The Heartland Institute

Alaska state officials are crying foul after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency took the unprecedented step of issuing a highly critical assessment of a mining project even though plans for the project have yet to be developed. EPA Issues Critical Analysis EPA on May 18 issued a highly critical draft analysis of the Pebble ...

An Alaska musher who previously won the Iditarod race is suing the maker of a knife, alleging he would have won the dogsled race this year but for his injury. The man nearly severed his index finger when he was using the knife to cut the tie on a bale of hay. The digit was reattached but doesn’t function properly ...

A record number of sockeye salmon swam up Alaska’s Copper River this year, showing the salmon population in the region is healthier than ever recorded. Records Blown Away As of June 3, Alaska Department of Fish and Game officials counted 469,895 salmon passing a counting station upriver near Miles Lake outside Cordova. The tally ...

Today, North Carolina is expected to vote to allow the process of hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” for natural gas. This comes just a month after Vermont became the first state to completely ban the process, even though the state has no known resources that actually could be tapped this way. Many environmental activists ...

Telecommunications services are regulated by a combination of rules from Congress, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), state public utility commissions (PUCs), and state legislatures. State legislatures give PUCs the authority to develop and enforce rules about the way in which telecommunications companies behave, including ...

Alaska state officials are pressing the Obama administration to exercise restraint in implementing a new National Ocean Policy that threatens to shift power from the states to the federal government. Decisions Move to DC Appearing at a U.S. House of Representatives Natural Resources Committee Field Hearing April 3 in Anchorage ...

Although gasoline taxes have long been the main source of funding for building, maintaining, and operating America’s network of highways, roads, and streets, the tax is at best an imperfect user fee. As such, Congress and the states should take action to transition from gas taxes to more efficient vehicle-mile fees. One of ...

Alaska Attorney General Michael Geraghty has written a letter to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency promising the state will employ “all available legal options” if the federal agency blocks development of Pebble Mine, a gold and copper mine opposed by environmental activist groups. Activists claim the mine will diminish ...

State regulators testify to safety/performance of fracturing. ...

The policy centerpiece of House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) budget proposal this year is his Medicare reform. While Ryan’s approach builds on prior efforts, it differs in important ways from his prior legislative solutions, including last year’s Path to Prosperity. Ryan’s modified approach is essentially the same as one ...

With transportation coffers barely able to maintain highways, let alone adding new capacity to relieve congestion, many transportation economists and urban planners have concluded that the best solution to U.S. freeway congestion is to implement variable pricing on all congested freeways. At the same time, many political scientists ...

With transportation coffers barely able to maintain highways, let alone adding new capacity to relieve congestion, many transportation economists and urban planners have concluded that the best solution to U.S. freeway congestion is to implement variable pricing on all congested freeways. At the same time, many political scientists ...

Hydraulic fracturing has enabled profitable extraction of oil and gas in diverse areas of the country. As a result, many states sitting atop the country’s shale formations are reconsidering the way they tax these resources, to fill budget holes. Many of these debates are occurring in states with unconventional deposits and where ...

The recent discovery of vast deposits of oil and natural gas trapped in shale rock formations has revolutionized our nation’s short-term, mid-term, and long-term energy outlook. For example, proven natural gas reserves in the United States rose by 40 percent between 2004 and 2009. At the same time, new technological advancements ...

The current economic environment of low—virtually zero—interest rates has hit savers hard, but the US Federal Reserve’s accommodative monetary policy is actually having a stabilizing effect on the economy. Abruptly raising interest rates could harm economic growth and the housing market. Until the economy stabilizes enough that ...

Executive Summary Following the passage of “Chemicals of Concern” legislation in Maine, Washington, and California, several states are considering adopting similar statutes. Although everyone supports reasonable measures aimed at protecting human health and the environment, these particular efforts are ill-considered and unnecessary ...

U.S. carbon dioxide emissions continue to track lower than year 2000 levels, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported on January 23, extending this century’s downward trend in U.S. emissions. The new data rebut assertions that the United States needs to impose new restrictions on coal-fired power plants and other ...

This report is the summary of extensive research that examined the criticism that has been leveled over the past three years at the national efforts to improve intercity passenger rail and introduce true high-speed passenger rail in the United States. In the course of this research it has been heartening to discover that there ...

Alaska residents will receive $1,174 each—more than $3,000 on average per household—in oil revenue disbursements this year from the state’s Permanent Dividend Fund, the Alaska Department of Revenue has announced. Created in 1976 through a constitutional amendment approved by the voters, the Permanent Dividend Fund is Alaska’s way ...

At least eight states have implemented de facto regulations on chemicals they deem “hazardous” by creating “chemicals of concern” lists. Proponents claim the lists are necessary to protect consumers from potentially hazardous chemicals in products, and they argue a lack of federal regulations means states must step in. Opponents ...