Coal Closures Harm Investors, Workers, and Ratepayers
H. Sterling Burnett, Climate Change Weekly
As a candidate for president, Donald Trump promised to support the jobs of coal miners and stop Obama’s war on coal-fired power plants. Yet utilities, as well as some state and local regulators, are acting as if things will be business-as-usual – proceeding with previously announced plans to close 40 coal-fired power plants in the next four years, including six closures announced since Trump’s victory in November. It’s time for Congress to join the fray and set things right. READ MORE
Vaping, E-cigarettes, and Public Policy Toward Alternatives to Smoking
Brad Rodu, Matthew Glans, and Lindsey Stroud
For decades, lawmakers and regulators have used taxes, bans, and strong regulations in an attempt to reduce the negative health effects of smoking. Recently, some have sought to extend those policies to electronic cigarettes. This booklet urges policymakers to re-think that tax-and-regulate strategy, and describes more sensible, science-based policies on vaping and e-cigarettes. READ MORE
Climategate Redux! NOAA Scientists Fudge, Lose Data
H. Sterling Burnett, Breitbart
Oops, climate scientists did it again! The award-winning scientist responsible for creating, collecting, and maintaining the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s data archive, John Bates, recently disclosed the scandal that NOAA’s climate scientists violated the agency’s rules, rushing to publication data that had yet to be tested and confirmed in order to influence the outcome of the Paris climate negotiations in 2015. In a second breach of agency protocol, the scientists involved failed to properly archive and store their datasets for testing and public disclosure.
Featured Podcast: Stanley Greer: Right-to-Work Makes Sense (and Cents) for Workers
Research fellow and Budget & Tax News Managing Editor Jesse Hathaway talks with Stanley Greer, a senior research associate with the National Institute for Labor Relations Research, about the economic benefits of right-to-work laws. Contrary to fake news about right-to-work laws coming from labor unions in Missouri and other states, right-to-work makes sense for workers, and it makes lots of dollars and sense for those workers, too. LISTEN TO MORE
IT’S ON! HEARTLAND’S NEXT CLIMATE CONFERENCE
The most important conference on climate change held in 2017 is taking place on Thursday and Friday, March 23–24, in Washington DC. An all-star line-up of scientists, economists, and elected officials will explain how and why the Trump administration should reset climate policy away from the fake science and alarmism of the Obama years and toward real science and data. Speakers include Don Easterbrook, Ph.D. (Western Washington University), Myron Ebell (Competitive Enterprise Institute), Bette Grande (former state legislator, ND), Mary Hutzler (Institute for Energy Research), Patrick Michaels, Ph.D. (Cato Institute), Lord Christopher Monckton, Willie Soon, Ph.D. (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics), and many others. Space is limited, so reserve your place today! SUBSCRIBE HERE
New Civics: A Red-Hot Crucible for Radicalizing Academe
Robert Holland, RealClearEducation
Over the past 15 years, scholarly organizations have lamented the severe decline of civic education in U.S. colleges and secondary schools. Their reports cite reams of depressing evidence of students’ appalling ignorance of our heritage and system of government. One example suggests a precipitous generational decline in civic knowledge: Less than one-third of college graduates between the ages of 25 and 34 knew how to amend the Constitution, while 76.7 percent of college graduates over 65 grasped that basic information. READ MORE
Roadmap for the 21st Century: National Defense
The ninth paper in the Roadmap for the 21st Century series describes the importance of U.S. military readiness and three priorities for the new administration. From the paper: “President Barack Obama … seemed to think the road to peace was unilateral disarmament, so we would not appear to threaten anybody. He seemed to think if we voluntarily gave up our nuclear weapons, our rivals would give up theirs, and the world would consequently be saved from nuclear holocaust. That naïve military policy does not take into account evil people whose goal is power, not peace.” READ MORE
Is a National Tax-Credit Scholarship Program on the Horizon?
Teresa Mull, School Choice Weekly
President Donald Trump spoke in favor of education choice during his campaign, and now that he’s in office, Politico reports a national tax-credit scholarship program may be in the works. A federal tax-credit scholarship program is “the only way President Trump can effectively bring school choice to families in the blue states that voted for him in 2016 and others that might in the future,” writes Thomas Carroll at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, and the Trump administration has its work cut out for it. READ MORE
Trump’s IRS Gives Relief to Obamacare Walking Wounded
Michael Hamilton, Consumer Power Report
Of what significance is the Internal Revenue Service’s recent change to the Obama administration’s instruction that the IRS reject tax returns of people who don’t indicate whether they have insurance? Although mostly symbolic, the change of instruction is worth appreciating as a source of relief for people burdened by Obamacare. READ MORE
Bonus Podcast: Marc Morano: NOAA Researchers Violated the Agencies Data Quality and Storage Standards
Marc Morano, publisher of Climate Depot, discusses the growing scandal surrounding newly retired National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration research scientist John Bates’ decision to become a whistleblower and disclose how NOAA scientists violated agency protocols in a rush to publish unverified research. This fudged data originally purported that there had been no 18-year pause in rising temperatures – as every other dataset in the world recorded – but rather insisted global temperatures continued to rise at an alarming rate. LISTEN TO MORE
Advice to Trump: Make Ethanol Grain Again
Isaac Orr, Investor’s Business Daily
On the campaign trail, Donald Trump promised he would stimulate the economy by lifting job-killing regulations and mandates on the energy industry that hurt American workers and consumers. As someone who was born and raised on a dairy farm in Wisconsin and has seen the adverse impacts of the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) firsthand, I want to urge the new president to phase out the RFS entirely and “make ethanol grain again.” READ MORE
On Spending, Is Rand Paul the Last Man Standing?
Barry Poulson, American Thinker
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) was the only senator to vote against Senate Concurrent Resolution 3, which sets the framework for budget negotiations in the 115th Congress. This resolution proposes to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) without changes to other parts of the budget. Though the legislation would repeal ACA, it would also allow the government to continue spending money at ACA-imposed levels. Universal support, with Paul the lone dissenter, suggests Congress is not willing to enact the fundamental reforms in Medicare and Medicaid required to balance the budget. READ MORE
Jim Lakely is the Vice President and Director of Communications of The Heartland Institute.
