The Heartland Institute

This issue of FIRE Policy News once again chronicles the descent of America from a land of freedom and opportunity into a second-rate country dominated by government regulators, politicians, and rent-seekers. From housing markets to banking, from insurance regulations to management of the country's money supply, the trend always ...

The August 5 issue of Science, the venerable journal published by the American Academy for the Advancement of Science, contains an article by Sara Reardon that discusses the controversy over how climate change is presented in K-12 science classrooms. First, the good news: Ms. Reardon reports that an informal survey of members ...

Nature , the well-known British science journal, has a feature story and an unsigned editorial in its latest issue addressing The Heartland Institute’s contribution to the global debate over climate change. The articles can be read (for free) at the following links: http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110727/full/475440a.html and http ...

Jon Huntsman, the former governor of Utah running for the Republican nomination for President of the United States, recently made this unfortunate comment during an interview with Time magaine’s Melinda Henneberger: "[Climate change] is an issue that ought to be answered by the scientific community; I’m not a meteorologist. All ...

Efforts to reform K-12 schooling in America are as old as schooling itself. Benjamin Franklin, among others, criticized the public schools of his time, called Latin schools, for focusing on preparing a small elite for lives in religious and academic institutions rather than teaching practical skills to the larger public. The ...

The latest unemployment numbers show the nation remains in the deepest economic recession since the Great Depression. Economists are predicting a double dip recession, meaning things may get worse before they get better. What can elected officials do to attract businesses during the Great Recession? The key lies in building ...

Why We Disagree About Climate Change By Mike Hulme Cambridge University Press, 2009 432 pages, ISBN-13: 978-0521727327 More than a few people will be tempted to buy this book based on the promise, implicit in its title, that it examines the ideas and motives of both sides in the global warming debate. But that is not what ...

The world seems to be divided into two camps: Those who believe global warming is a dire catastrophe that requires urgent attention, and those who think it is a scam and excuse for government to raise taxes and impose more regulations. Sometimes it seems the two sides talk past each other, not really addressing the other ...

Billionaire financier T. Boone Pickens campaign for government subsidies to wind power, advertised in a full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal and subsequently in an op-ed piece in the same, seems erroneous in several respects. Bad Policy First, our reliance on imported oil is not a crisis unless we make it one. There are ...

In last month's column, I identified five groups responsible for perpetuating the fake consensus that pesticides pose a significant public health threat: the media, politicians, liberal advocacy groups, government agencies, and the organic food industry. These people profit considerably by taking the alarmist position in the public ...

The August 13 issue of Newsweek featured an article on its front cover titled " Global Warming Is a Hoax. " The text following the asterisk at the bottom of the page read, " Or so claim well-funded naysayers who still reject the overwhelming evidence of climate change. Inside the denial machine." Wow, a front cover story devoted ...

Junk science--the deliberate representation of false or misleading information as credible scientific research--is a growing problem in a variety of public policy debates. The use of junk science in public policy debates in the United States has a long history--Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring , published in 1962, is often ...

According to the Web site of the Environmental Working Group, " There is growing consensus in the scientific community that small doses of pesticides and other chemicals can adversely affect people, especially during vulnerable periods of fetal development and childhood when exposures can have long lasting effects." An online petition ...

More than a year has passed since U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona said, "The debate is over. The science is clear: Secondhand smoke is not a mere annoyance, but a serious health hazard." At the time, Carmona released a seemingly impressive 727-page report on secondhand smoke, the introduction of which claims secondhand ...

Joseph Bast, president of The Heartland Institute, gave a summary of the current state of global warming science in a February 7 presentation to the Nebraska Farm Bureau. Bast demonstrated the current global warming scare is like prior environmental scares that were soundly debunked once sufficient scientific data were gathered ...

A friend invited me to attend a screening of " An Inconvenient Truth," Al Gore's new film about global warming, when it first arrived in Chicago a few weeks ago. The event was sponsored by an environmental advocacy group and the theater was filled with Gore fans. They seemed to love it. I found it frightening. In the style ...

Florida’s state legislators are debating the Consumer Choice Act of 2006, which would replace local cable franchises with a streamlined state franchise system. The bill, similar to legislation recently passed in Texas and Indiana, would encourage telephone companies to more quickly roll out video services based on platforms such ...

As vouchers and tax credits move from theory to practice in cities and states across the country, greater attention is being focused on matters of program design. One design feature that could boost the effectiveness of school choice and possibly minimize the threat of increased regulation of participating schools is Education ...

On August 2, more than 610,000 doses of flu vaccine purchased by Illinois, New Mexico, Cleveland, and New York City expired without being used, and without even entering the country. It was a costly and embarrassing mistake by public officials apparently hoping to pressure Republicans and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA ...

In the U.S. Senate's recent debate over a comprehensive energy bill, New Mexico Sens. Pete V. Domenici (R) and Jeff Bingaman (D) issued media statements discussing whether policies to address alleged climate change should be incorporated into the measure. Both senators indicated their support for a proposal offered in December ...