum and nicotine patches. The Hungarian approach to vaping will do nothing but cost lives.” 

The director of the WVA also claims that the statement shows that Hungary ignores science and spreads misinformation about vaping. He says that “This is not a good sign for public health. Vaping is not the same as smoking and must be treated differently. Equating a 95% less harmful alternative with smoking will prevent thousands of smokers from quitting.”

It is worth noting that the Hungarian government disregards Swedish and British examples showing the success of using vaping as a harm reduction tool to give up smoking.  These two countries are experiencing record-low smoking rates and illnesses attributed to smoking, and they provide the world with good examples of switching from smoking to vaping. This, however, falls on deaf ears in the prohibitionist Hungarian government, which would probably also defend witchcraft if its interests required it.

Originally published here

Would Lina Khan’s real-life FTC break up Succession’s fictional Waystar RoyCo?

The truth is often stranger than fiction.

In this season of the hit HBO show Succession , viewers are subjected not just to the business antics of the troubled Roy family but also to politicians and regulatoryagencies using their power to rein in the firm’s activities and acquisitions.

Though it is a work of fiction, the writers obviously take inspiration from the present: a CEO patriarch, a global media empire, anti-corporate populist politicians, and crackdowns from agencies such as the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission.

As a thought experiment, how would contemporary regulatory agencies deal with the ascension of the Roy clan and their many businesses? If the latest season is any indication — cue the standard spoiler alert — there would be as much activity in the fictional Roy boardroom as in the halls of the very real FTC.

After the death of the CEO family patriarch Logan Roy, his two sons Kendall and Roman ascend to co-CEO positions at the Waystar RoyCo conglomerate and must deliver (per their father’s wishes) a shaky acquisition of the Swedish tech streaming platform known as GoJo. 

In the show, Waystar is a major corporate behemoth composed of newspapers, video games, publishing, news networks, a film studio, theme parks, a cruise line, a streaming platform, and a telecom company with a less-than-stellar rocket ship launch record.

Even though much of the regulatory heat on the company in previous seasons has been focused on bad behavior regarding its cruise lines, we do see the antitrust hammer wielded by Sen. Gil Eavis, our fictional blend of Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA). In the show, it’s over whether the company’s national news network should be able to purchase local news stations. This senator wants the government to intervene.

On these facts alone, it’s not a stretch to see how FTC Chairwoman Lina Khan would take significant action against Waystar’s acquisitions.

Her neo-Brandeisian philosophy on antitrust, which aims to dismantle corporate power based on market share and business structure, rather than consumer welfare, would mean Waystar’s actions would certainly get forceful disapproval from the regulator, if not a set of punitive rulemaking to try to slow it down.

The FTC under Khan’s leadership has already attempted to halt several high-profile acquisitions on a much smaller scale: Microsoft’s purchase of video game company Activision and Meta’s acquisition of the VR fitness app Within.

Waystar’s significant holdings would not only be fodder for the Khan FTC but would likely make them the chief antagonist of her entire tenure, much like we see with the various actions, consent decrees, and heightened alert around tech giant Meta and its business dealings.

In the latest season, attention turns to the Swedish streaming giant GoJo — a fictional blend of Spotify, Netflix, and Amazon Prime — and whether the Roy brothers should consider selling off Waystar’s assets to the eccentric tech billionaire Lukas Matsson. The brothers, later unconvinced of the deal, aim to stoke regulatory flames to stall and eventually kill the deal.

In truth, if patterns of the present were applied to the silver screen, the FTC’s focus would be exclusively on GoJo rather than the Roys — either for its acquisition by Waystar or the other way around. 

As an innovative tech company with dozens of products, reach to billions of consumers, and a business model that relies on advertising and partnerships, the fictional GoJo (Swedish or not) would represent everything this current FTC, and most in the Democratic Senate, have sought to quash.

In a lasting bit of irony, Lina Khan’s FTC would likely share the same goals as the fictional billionaire Roy brothers: to destroy the GoJo acquisition and make sure consumers are “protected” from innovative companies trying to get an edge. 

Whether it be the FTC’s proposed hamstringing of AI firms to prevent “ online harm ,” blocking acquisitions of companies that quickly screen cancers or provide healthcare data to insurers, or using left-leaning interpretations of antitrust law to stop mergers that would bring benefits to users of gaming, VR, and social media (Activison, Within, etc.), consumers are being kept from real innovations that would improve their lives. When will consumers have a say?

Originally published here

Biden’s Air Passenger Compensation Scheme Smoke and Mirrors

President Joe Biden and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg have announced plans that would require airlines to pay compensation to passengers in case of flight disruptions that are within the purview of the airline. The move echoes legislation that has existed in the European Union for almost two decades.

In principle, delay compensation sounds good. If an airline fails to make you arrive on time at your destination out of its own incompetence, compensation will make up for the lost time and incentivize the company to do better in the future. Exemptions such as bad weather conditions make sure that the company isn’t unjustly punished for situations for which it is not responsible.

In fact, American travel influencers are keen to explain online that a delay in Europe can get them easy cash, and passengers can access compensation payments well beyond the actual price of their ticket.

However, EU261, which is the law requiring airlines to compensate passengers for delays, has a set of problems that would also extend to the U.S. if Biden’s plans go ahead. Most importantly, rather than a compensation scheme, you can think of the policy as a mandatory insurance plan.

Insurance companies currently offer trip delay insurance plans that operate on the same baseline as government compensation programs — and private insurance companies, obviously, will charge you for the privilege. If insurance for passengers is made mandatory, airlines will simply offset the increase in cost to ticket prices, stripping the consumer of the choice of flying insured or not.

In 2011, Irish low-cost airline Ryanair added a little over $2 per ticket to cover the cost of the EU’s mandatory flight compensation rules. Given that Ryanair attempts to offer the lowest fares in Europe — and does not fly intercontinental routes on which delays become considerably more expensive to airlines — it is safe to assume that other carriers added more charges to the ticket.

Flight compensation laws are not a benefit the government grants you; it instead, is a mandatory insurance policy you pay for out of pocket. Now you might say that this constitutes a bonus service you didn’t know you needed and that, given the significant delays of many airlines, you would want it anyway.

On that note, take it from a European like myself who has attempted to seek compensation on multiple occasions: You are much better off dealing with competing insurance companies for trip insurance than with the airline itself.

The process for receiving compensation is deliberately made cumbersome by airlines, who bank on the fact that you don’t consider it worth a few hours to fill out forms and send emails to automated customer service addresses to get your money.

In fact, the process is so complicated that a large number of companies in Europe have specialized in doing the job for you. The catch: They take varying commissions for their services, reducing the amount of compensation you are legally entitled to.

What  Buttigieg and Biden should focus on instead is reforming the FAA air traffic control to avoid avalanches of delays that Americans have had to experience in the past. This would positively impact delays without inundating passengers with a swath of paperwork that they do not want to deal with.

Originally published here

Newly proposed EU rules threaten the clean beauty market

New EU rules are coming after scented candles, perfumes, and wellness routines. The clean beauty cosmetics market has grown substantially as more European customers move from synthetic cosmetics to natural replacements. Put into numbers, the sector reached 2.29 billion euros in 2022 and is projected to surpass 3 billion in 2026. This growth is thanks to water or steam extracts called essential oils. Chances are your favorite sustainable make-up includes one of nine-hundred ninety-two such emulsions – some of which are household names like lavender, cinnamon, rose, and sage. If that were not enough, your preferred bio-degradable perfume most likely comes from one of the fragrances essential oils provide. Nevertheless, consumers should worry about the future of the industry. The European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) wants to move from a risk to a hazard-based assessment of essential oils, leaving the entire business in limbo.

For non-experts, ‘risk’ and ‘hazard’ may sound the same. They are, however, very different ways of thinking about regulation. Hazard assesses the characteristics of a substance alone to arrive at a recommendation; risk, too, looks at the nature of a compound before also considering probabilities and exposure levels. Less abstractly, it’s the difference between judging cars as dangerous per se versus looking at the chances of an accident to decide whether the situation threatens one’s safety.

The consequences of each method are at odds, too. Where hazard will shy away from any material as long as there is even hypothetical proof that it is dangerous, risk assessment accepts that an item may pose a problem only after a certain concentration threshold has been exceeded. Using the same analogy again, it is akin to never hopping into a car out of fear of what could happen on the one hand and deciding to drive after establishing the safest route to go on the other.

The ECHA’s change of heart sees essential oils labeled as dangerous. So long as a single molecule (examined under the right laboratory conditions) becomes an issue, consumers will see a skull and crossbones on the beauty product’s packaging. Buyers then tend (research suggests) to avoid the items on sale.

Producers are consequently in a bind. They could look for alternatives to essential oils, yet most substitutes are already banned under EU regulation 2021/1902. So the option in many cases will be to pull out of the market altogether. As the dominoes fall, shampoos, shower gels, conditioners, foundation make-up, colognes, and deodorants are no longer available. Hazard-based thinking subsequently causes billions of euros in current and future revenue losses and leaves consumers with far fewer options.

The trouble does not end there, though. Several European countries are top producers of essential oils and will take the full brunt of the clean beauty market’s fall. Bulgaria is the world’s champion in rose oil extraction, responsible for distilling almost 2 tonnes of the material annually. Its 92 million euros worth of exports to France and Germany are now in danger. The loss would be another terrible blow to the EU’s poorest nation. France, the world’s third-largest producer of essential oils, sees 458 million euros wiped out thanks to the ECHA’s scheme. Italy is a crucial node in the global supply chain of one emulsion in particular – 95% of all bergamot oil is produced in the southern part of the country by a group of Calabrian families passing down techniques from generation to generation. Interrupting the trade will cost Italy upwards of 174 million euros and disrupt a way of life, all while throwing global trade into chaos.

Hazard cannot, therefore, wish trade-offs away, only worsen them. Giving up on a car will see you stranded when you need one the most; giving up on essential oils throws away valuable products and scuppers an entire business. Policymakers should encourage the ECHA to adopt a risk-based view, judging substances by safe use levels rather than all-or-nothing thinking. Now that is a wellness program all consumers can get behind.

Originally published here

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How Russia Props Up Anti-Science Narratives In Agriculture

As the now year-old war in Ukraine continues to unravel, so do the stories revealing the ruthlessness with which the Russian state has not only intervened in political discourse, but also in areas of global public debate. There are those untruths that further the interests of the Kremlin in a palpable geopolitical way: think “Ukraine has a Nazi government” or “the Maidan Revolution was a U.S.-backed coup”. These lies created fertile soil for skepticism of the wide-scale Western support of Ukraine’s fight against Russia’s aggression, sowing distrust in the institutions of liberal democracies.

The Russian modus operandi isn’t only direct misinformation but also false equivalencies. Since the Russian invasion of Crimea in particular, Russia Today (RT) all across Europe have overemphasized protests in European capitals and given voice to commentators who believe that elections are rigged or institutions controlled by a deep state. The audience left with a critical takeaway: ‘if our own government cheats on us, how can we trust them when they call Russia authoritarian?’ 

Fostering mistrust with their governments is one thing, but now they are being led to believe they cannot trust their food either. For decades, the Russian propaganda machine has distorted the views of Americans on GMOs – despite the fact that most scientists agree they are safe for consumption. Research by the Iowa State University Plant Sciences Institute Faculty Scholars Program found that RT and Russian propaganda outlet Sputnik were the most prolific spreaders of misinformation about transgenic organisms. The extent to which both of these “news” outlets portrayed GM crops in a negative light far outperforms even the coverage of American news organizations traditionally skeptical of genetic engineering. In fact, RT and Sputnik produced more articles containing the word “GMO” than Fox News, CNN, Huffington Post, and Breitbart combined. 

In April last year, Russia Today positively mentioned Trump-backed Pennsylvania Senate candidate Mehmet Oz for “butting heads with Big Pharma and the GMO food lobby”. The site also regularly hosts conspiracy theorist Vandana Shiva, who denounces how the ‘Poison Cartel’ instigates “totalitarian control over life”. The readers of RT will also hear about how Bill Gates exploits the war in Ukraine to advance genetically modified crops or how ‘gene-edited crops are GMOs with a different name’ (which is scientifically inaccurate).

Russian propagandists are exploiting the fact that agricultural regulations are a highly complex and niche issue that requires sufficient background to fully understand. In fact, those who are the most virulently opposed to GMOs happen to know the least about them. 

Americans are split over the benefits of modern agricultural technology. Half of the country is of the impression that food additives (including the fact that agro-chemicals and conventional processing methods were used), and to an equal extent, half of the population believes that GM crops are worse for one’s health than foodstuffs for which no genetic engineering was employed.

The sowing of distrust in the institutions regulating the farming system, presenting it as being controlled by large corporations, is key to the narrative of disinformation campaigns. That said, Russia also seeks to gain from the specific regulatory implications of those beliefs. While Russia does have laws on the books restricting the use of GMOs, it does not have specific regulations that govern the use of new gene-editing technology. Europe has based its restrictions on gene-editing techniques such as CRISPR-Cas9 dating back to 2001, a decade before this specific technology came into the spotlight. Gene-editing can be used to enrich crops to give crops the nitrogen they need to grow, thus reducing the amount of synthetic fertilizers. 

In 2022, Russia’s revenues from fertilizer exports increased by 70%, as they are exempt from Western sanctions imposed since the war in Ukraine began. As the European Union seeks to reduce fertilizer imports from Russia in new sanctions packages, it is also working on a rewrite of the 2001 directive to draw the distinction between GMOs and gene-edited crops.

It is important to note that many environmentalists have opposed aspects of modern agricultural practices from ideological perspectives that have little to do with Russian interference. It is ultimately the choice of each consumer to buy organic foodstuffs or locally sourced from agroecological practices if they so choose. A McCarthyist branding of environmentalist reforms as being pro-Russia is neither fair nor productive. Meanwhile, it is equally important to point out that Russia has used some organizations as a vehicle for its economic interests, particularly in energy policy.

According to ae letter sent to then-Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin by U.S. representatives Lamar Smith and Randy Weber, Hillary Clinton told a private audience in 2016, “We were even up against phony environmental groups, and I’m a big environmentalist, but these were funded by the Russians …”. Several elements point in this direction. WWF Germany, BUND (Friends of the Earth), and NABU (Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union), three environmental organizations who were avowed opponents of Germany’s NordStream pipelines with Russia, dropped their opposition after Gazprom promised funding for environmental protection, according to information revealed in 2011. Representatives of European environmental organizations were board members of a multi-million dollar Gazprom-controlled foundation, raising questions about the political objectives of these organizations.

France’s far-right politician Marine Le Pen – herself having received a $10 million loan from a Russian bank – believes that no distinction should be drawn within GM crops, including those derived from gene-editing technology. Other right-wing parties in Europe hold comparably negative views on the authorization of new varieties in Europe.

The arrival of new agricultural technology presents the opportunities of addressing food safety, security, affordability, and sustainability. There are political and economic incentives for the Russian state to distort the scientific reality of those innovations, presenting major difficulties. It holds true that it is always more difficult to make a corrected record mainstream than to spread a lie.

Originally published here

New Florida bill banning CBDCs passes, arguing they’re not money

The Florida legislature passed a bill Wednesday that effectively bans any central bank digital currency (CBDC) from being used in the state. 

The new policy says CBDCs issued by any country will not meet Florida’s definition of money. The provision rejects a specific part of the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC), a widely adopted piece of model legislation updated by the American Law Institute and the Uniform Law Commission.

Certain 2022 amendments to the UCC have rankled cryptocurrency proponents because they put all privately created crypto outside the legal definition of money. Under the updated meaning, a CBDC is the only type of digital asset that meets the UCC standard.

In March, the Biden administration announced it would assess the benefits and risks of issuing such a currency.

Governor Ron DeSantis responded to this announcement with a plan to ban CBDCs in Florida. The bill passed in both houses of the state legislature with overwhelming majorities and now requires only the governor’s signature to become law.

Read the full text here

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