The Heartland Institute

After taking a public relations hit from foreign leaders and American environmentalists for deciding not to seek ratification of the controversial Kyoto global warming treaty, President George W. Bush has been making a quiet but concerted effort to devise a Kyoto-lite alternative global warming strategy. The Bush administration ...

Roughly 100 tea partiers protested Senator Lindsey Graham s (R-SC) plans to help draft along with global warming alarmists John Kerry (D-MA) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT) a cap-and-tax law to restrict U.S. carbon dioxide emissions. The Saturday protests came in response to a Washington Post article reporting Graham s recent assertion ...

Alan Carlin is the economist and 38 year veteran at the Environmental Protection Agency whose report was stonewalled internally and so was not considered (or so he was told) in their decision to regulate CO2 as a pollutant. I spoke with him for an hour this evening. At the end of the hour, the last question I asked him ...

Californians will be burdened with higher energy costs, millions of dollars in lost business production, and widespread job losses under carbon dioxide (CO2) caps proposed in California's Assembly Bill 32, according to a report released June 16 by Margo Thorning, Ph.D., senior vice president and chief economist for the American ...

Austria's Pitztal Glacier is draped with blankets to slow unusually rapid summer melting. Ski resorts in the Pacific Northwest closed early last year because it rained instead of snowed. (read more) ...

A federal judge on September 15 dismissed a lawsuit designed to force several major utility companies to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. The suit was brought by environmental activist groups and eight states. Having failed to convince Congress to pass legislation to cap and reduce greenhouse gas emissions; having failed ...

Time on task is the key to progress in time. School is hard work, and great principals demand that their students work hard. Extended days, extended years. after-school programs, weekend programs, and summer school are all features of outstanding schools. None wastes time. ...

Annex I countries are the so-called developed nations-those with mature economies such as the U.S. and other OECD members (save Mexico and South Korea), as well as the nations of the former Soviet Union, which are in transition to a market economy. Under the Kyoto Protocol, these countries are also referred to as Annex B ...

At the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, virtually all of the world's countries signed the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC), establishing the basic blueprint for global collective action to mange the threat of the greenhouse effect. ...

The central component of California’s Global Warming Solutions Act (AB32) takes effect this year, and with the state facing a $15.7 billion deficit, political leaders have ended a long debate over how to spend revenue the Act is expected to generate. The central component is “cap and trade,” a complex system aimed at reducing ...

Absent Congressional action, several tax increases will go into effect at the end of the year. Allowing the 2001–03 tax cuts to expire, combined with tax increases under the Obama health care plan, what some critics are calling “Taxmageddon” would be a historic hike in tax rates across the board. One of the most significant ...

A pair of New York business executives is suing the state over its participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). The lawsuit seeks to terminate New York State’s participation in the ten-state RGGI. The suit, filed in New York Supreme Court and naming Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) and two state agencies as defendants ...

Once seen as a potential bonanza by governments, investment bankers, and alternative energy proponents, carbon dioxide credits have become close to worthless in trading exchanges and are now being shunned by investors. Few Bidders for RGGI Credits A June 8 auction by the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a cap-and-trade ...

One of the world’s most outspoken corporate advocates of a national cap-and-trade system to limit manmade emissions of greenhouse gases now acknowledges he may have overhyped the virtues of his company’s green policies. Expresses Regret at MIT General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt told a May 3 gathering at the Massachusetts Institute ...

In another sign of growing unease over the economic costs of carbon-dioxide cap-and-trade schemes, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) is considering withdrawing his state from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). Credits Have Minimal Value Addressing a town hall meeting in Nutley, New Jersey in late March, Christie said ...

A California Superior Court has blocked implementation of the state s cap-and-trade program, ruling the California Air Resources Board did not sufficiently consider other means of reducing carbon dioxide emissions before implementing the program. The ruling was a victory for a coalition of local environmental activist groups claiming ...

The New Hampshire House has voted by an overwhelming margin to end the state s cap-and-trade program. The 246-104 vote approved a halt to the state s participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). The RGGI calls for Northeastern states to reduce pollution and certain emission levels or join in an auction to ...

Newly elected New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez is making good on pre-election promises to eliminate job-killing environmental regulations whose costs outweigh their benefits. Martinez announced on January 5 that she will block carbon dioxide restrictions imposed by the state Environmental Improvement Board (EIB), is replacing all ...

Although Congress has rejected proposed legislation to impose cap-and-trade restrictions on the U.S. economy, mandates are still being pressed. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and various state governments are seeking to restrict carbon dioxide emissions. Moreover, federal and state renewable power mandates would impose the ...

New Mexico Governor-elect Susana Martinez and the New Mexico Environmental Improvement Board an unelected part of the state bureaucracy whose members were all appointed by outgoing Governor Bill Richardson (D) are poised for a monumental battle shortly after Martinez takes office January 1. On Election Day, November 2, the Environmental ...