The Heartland Institute

An abundance of domestic energy will enable the United States to cut in half its reliance on oil from the Middle East by the end of the decade, and could end any reliance at all by 2035, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). New Technologies Boost Outlook America’s bright energy outlook is due to ...

Financially strapped homeowners stand to become even more downtrodden in 2013. As Congress focuses on the upcoming federal elections, a little-known or -understood law is scheduled to reappear, potentially costing those in foreclosure or loan modification thousands of dollars in new tax liabilities. "There is a very dark cloud ...

Facebook has quietly launched a real-money online gambling application in the U.K., marking a major thrust of the social networking site into online gambling. The Financial Times is reporting that starting this week, Facebook will offer users in the U.K. ages 18 and over online bingo and slots for cash prizes. Slate.com picked ...

Pennsylvania’s legislature is considering legislation that would end school property taxes and instead increase income and sales taxes to raise the $13 billion the state spends on K-12 schools. “It’s been very well received,” said state Sen. Dave Argall (R-Schuylkill), cosponsor of Senate Bill 1400. “People just hate the school ...

Unless there is a substantial change in leadership in Washington in the next election, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) will go into effect as planned. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the measure as constitutional in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, Sup. Ct. Docket Nos. 11-393 and ...

Private donors are stepping up to help California keep its state parks open, allowing state officials to forego plans to close 70 of California's 278 state parks. Low Attendance, Revenues The Parks and Recreation Department had targeted the 70 state parks for closure due to low attendance and low revenues. Parks and Recreation ...

In this news story from Greenwire, Nick Juliano of the Energy and Evironment Daily reports that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) gave a speech in Las Vegas detailing his hopes to tax carbon emissions to combat climate change. ...

A new genetic study suggests polar bears arose between 4-5 million years ago and thus survived the more than 50 glacial/interglacial cycles of the Pleistocene... Read More Regional Climate Models: How Well Do They Work? (7 August 2012) A new study finds there is still a long, long way to go before they are likely to ...

The Supreme Court’s decision on the constitutionality of the individual mandate to buy health insurance was an unprecedented expansion of federal powers, blindsiding the parties and virtually obliterating the notion that the federal government is one of limited, enumerated powers. The majority opinion held the government does not ...

In this story for Think Progress, Stephen Lacey reports on a speech by Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) who wants to pass a carbon emissions tax. The speech includes a lengthy section of his speech related to climate change and global warming. ...

Local school districts covetously control vacant school buildings across the nation while public charter schools struggle to house students as charter numbers grow in many districts. The real estate crisis was ranked the number one external obstacle to charter growth by the National Charter School Research Project’s most recent ...

A coalition of conservative and free-market policy groups has sent a letter to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lisa Jackson urging her to defer to Alaska state officials regarding a proposed mining operation on state land. The proposed mine promises to be one of the most lucrative in the world, and the Pebble ...

States are taking very different attitudes toward implementation of President Obama’s health care law after it survived constitutionality tests thanks to Chief Justice John Roberts. Although some states see the Roberts decision as a green light to go forward, others understand the decision as giving them control over their imperiled ...

Environmental activists delayed the launch of an environmentally friendly oil shale project in southeastern Utah’s Unita Valley, pending the outcome of more study of the project’s expected effect on groundwater near the site. State Approved Project Earlier this year the Utah Division of Oil, Gas, and Mining awarded an oil shale ...

According to a report by the Texas Transportation Institute, the cost of urban traffic congestion, converted to a dollar value, quintupled between 1982 and 2007. Although congestion costs have fallen recently due to the recession and decreased economic activity, the cost of urban congestion remains more than $100 billion a year ...

Recent research demonstrates a growing divide among America’s wealthier and poorer households. The groups used to diverge mainly on income, with poorer people routinely moving up the ladder throughout their lives and their children’s lives, but in recent decades the two have begun to differ also by habits of personal behavior ...

With the nation’s economy still in the doldrums, unemployment compensation funds in many states have become insolvent. One reason is that waste and fraud plague the system. In some states nearly 20 percent of all benefit payments result from error or fraud, according to the National Center for Policy Analysis. A July 2012 ...

Review of Silent Spring at 50: Reflections on an Environmental Classic , by Roger E. Meiners and Andrew P. Morriss (PERC, 2012), 32 pages I have been writing about Rachel Carson’s infamous book Silent Spring for much of the 50 years since its publication. With ten years of environmental education behind me when the book was ...

In Massachusetts, Governor Deval Patrick shows us what the future looks like for life under Obamacare: a total government takeover of the marketplace. Massachusetts spends more per capita on health care than any other state and therefore more than anywhere else in the industrialized world. Costs are 27% higher than the U.S ...

A judge recently ruled that a Parent Trigger petition from parents in Adelanto, California is valid and their request to convert their children’s school to a charter must go into effect. California is the first state to pass a Parent Trigger law, which a dozen other states also have considered. It allows a simple majority ...