|
Energy and Environment
Like Cheap Natural Gas? Obama’s Clean Power Plan Will Regulate It Out of Existence
U.S. households are saving hundreds of dollars a year because natural gas prices are low, but that’s about to change. A study by NERA Economic Consulting has found new regulations on power plants mandated by the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan will increase natural gas prices to 2007 levels, virtually guaranteeing these savings will soon be wiped out. Isaac Orr, research fellow at The Heartland Institute, examines the impact of the Clean Power Plan regulations. Read more
Education
Well-Informed Parents Are Essential in the K–12 Education Marketplace
Well-informed parents are essential to ensure good educational quality. This assertion is based on a fundamental principle of the discipline of information economics: Consumers need reliable information about the goods and services they seek to purchase. This is a necessary condition for a healthy marketplace. David Anderson, a policy advisor for The Heartland Institute, takes the reader through a step-by-step analysis of why there is an absence of good consumer information. Read more
Property Rights and Regulation
Research & Commentary: Oklahoma Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform
Oklahoma’s civil asset forfeiture laws give law enforcement officials significant financial incentives to seize property, according to the Institute for Justice. A new effort to reform Oklahoma’s civil asset forfeiture law is underway. In May, state Sen. Kyle Loveless (R-Oklahoma City) introduced a civil asset forfeiture reform bill requiring a criminal conviction before agencies could keep property or funds. This would not stop police from seizing property they believe to be part of a crime, but property owners not ultimately convicted of a crime would be allowed to retrieve their property. In this Research & Commentary, Heartland Senior Policy Analyst Matthew Glans argues Oklahoma lawmakers should strongly consider these reforms. They should work to ensure assets are seized only for legal reasons and remove the incentive for law enforcement to seize more property than is necessary. Read more
Health Care
Research & Commentary: Are Regulations Slowing Growth of the Craft Brewing Industry?
The Brewers Association reports production at craft breweries – facilities making no more than six million barrels annually – increased by roughly 18 percent in 2014 over the previous year, generating $19.6 billion in sales. That impressive growth has occurred despite myriad local, state, and national laws creating barriers to new entry and expansion. Although some of these requirements have a legitimate public safety purpose, jumping through all the hoops is often unnecessarily time-consuming and expensive. Many of the restrictions serve to protect existing businesses who have the resources to manage government bureaucracy more effectively from competition w than craft brewers can. In this Research & Commentary, Heartland Senior Policy Analyst Matthew Glans advises state legislators to lower regulatory burdens on brewers, as on all businesses. Market competition will reward the brewers who create and market a product consumers want to buy. Read more
Constitutional Reform
We Need a Constitutional Convention, Part 1
In this Heartlander article, Edmund Contoski writes about how reckless government spending and uncontrollable federal debt have created an unavoidable monetary disaster ahead. Contoski argues a constitutional convention is needed to stop the endless growth in spending. “The door to unlimited federal spending was opened by President Richard Nixon in 1971 when he severed the last link between the dollar and gold by ending foreign central banks’ ability to exchange dollars for U.S. gold. Politicians realized that more spending produced more votes to keep them in office, so with no limit on federal spending, the mountain of debt just kept on growing.” Read more
From Our Free-Market Friends
The Books That Begat ‘Big Green’
Ron Arnold, executive vice president of the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise; Paul Driessen, a senior policy advisor with the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow; and Capitol Research Center Senior Editor Dr. Steven J. Allen authored a terrific article titled “The Books That Begat ‘Big Green'” in the latest issue of Green Watch, a publication of the Capital Research Center. The article offers an excellent history of modern environmentalism by examining a half-dozen books that have defined the Green movement’s issues and the tactics it uses, including scientific fraud, to discredit honest scientists and quality research. Read more
|
