The Heartland Institute

Federal energy policies designed to rid the nation of traditional incandescent light bulbs continue to encounter popular resistance, with South Carolina’s legislature considering its own unique act of defiance. Intrastate Bulbs Considered Lawmakers in Columbia are pondering a proposed “Incandescent Light Bulb Freedom Act,” a measure ...

One of the big questions on the minds of many in Washington at the moment is: what comes after the individual mandate? Should the Supreme Court strike the requirement down but not strike down President Obama's entire law, some substitute will likely be proposed by the White House and its allies in Congress. Health policy ...

Health insurance companies have experienced dramatically higher stock prices in the two years since the passage of President Obama’s health care law, thanks to the individual mandate to purchase their product. Wellpoint (WLP) was at about $80/share in 2007, dropped significantly in price shortly after the 2008 election, and is ...

Meredith, New York seems like an idyllic place—patchwork farms roll tranquilly along the western foothills of the Catskill Mountains, interspersed with small ponds and temperate woodlands. Gentle breezes blow through the tall grasses, symbolizing the town’s serene lifestyle. That same breeze, however, has divided Meredith’s 1,529 ...

A panel of seven former U.S. Department of Agriculture secretaries representing Republican and Democratic presidents alike spoke in favor of genetic engineering and large, corporate farms at a Feb. 23 agriculture conference in Virginia. The former secretaries said environmental activist groups that oppose corporate farming and the ...

It didn't take long for Don Berwick, the controversial former head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services under President Obama, to start being honest again about his anti-market views once he left the administration. In a forum with health care policy expert Jim Capretta, Berwick reacted strongly to the idea that ...

A rise in shortages of key drugs is reaching crisis level for many patients nationwide as demand outpaces supply. Legislation has been introduced in Congress to address the issue, but questions remain as to whether the bill would address the real drivers of shortages. Cancer, Behavior Drugs Hardest Hit The American Society ...

The failure of Medicare’s demonstration projects to reduce the costs of care has been the subject of much disappointment in the health policy world. Recall that these are critical to President Obama’s challenge “To find out what works and then go do it.” If nothing works, the fallback weapon in Obamacare is to reduce fees ...

What constitutes an affordable “green” light bulb? According to the U.S. Department of Energy, $50 per light bulb is our most promising future. No Likely Market The Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded a $10 million prize to Philips, a Dutch electronics company that is one of the leading manufacturers of light bulbs sold ...

A new report by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University finds that contrary to promises by President Obama and others in arguing for the passage of his health care law, Obamacare actually adds to the deficit, as opposed to decreasing it. Much of this has to do with the double-counting of funding within the law, a ...

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has reaffirmed that bisphenol A, a chemical used in certain plastics and resins, poses no identified risks to human health at current exposure levels. FDA’s decision came in response to a Natural Resources Defense Council petition for the agency to ban BPA in food packaging and containers ...

Rising levels of ground-based ozone in the western United States can be traced to emissions in Asia that are transported across the Pacific Ocean by westerly winds, according to a new study in the Journal of Geophysical Research. Significant Asian Impact As much as 20 percent of the ground-level ozone measured in California ...

A group of Republican lawmakers in Washington, DC introduced a new plan to return more power to the states by combining Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program into a single block grant. The State Health Flexibility Act—sponsored by Indiana Republican Rep. Todd Rokita, with Republican Reps. Tim Huelskamp of Kansas ...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has proposed carbon dioxide restrictions that will effectively ban the construction of coal-fired power plants. The proposed restrictions would block the construction of any new power plant that does not limit its carbon dioxide emissions to 1,000 pounds per megawatt-hour. The proposed restrictions ...

Efforts to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act could end up harming human health by stifling innovation and keeping perfectly safe and beneficial products from reaching consumers, concludes a just-released study by the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Changes Would Stifle Innovation “Changes to TSCA are highly unlikely to have ...

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich is requesting a congressional investigation into why the Justice Department is imposing a double standard on bird kills regarding wind power producers versus oil and natural gas producers. Ideological Harassment In a Feb. 22 letter the former Speaker of the House sent to Lamar Smith ...

In response to questions from lawmakers, acting White House budget director Jeff Zients testified to Congress in March the individual mandate fine in President Obama’s health care law is not a tax, an admission which contradicted the claims the administration made before the U.S. Supreme Court. According to Galen Institute President ...

Environmentalists have filed a challenge to the U.S. Forest Service’s approval of a wind turbine project slated for Green Mountain National Forest in Vermont. First in National Forest System “On January 3 of this year, after eight years of study, the forest supervisor of the Green Mountain National Forest made a decision to ...

Catastrophe bonds are insurance-linked securities that offset major costs to taxpayers and insurers caused by natural disasters such as hurricanes and earthquakes. Cat bonds, as they are known, work differently from other types of bonds. Investors lose their entire principal in the event of a catastrophe that meets the terms ...

The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (PUC) has voted against a proposed wind farm in rural Goodhue County because the developers failed to provide an acceptable plan to protect bald eagles and other species. Eagles, Migratory Birds Threatened Goodhue Wind proposed the construction of a 32,700 acre, 48-turbine wind farm in ...