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Trump Bids Paris Adieu!
H. Sterling Burnett, Climate Change Weekly
Saying it was a bad deal for America, President Donald Trump announced the United States will withdraw from the Paris climate agreement 195 countries negotiated in December 2015. Numerous studies show meeting the carbon dioxide targets imposed on the United States would force the premature closure of many of the least expensive power plants nationwide. Trump also justified his decision by saying the Paris agreement will have little or no impact on the climate and allows major economic or geopolitical competitors like China, India, and Russia, among the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitters, to continue growing their emissions. READ MORE
Paris Climate Agreement and the ‘America First’ Energy Plan
Fred Palmer, Breitbart
During a speech at the Williston Basin Petroleum Conference on May 26, 2016, Trump presented his “America First Energy Plan,” a fundamentally different path for the U.S. fossil-fuel industry. Trump’s plan calls for a significant expansion of the oil, natural gas, and clean-coal industries, showing the president understands the connection between affordable and reliable energy and economic growth better than any American political leader in modern history. He has made the media and the eco-left crazy because he refuses to embrace their vision of apocalyptic global warming. READ MORE
Heartland Institute Experts in Rose Garden as Trump Announces Withdrawal from Paris Climate Agreement
President Donald Trump invited three members of The Heartland Institute’s team – Joseph Bast, Fred Palmer, and Aaron Stover – to the White House to witness a historic moment on Thursday, when he announced the United States will withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement. It was a decision supported by Heartland scholars and spokesmen since we hosted a counter-conference in Paris in December 2015 during the COP-21 meeting that gave birth to the agreement. To a man (and woman), Heartlanders rejoiced at Trump’s decision. READ MORE
Featured Podcast: Kevin Dayaratna: Is America Running Out of Oil?
Is America running out of oil? Dr. Kevin Dayaratna of The Heritage Foundation and Heartland Institute Research Fellow Isaac Orr answer this question and discuss the findings of a new paper written by Dayaratna titled “Time to Unlock America’s Vast Oil and Natural Gas Reserves.” Dayaratna finds oil and gas production will lead to substantial gains in employment in the next 20 years … and Americans can in fact drill their way to lower gas prices. LISTEN TO MORE
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Who’s Afraid of the Demonized ‘V-Word’ in Education?
Robert Holland, Townhall
Teachers-union bigwigs rarely miss an opportunity to pin the “v” word on any school-choice program that gives children a shot at a new educational opportunity outside the government-run schools. They figure they have done such a fine job demonizing the word “voucher” that the general public will run screaming from anything in education tagged with the v-word. After all, voucher sounds like “vulture,” a name some enemies of choice actually have used by way of slamming “corporate privatizers.” READ MORE
DOE Meets With Homeschoolers, Discusses Preserving Autonomy
Teresa Mull, School Choice Weekly
In an unprecedented move, U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos recently met with members of the Home School Legal Defense Association to discuss concerns they have. DeVos reportedly said she believes parents should have control over their children’s educations, which should mean, fingers crossed, getting rid of DOE completely in the near future. READ MORE
Boy Survives Healthcare.gov-like Waterpark Accident
Michael Hamilton, Consumer Power Report
A 10-year-old boy survived ejection from a near-vertical waterslide onto cement on the opening day of a publicly funded San Francisco-area waterpark, the construction of which illustrates many of the hazards of the United States’ government-run, taxpayer-funded health care system. That the boy (and his parents) escaped tragedy at the government-run waterpark may be an especially welcome relief to people familiar with botched government projects. READ MORE
Heitkamp’s Venting and Flaring Mythology
Bette Grande, Grand Forks Herald
Radical environmentalists are once again winning the messaging battle. This time, it’s the Bureau of Land Management’s methane venting and flaring rule – which is supposedly aimed at restricting the amount of methane that is vented or flared in the production of oil. The narrative pushed by the environmental left provides cover for politicians, but it also puts pressure on the Trump administration to ease up on the rollback of environmental regulations. Consistent with the left’s climate agenda, the messaging on the rule is heavy on rhetoric and short on facts. READ MORE
Bonus Podcast: Dr. Stryker, Dr. Bizier: Let Doctors and Patients, not Insurers, Decide Treatment
Should health insurance companies dictate courses of treatment for patients? Should government officials let them? Dr. Matthew Stryker, assistant professor at the Albany College of Pharmacy & Health Services (ACPHS), and Dr. Joseph Bizier, an ACPHS instructor, share a harrowing story of how a non-medically trained government official cited Wikipedia as a reason to let insurers deny a patient treatment recommended by her physicians, putting the patient at risk. LISTEN TO MORE
Can a New Homestead Act Solve the Debt Crisis?
Barry Poulson and John Merrifield, American Spectator
Last week, President Donald Trump released his full budget request, outlining priorities for this year and the subsequent decade. Balancing the federal budget and reducing debt is a formidable task, to say the least. The federal government faces major headwinds against efforts to reduce and eliminate deficits, including slow economic growth, higher interest rates, and explosive growth in entitlement spending. To facilitate a true balanced budget, a sale of a broader range of federal assets that are now underutilized may prove to be a potent solution. READ MORE
Trump’s Budget Proposal Shows the Way to Greatness
Jesse Hathaway, Investor’s Business Daily
Government spending and its evil twin, taxation, harm people every day, sometimes mocking taxpayers by claiming to help them, even as they inflict serious economic damage. Reducing spending and taxes, and therefore reducing the harm they cause, is the best way government can actually help people. President Donald Trump’s recent budget proposal, titled “A New Foundation for American Greatness,” demonstrates the president is interested in returning sanity to how the federal government spends taxpayers’ money. READ MORE
Jim Lakely is the Vice President and Director of Communications of The Heartland Institute.
