Last week, I was called to testify by the House Energy and Commerce Committee on efforts to reform the troubled Federal Communications Commission. The invitation came in response to several of my posts here on Forbes about the communications industry, and its increasingly unhealthy relationship with the FCC as well as state and local regulators. (See the sidebar for links to some of the articles that got the Committee’s attention.) …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
As senior officials from China and the United States wrap up a series of talks in Washington about an array of economic issues, across town members of Congress probed the extent of Chinese efforts to steal intellectual property from tech companies and other U.S. businesses.
“From defense contractors to manufacturing, no American company has been immune from the scourge of Chinese intellectual property theft,” says Rep. Tim Murphy (R-Pennsylvania), the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s oversight subcommittee.
Among the witnesses on hand was Slade Gorton, a former senator from Washington who serves on the Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property, a group that has been studying the economic impact of the problem, with a particular focus on China.
Gorton cited the commission’s estimate that cyber espionage and other forms of IP theft from foreign countries account for annual losses of $300 billion for U.S. companies. The group attributes between 50 percent and 80 percent of those losses to China.
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Source: FULL ARTICLE at PCWorld
By The Huffington Post News Editors
By Toni Clarke
WASHINGTON, April 16 (Reuters) – The head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration conceded on Tuesday that the agency could have been more aggressive in its oversight of the compounding pharmacy at the center of a deadly meningitis outbreak.
Testifying at a contentious congressional hearing, FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said a confusing legal landscape, combined with resistance from compounding pharmacies, had hampered her agency’s ability to act on a myriad of complaints against the New England Compounding Center and its sister company, Ameridose LLC.
“I wish we had acted earlier,” Hamburg told a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee looking into the outbreak, which has killed 53 people and sickened more than 700.
The hearing was the second held by the committee to determine whether the FDA could have prevented the outbreak and whether it needs greater powers to regulate pharmacies that compound drugs tailored for specific patients. In the past decade, some have come to operate more like traditional pharmaceutical manufacturers, but without the same oversight.
Hamburg said the current legal framework “does not provide FDA with the tools needed to identify and adequately regulate these pharmacies to prevent product contamination.” She asked Congress to allow the FDA to require compounding pharmacies to register with the agency “so we know who they are and what they do.”
Hamburg also would like to ensure a consistent set of safety regulations that would require compounding pharmacies to report any problems associated with their drugs.
“We are hopeful that the Senate will come out with a legislative proposal soon,” said Steven Immergut, an FDA spokesman.
Drawing on roughly 30,000 pages of documents turned over by the FDA, committee members honed in on the agency’s decision, in 2011, to stop initiating inspections of compounding pharmacies until it had finalized new guidance designed to clarify how it would regulate the industry in the face of a complex set of legal decisions dating back years.
The FDA has not made the documents public, saying they are
By Keith Speights, The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
Like a toddler, Obamacare is three years old but only just getting started. And also like a toddler, it appears likely to cause something of a mess. That looks to be particularly true with the health insurance exchanges slated to launch in October of this year. More than half of the states — 26 in total — opted to pass on creating a state-run health insurance exchange. Another seven states elected to go with a hybrid federal-state operation, leaving only 17 states plus the District of Columbia choosing to launch their own exchanges.
Despite the messy beginning, these health insurance exchanges could radically change the health care landscape in the U.S. in the coming years. Here are three companies to closely watch as Obamacare stumbles forward.
1. Selling shovels
As in the days of the gold rush, sometimes it pays more to sell shovels than actually mine the gold. That could be the case with CGI Group . Perhaps no other company is as entrenched in providing the capabilities needed for health insurance exchange as this Canadian information technology firm.
Large consulting firm Accenture landed the contract with the state of California last July to build one of the largest exchanges. Accenture’s bid included sub-contracting part of the work to none other than CGI Group. That’s not surprising. CGI is also involved in helping build state-run exchanges in Colorado, Hawaii, Massachusetts, and Vermont. And remember the large number of states that decided to simply let the feds get the enjoyment of creating health exchanges? CGI is helping develop those platforms, too.
CGI‘s current valuation with a price-to-earnings multiple of nearly 160 looks ridiculously high — until you consider the future earnings expected for the company. When growth estimates are factored in, CGI‘s forward price-to-earnings multiple stands below 11. That’s relatively cheap when we look at the company’s historical valuation.
2. Playing both sides
One company is playing both sides of the fence when it comes to health insurance exchanges. UnitedHealth Group will sell health insurance through the exchanges — and help build the federally-operated exchange also. UnitedHealth’s Optum business unit bought Quality Software Services Inc., or QSSI, in September. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services awarded a contract for helping build the federal health insurance exchange to QSSI and others, including the aforementioned CGI Group, at the beginning of 2012.
Optum’s purchase of QSSI raised eyebrows on Capitol Hill. In December, leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee and the House Energy and Commerce Committee sent a letter to the chairman of QSSI asking pointed questions about the potential of a conflict of interest. Optum executive Andy Slavitt stated that UnitedHealth and Optum are “separately reported financially and separately managed,” noting that Optum’s clients include several UnitedHealth competitors.
Even without the QSSI purchase and its associated controversy, UnitedHealth remains a company to watch as health insurance exchanges are implemented. My interest really isn’t related so much to the financial impact on …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
By Jim Angle
The U.S. has discovered so much more energy than it thought it had that some now talk about the possibility for North American energy independence.
The reason? Advances in technology such as fracking, horizontal drilling and other improvements, which have increased natural gas production by 27 percent in just four years, have made the U.S. number one in gas — with oil on its way.
“We could make OPEC ‘NOPEC’ if we really put our minds to it,” says Charles Drevna of the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers. “We’re talking decades, if not into the 100s of years, of supply in North America.”
Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colo., of the House Natural Resources Committee says, “It’s amazing the amount of energy in North America. When you include our Canadian and Mexican neighbors, we have so many resources that it’s mind boggling.”
And Rep. Ed Whitfield, R-Ky., of House Energy and Commerce Committee adds, “We have the unique opportunity at this particular time in our nation’s history to really be energy independent.”
Jack Gerard, president of oil industry’s American Petroleum Institute says, “It’s very realistic that we could be energy secure as a nation. … It’s been estimated by the Energy Information Agency that we could be the No. 1 oil producer in the world by 2020, surpassing Saudi Arabia. So this is a big deal. It’s a game-changing opportunity, and it’s of historic proportions.”
Even those who share the administration’s desire to reduce the reliance on petrochemicals acknowledge government projections that the U.S. will produce one third more of its own oil by 2020.
One analyst, however, says self reliance must include alternatives, such as wind, solar and more.
“We can reduce our dependence on foreign oil by shifting to electric vehicles and investing in public transportation, as well as having much more efficient cars, which are already under way,” Daniel Weiss of the Center for American Progress said.
Either way, analysts say, being more energy sufficient could bring manufacturers back to the U.S., because they’d have a cheap and reliable source of energy.
“The primary driver right now the manufacturing industry is energy costs,” Gerard said. “When you look at those potential opportunities to build new chemical plants, to expand steel capacity, bring home a lot of those jobs that left over the past decade, the primary driver is the cost of energy.”
The price of natural gas has dropped from $13 to $3, giving the U.S. a huge competitive advantage.
In fact, the U.S. is producing so much natural gas, there’s talk of actually exporting it, meaning hundreds of billions usually sent overseas to buy energy would instead stay here at home to create jobs and boost the American economy.
The hypocrites in the Republican Party of Florida are rolling out the snail mail appeals again “to get everyone back on board.” I sat for a week at the Congressman Allen West debacle in November to watch disappointed Bill Paterson, Chairman of the Republican Executive Committee in St. Lucie County, keep checking his phone calls and Emails. Are they coming? Are they on the way yet? As he said “no” over and over throughout the long sad week, I saw him shrinking from lack of support from the Republican Party of Florida (RPOF) and the attorneys supposedly on their way from Tallahassee (Tally) to oversee the West recount. Nothing! Not one show of support for our brave Colonel West, the only unabashedly vocal spokesman of conservative values in the US House!
I stood in the audience at newly elected Governor Rick Scott’s inaugural celebration when he told conservatives: “If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be standing up here now.” “Thank you so much!” I saw NO members of the RPOF or Republican state lawmakers. Someone said there was “one around”; but if so, he was certainly not on stage with the Governor.
Scott is drawing $1.00 in annual salary. He paid for his own campaign. NO help from the Republican Party. Now get this: “To help the Governor and other Republican candidates defend themselves from the Democrat attack machine, we can’t wait until next January to begin,” says Lenny Curry, State Chairman, RPOF. Through Curry, the Party hopes to take credit for all Governor Scott is doing, mainly by himself and CERTAINLY without their help! Curry says, “Thanks to Governor Scott, our Republican State Cabinet, and our Republican legislature, Florida’s success in creating new jobs and enticing businesses to relocate here has made our state the envy of the nation.” Noteworthy here is the fact that I have seen NO action from the RPOF in St. Lucie County to counter those attacks on the Governor by the liberal-progressives from the Treasure Coast. In fact, when a typically left-leaning Scripps editorialist called Governor Scott a “LOUT,” I stood alone in calling the man and blasting him. Where was the RPOF?
One eminently qualified, retired, conservative Army colonel from Stuart made a run at RINO Congressman Gayle Harrell’s seat in a primary battle. The RPOF told the Colonel they would have to deny him funding as they only support incumbents in primaries. Apparently, this is to reassure the RINO, insider voting base that it needn’t worry; that is, that new blood will be locked out and conservative voices remain unheard! The Colonel lost his primary bid and didn’t run again.
This is just what the insider cabal in Tallahassee want– same old, same old. Republican Representative Scott Plakon, then head of the House Energy committee, ignored appeals from those of us trying to block the roll out of Obama’s smart meters in Florida. The congressman had time to appear on Jon Stewart’s Daily Show and to beg me for donations, but he couldn’t respond to even one of my many letters or to the questions I posed in a 50 page report—a report which HE asked me to DO!
No thanks, Lenny Curry. Your vapid “We need you now more than ever before” appeal has fallen on deaf ears. I did however retrieve your last unopened request for campaign contributions from my garbage can. You will find my response just as powerful as the odor.
And that’s where the rest of your stuff is going. When the spirit moves me, I’ll donate directly to each candidate’s campaign, right at their campaign headquarters from now on. Tally doesn’t rally for me.
Photo Credit: Donkey Hotey (Creative Commons)
