The Heartland Institute

California passed the first Parent Trigger law in January 2010, taking until September 2011 to confirm permanent regulations governing it. In the meantime, Connecticut, Mississippi, and Texas passed their own versions of the law, and in 2011 14 state legislatures also considered Parent Triggers. The Parent Trigger allows parents ...

Federal, state and local governments are considering or have implemented policies that seek to reduce human emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs). This study seeks to assess the relative merits of specific policies intended to reduce GHGs from automobiles. (It does not consider whether or not reductions in GHGs are actually desirable ...

California businesses are being forced to purchase expensive new equipment to comply with the state’s global warming law, which impedes job-creation, legislators and business representatives reported in state legislative caucus hearings on Oct. 18. Expensive Mandates Land O’ Lakes, Inc. spent $4 million to buy a low-emission boiler ...

The California Department of Toxic Substances Control has tightened restrictions on chemicals alleged to impact human health. More Chemicals, Tighter Restrictions The new restrictions will apply to a much larger list of chemicals than before, expand who must comply with the new restrictions, and apply to products with lower amounts ...

A leaked copy of a United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on extreme weather reveals a lack of evidence that global warming is causing extreme weather events, BBC News reports. According to BBC News, the IPCC discussion of global warming and extreme weather events “contains a lot more unknowns ...

Transportation access is an important part of modern life, but purchasing a vehicle is an expensive proposition many people cannot afford. Acquiring financing can be a daunting task for low-income borrowers or those with no or bad credit. Both banks and credit unions have few options for these customers, who in many instances ...

The U.S. Department of Energy has just published its estimates of global carbon dioxide emissions for the year 2010, concluding emissions rose by 6 percent from 2009 to 2010. This constitutes the largest rise in emissions yet recorded and means global emissions are rising faster than any of the scenarios advanced by the United ...

Statewide smoking bans have “little or no measurable immediate effect” on the number of persons who die from heart attacks, according to a new report by medical researchers at two universities. In “Acute Myocardial Infarction Mortality Before and After State-wide Smoking Bans,” researchers Brad Rodu and Nicholas Peiper of the ...

President Obama's dream of a high-speed rail future for California is dead. The only question now is whether the state government will kill it in time to save taxpayers billions of dollars. On Nov. 1, the California High-Speed Rail Authority issued a new report conceding what critics have been saying for years -- that the ...

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 ...

The United Teachers Los Angeles teachers union is demanding the Los Angeles Unified School District use a $55 million budget surplus to rehire 1,200 teachers laid off in the last year. “This is a serious, serious matter, and the money is there to alleviate it,” UTLA President Warren Fletcher said. “The school board and the ...

The Occupy Wall Street protest movement turned its attention towards education to “Occupy Sesame Street,” as one protestor cried, during a speech by News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch at a school reform conference in San Francisco. Approximately 100 protestors banged drums and chanted slogans outside the Foundation for Excellence in ...

California businesses are being forced to purchase expensive new equipment to comply with the state’s global warming law even though the equipment is having only a minimal impact on emissions. As a result, employers have less money on hand to hire workers and invest in business growth. Land O’ Lakes, for example, spent $4 ...

INTRODUCTION Conceived in 2009 by liberal activists in Los Angeles as a way to work around school boards hostile to reform, California’s landmark parent empowerment law, also known as the Parent Trigger, was passed quickly by the state legislature in January 2010 as part of a package bills aimed at improving the state’s chances ...

Record high levels of unemployment and record low reserve funds have placed great pressure on the federal-state unemployment insurance (UI) tax and benefit system. Between 2008 and 2011, $174 billion was paid in unemployment taxes while $450 billion was paid out in benefits, a gap of $276 billion. In 2011 alone, employers and ...

California's high-speed rail project is setting speed records—not on tracks, but in cost escalation. The California High Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) recently announced the Bakersfield to Merced section, part of which will comprise the first leg of the system to be built, will cost between $10 billion and $13.9 billion. This ...

With its Sept. 21 vote, the Senate Appropriations Committee ended rail boosters’ hopes of getting a meaningful appropriation for high-speed rail in Fiscal Year 2012. It probably also dealt a decisive blow to President Obama’s goal of "giving 80 percent of Americans access to high-speed rail." By including only a token $100 ...

This week the U.S. Supreme Court heard a critical case, Toby Douglas vs. The Independent Living Center of the United States, concerning state vs. federal power on the issue of Medicaid. You can read more about the case here, in this interview with one of the counselors. Here's an excerpt: SK: One interesting thing about this ...

Nine public interest groups have petitioned the Federal Communications Commission to rule San Francisco transit authorities broke federal law in August of this year when they shut down wireless service in some of the city’s public transportation systems. As reported in the October issue of Infotech & Telecom News, San Francisco ...

Pacific Gas and Electric, the utility serving most of Northern California, was forced to replace a number of so-called “smart meters” destroyed by a power surge in late August. The resulting outage has led even proponents of the technology to question the government mandates ordering the meters’ installation without allowing ...