The Heartland Institute

The Heartland Institute is partnering with the Germany-based European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE) to host the Eighth International Conference on Climate Change November 30 - December 1 in Munich, Germany. The event is also the Fifth International Conference on Climate and Energy. This is the second time Heartland ...

This draft legislation outlines a Michigan school finance system in which most state per-pupil funding would follow individual students to any public school the student chooses to attend. Districts would be free to choose whether they want to accept non-district students. The 302-page proposal would also give early high school ...

Michigan’s 2012 budget incentivized school districts to solicit bids from outside vendors to provide support services, among other best practices. The Mackinac Center for Public Policy’s 2012 school privatization survey shows many districts took the incentive and contracted for at least one of the three main support services. In ...

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson must not have gotten the memo about the Barack Obama administration would be the most open and transparent presidential administration ever. The House Science, Space and Technology Committee is investigating whether U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa Jackson is conducting official ...

Evergreen State College says it would be sued for discrimination if it refuses to allow a man to wander around naked in the college’s women’s locker room in the presence of young girls, and use the sauna with his male genitalia visible, because the man gender-identifies himself as a woman. Elementary and high school ...

In the past few years members of Congress have proposed several bills to expand states’ ability to tax purchases made online and from mail-order catalogs. The Main Street Fairness Act, Marketplace Equity Act, and Marketplace Fairness Act all would expand states’ ability to charge sales taxes on out-of-state retailers regardless ...

Across the country, governors face two key decisions post-election : do they force the feds to implement exchanges, or do they try to do it themselves, in which case the states have to rush to make them work, to pay for them with higher taxes on premiums, and could see a good deal of political blowback; and do they implement ...

Family fragmentation undeniably hurting U.S. social mobility and the economy—but what to do about it? And how can education help? Dr. Mitch Pearlstein joins the podcast to discuss this topic, related to his book, From Family Collapse to America’s Decline, forthcoming book, and a recent symposium he hosted about how to benefit ...

Several states either have begun transitioning away from franchise taxes or are considering repeal. A franchise tax is a state tax levied on businesses and partnerships chartered within a state. It acts as a privilege tax: A company paying the tax is allowed to do business in a state under its corporate name. Franchise taxes ...

The Obama administration maintains that pushing hospitals and physicians to adopt electronic medical records will improve efficiency, increase patient safety, and reduce health care costs. But as more providers transition to EMRs, there has been an unexpected consequence: Billions of dollars in higher costs for Medicare, private ...

Residents of certain states banning payment of an entry fee, or other payments, for participation in a game of skill can’t enter the National Geographic magazine photography contest, which requires a $15 entry fee from participants. That means, the National Geographic Web site warns, “Contest is void in Cuba, Iran, New Jersey ...

With the reelection of President Barack Obama, the implementation of the federal health care law is moving forward, leaving states that have resisted implementation to make some key health care decisions. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has long encouraged states to implement their own health insurance ...

Will Obama Tax the Internet? Seton Motley, President of LessGovernment.org discusses the future of the internet under President Obama. ...

Arizona Department of Environmental Quality officials denounced the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s decision to impose unnecessarily strict air pollution controls at the AEPCO Apache Generating Station near Benson, the APS Cholla Power Plant near Joseph City, and the SRP Coronado Generating Station near St. Johns under a ...

The Administration has now released a draft executive order (EO) on cybersecurity, and with President Obama’s recent re-election, the likelihood that the EO will be issued has only increased. Furthermore, Senate majority leader Harry Reid (D–NV) has promised to bring the similarly flawed Cybersecurity Act of 2012 up for another ...

Working Paper Series At issue is an EPA regulation, known as Regional Haze, which requires that states improve visibility at federal National Parks. In June 2011, New Mexico proposed a Regional Haze plan that required a $36-million retrofit at the San Juan Generating Station. Three months later, in August 2011, the EPA rejected ...

James M. Taylor, senior fellow for environment policy at The Heartland Institute and managing editor of Environment & Climate News, talks with Jim Lakely about the future of energy and environment policy in a second term for Barack Obama. Taylor and Lakely cover the Interior Department’s decision to put 1.6 million acres ...

Friday's news roundup: 1. Political advocacy has no place in classrooms, writes Esther Cepeda. 2. Tennessee's Commercial Appeal comes out in support of school vouchers . 3. A federal court strikes down a voter-approved ban on affirmative action in Michigan university admissions. 4. Virginia parents complain their district paid $7 ...

There is a rich variety of data from the USA that demonstrates that raising tax rates often reduces revenues and vice versa. This is especially so when raising taxes from the high rates that are currently in place. So-called fiscal stimulus policy does not work. A stimulus has to be financed and the income effects on those ...

Thirty-five Mississippi schools have performed so poorly for three years in a row that parents can now convert them into charter schools under the state’s 2010 Parent Trigger law. This is the first year any Mississippi schools are eligible. About 50 schools improved their performance and thus avoided the eligible list. “Mississippi ...