Media Hit

If the ban passes, particularly in Texas, it could encourage activists who want broader bans on hydraulic fracturing. "There will be a flood of press releases issued by every environmental group all over the country," he said.

The battle is over a proposed city ban on hydraulic fracturing -- the technique of blasting shale rock with water, sand and chemicals to dislodge oil and gas, often called fracking -- in a referendum on Nov. 4.

Bartlett Cleland said Seattle should be cautious about pursuing municipal broadband given a "highly suspect" track history for such projects.

There is "every reason to believe" that the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) functions "will be consumed" by the ITU, said IPI's Bartlett Cleland.

Those who oppose intellectual property rules in FTAs mostly base their rejection on a fundamental opposition to IP rights protections, rather than to the particulars of trade deals, wrote IPI's Tom Giovanetti. 

"Its tendency to overreach its authority has been magnified by the Obama administration’s general contempt for limits on federal authority,” according to the Institute for Policy Innovation. “So we can most likely expect the FCC to once again divert time and effort to a quixotic and almost certainly futile legal battle.

Matthews points out that it is a benefit to have an innovative industry working every day to tackle the worst diseases, and the Ebola outbreak demonstrates the value of the industry’s contributions to the world. 

Businesses are cutting jobs due to ObamaCare, according to surveys by several regional Federal Reserve Banks.

“This is the biggest push back that I’ve seen in my lifetime," said Merrill Matthews of IPI. "There’s this growing sense that there are areas that are the purview of states, and the states ought to be allowed to do that.”

IPI comments opposed both petitions because a state has a constitutional right to use its prerogative as a state to restrict municipal broadband.