The Heartland Institute

As if Chicago police didn’t have enough to do. As of the end of September 2012, 400 people were murdered in the city, largely due to gang shootings. The death toll is expected to reach 500 by the end of the year. Yet one Chicago alderman wants a new law requiring jail time for persons caught feeding pigeons. It’s already ...

The economic, environmental, and political realities surrounding a carbon tax are clear indications that this is bad policy. Recently, two bipartisan resolutions publicly denounced the possibility of a carbon tax, highlighting the crushing economic and minimal environmental effects of the tax. One resolution, sponsored concurrently ...

Kansas Renewable Energy Mandate January 9, 2013 Problem In May 2009, House Bill 2369 established a renewable portfolio standard (RPS) for the state of Kansas, requiring the state's utilities to generate or purchase a percentage of their electricity from a list of eligible resources including wind, solar, small-scale hydropower, and ...

Cigarette taxes have been in the news lately, and not just because politicians keep raising them. What’s new is that state and local levies have grown so onerous in some parts of the country that they almost could be called “prohibition by price.” And like other forms of prohibition, this one has led to a spike in smuggling ...

With the Illinois legislature back in session, representatives of the oil and gas industry and environmental activists are directing their attention to Senate Bill 3280, an amendment to the Oil and Gas Act currently pending in the House Rules Committee. The legislation would impose regulations on the process of hydraulic fracturing ...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency rejected a bipartisan request from 10 governors, dozens of U.S. congressmen, and a coalition of livestock and poultry groups to temporarily waive a requirement that transportation fuel be blended with ethanol. Under the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), which was signed into law by President ...

English teachers nationwide are puzzling over a math problem: How to include the right percentages of “informational text” new standards demand in their classes. In 2010, 45 states adopted the same lists detailing what kids should know in English and math at each K-12 grade. Although advocates promised uniformity would bring ...

Traditional economic models of how to manage environmental problems relating to renewable natural resources, such as fisheries, have tended to recommend either government regulation or privatisation and the explicit definition of property rights. These traditional models ignore the practical reality of natural resource management. Many ...

This exhaustive study by the United States Geological Survey and Dept of the Interior, uncovered no groundwater contamination from natural-gas drilling in the energy-rich Fayetteville Shale in Arkansas. The findings from this study were based on the sampling of 127 domestic wells in the western part of the shale-gas production ...

It's no coincidence that states with the highest taxes on cigarettes have the highest rates of cigarette smuggling . . . and other crimes related to the trade in cigarettes to avoid high taxes, says Michael LaFaive of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. ...

James Taylor discusses his upcoming global warming debate with Ray Bellamy, M.D., a Tallahassee Orthopedic Surgeon. ...

The nation’s biggest school choice party will grow eight times bigger this year with thousands of events initiated and attended by tens of thousands of students, parents, teachers, and community leaders, said Andrew Campanella, president of National School Choice Week. “You can have a lot of whitepapers and research and polls ...

After more than 50 years of declining food prices, ethanol subsidies and mandates have caused a dramatic rise in U.S. food prices since 2005, data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture show. The data were pulled together in a new study by FarmEcon LLC, an agriculture and food industry consulting firm. ...

A coalition of advocacy groups has sued Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal to overturn a constitutional amendment 59 percent of voters approved in November. Constitutional Amendment One allows the General Assembly to authorize charter schools that have been denied by local school districts. Organizations including the Georgia School Boards ...

I must doff my hat to Charles Gasparino. Early last year, the fiery Fox Business Network correspondent and I were brought together for a few bread-and-circuses TV debates on the topic of municipal bankruptcy. We were both keying off some late-2010 comments that CNBC banking analyst Meredith Whitney made to the effect that ...

Hobby Lobby, the big-box craft store chain, recently lost the first round of its case against the administration over President Obama’s contraception mandate. The national chain will be fined $1.3 million per day starting January 1st if it does not pay for contraception, sterilization, and abortifacients through employer-provided ...

Two conservation groups struck a deal with private property owners to preserve 554 acres of land in Sonoma County, California. Analysts say the deal, which creates the Bohemia Ecological Preserve, could serve as a model for future conservation efforts utilizing free market principles instead of government dictates. The two conservation ...

Those interested in raising revenue and combatting global warming miss 3 crucial points in instituting a carbon tax. It would damage the economy It woud not save the planet It would not result in any revenue neutraility or revenue swap/offset Therefore, the brief concludes that the tax would harm the economy and have little ...

Arizona consumers can expect higher electricity costs as a result of new EPA restrictions on three Eastern Arizona power plants. Arizona state environmental officials say the EPA restrictions are too costly and will provide no perceptible environmental benefits. EPA Rejects Arizona Plan The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality ...

Missouri legislators are considering an education reform that has garnered significant national attention: the Parent Trigger. The legislation, first passed in California, has been considered in approximately 20 other states, and state legislators in four states have stated their intentions to propose it in early 2013. A Parent ...