The Heartland Institute

According to Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton, topping the list of environmental issues for the 2013 state legislative session is silica or “frac” sand mining. Frac sand has high compressive strength ideal for industrial use, including hydraulic fracturing. Newly usable reserves of natural gas, enough to last the nation for generations ...

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. Historical Price Trends ...

Fort Berthold Indian Reservation sits at the center of the Bakken Oil Field in North Dakota. Since 2010, hundreds of reservation wells have generated more than 30 million barrels of oil, earning the tribal nation more than $500 million. But capitalizing on the boom has not been easy. All Indian minerals are managed in trust ...

Michael Cannon of the libertarian Cato Institute has laid down the gauntlet to supporters of President Obama's health care law, inviting them to debate him anytime or anywhere on a critical point of the law's implementation: whether state refusal to implement health insurance exchanges blocks the penalties packaged within Obama ...

A U.S. Department of Energy-commissioned study finds natural gas exports would benefit the nation’s economy. The study throws cold water on efforts by trade protectionists to pass legislation banning energy companies from transporting natural gas for sale in other countries. All Scenarios Show Benefits The study—produced for the ...

An Ohio teacher is suing her school district for discrimination after they reassigned her from a high school to a junior high school and pressed her to resign. She claims she has a disability, a phobia called “pedophobia, an extreme fear or anxiety around young children.” Around them, she suffers chest pains, anxiety, vomiting ...

Father, teacher, and education policy PhD candidate James Shuls shares what happened to his first-grade son's math instruction when Common Core came to town. His son's school district embarked on a "fuzzy math" policy that confuses kids and deprives them of real math knowledge. This is why, Shuls wrote , parents need school ...

Restricting carbon consumption can be harmful to humanity. Indeed, the chart shows that carbon has increased, and humanity has climbed out of poverty and misery to achieve some happiness and comfort. The author contends that the relationship between carbon consumption and "well-being" is a causal and not a matter of coincidence ...

The world’s 14th-largest deposit of known recoverable uranium is in southern Virginia at Coles Hill in Pittsylvania County. It is valued at $7 billion, is economically recoverable, and sits entirely on private property. In 1982 the Virginia General Assembly placed a moratorium on uranium mining until a thorough study could be ...

In his 2013 State of the State Address, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker proposed cuts in the state’s income tax rates to be phased in over a few years. According to Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester), the tax cut, which could take effect in 2013, would amount to $300 million to $350 million over two years. According to ...

A wave of political rhetoric and action immediately followed the Newtown, Connecticut school shooting that ended 27 lives, in which a mentally ill young man used his mother’s legally acquired guns to kill her, 20 children, and five educators before shooting himself. Many prominent politicians insisted this atrocity showed the ...

It’s clear that under President Barack Obama’s new health care reality, there will be at least two sets of people who will see the most significant premium increases from what they’ve experienced in recent years: people who are young and healthy who no longer experience any premium cost benefit from being young and healthy ...

Education leaders are beginning to publicly worry that two coalitions attempting to determine mandatory tests for some 40 million U.S. students by 2014 can’t pull their massive enterprise together by deadline or at all. This threatens the entire Common Core project, which in 2014 will tie national tests to grade-by-grade education ...

Louisiana parents remain largely satisfied with their kids’ new private schools four months after joining a program that expanded New Orleans vouchers statewide, according to numbers from the state’s education department. Of the 4,944 voucher students in September 2012, 4,815 remained in December, according to two of the four ...

Angelika Weiss’s family “technically can’t afford” online Latin classes for their sixth grader and for all four kids to attend a private school in their southern Minnesota town, “but we’re making it a priority,” she said. “Online high school is a lot cheaper than if he would go to a private school.” Their private online ...

In this news story for Spiegel , Stonington notes that carbon trading is not doing well--for government. There is a view that there should be a reduction of carbon credits available in the market, forcing prices up and pollution down. However, too many carbon credits were issued in the early years and companies produced less ...

Friday's ed news: 1. How the federal government is taking over education . 2. A Tennessee lawmaker introduces Parent Trigger legislation . 3. A South Carolina lawmaker re-introduces voucher and education tax credit legislation . 4. The Spokane school district is adoptng fuzzy math curriculum because of the Common Core. 5. A law school ...

The following ideas and issues are derived from town hall forums and personal meetings I conducted with small business owners from all across Oklahoma. I will continue to work with policymakers to address these issues. WORKERS’ COMPENSATION Over the years, the state legislature has approved numerous workers’ compensation reform ...

A majority of the senior scientists responsible for producing the U.S. Global Change Research Program’s draft report are affiliated with environmental activist groups, investigative journalist Donna Laframboise reports. Of the 13 senior scientists who put together USGCRP’s January 2013 draft report, seven have ties to such groups ...

Restricting greenhouse gas emissions, whether unilaterally or multilaterally, would result in significant economic costs for the U.S. economy. This is a serious decision with grave consequences. The U.S. should not unilaterally assume these burdens as a symbolic gesture hoping that other countries might emulate our example—repeated ...