Economics · Environment/Energy · Featured · Regulation
Last week John Stossel hosted a segment on Earth Day featuring Heartland Senior Fellow James Taylor and Paul Gallay from the Riverkeeper environmentalist organization. Taylor (with some backup from Stossel) crossed swords with Gallay on a number of environmental subjects.
I started covering some of the shenanigans from the solar industry last summer when I wrote about the “Green Tea Party” in Georgia. I had no idea what a can of worms I’d opened. In September, I wrote about the net-metering battle taking place in Arizona—and pointed out the national implications of what was playing out there. The following month, I addressed, what I believe, is an organized effort by the industry, to co-opt the language of the free-market/conservative/limited-government thinking population in an effort to convenience them that government-mandated and -subsidized solar energy was a good thing. Last month I warned consumers of solar scams in a column I wrote titled “Clouds on the solar horizon.”
Environment/Energy · Featured · Government
As Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz announced last week a renewed push to provide $16 billion in taxpayer-backed loans for “clean” technology vehicles, more bad news emerged from another stimulus-funded electric vehicle company over the weekend.
Environment/Energy · Featured · Science
Last week AAA released findings from tests it had run on three models of electric automobiles, and announced that the heavily subsidized vehicles suffer dramatic driving range loss in both cold and hot temperatures.
The news wasn’t new, but apparently the broader media noticed because the pronouncement from the nation’s largest consumer automotive club made it official. NLPC (beginning with a Consumer Reports experience) has reported from time to time on such problems since late 2011. The Tulsa World reported that AAA found driving distance for electric vehicles can be diminished up to 57 percent in extremely cold temperatures, and by one-third in very hot temperatures.
Featured · Government · Liberty · Podcast
This weekly podcast features the second half of a conversation between Jim Lakely, Heartland’s communications director, and Yaron Brook, president of the Ayn Rand Institute. In this half of the interview, Jim and Dr. Brook discuss President Obama’s treatment of capitalism, corporate cronyism, and the morality of libertarianism.
Budgets/Taxes · Economics · Featured · Government · Politics · Regulation
First you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women.
Even as ObamaCare is trying to self destruct, its advocates suggest a détente in which “Republicans recognize the conservative nature of the law,” in the words of Austin Frakt in Bloomberg News. The Affordable Care Act (ACA), they point out, incorporates some ideas from a Heritage Foundation proposal and a law promoted by Mitt Romney. Those are not, however, conservative ideas, much less good ideas, and are not a “sound chassis” for anything.
Over the past several years, the federal government has launched several programs to encourage the development of new and advanced telecommunications services in all areas of the country. The two[...]
Budgets/Taxes · Economics · Environment/Energy · Featured
The most recent report (reflecting up until March 31) under the $32 million grant shows that Smith delivered 421 of its vehicles, with $27,343,311 reimbursed to the company with government funds thus far. That calculates to a whopping $64,948 taxpayer subsidy per vehicle.
Budgets/Taxes · Environment/Energy · Featured
To date, precious little action to combat climate change has been seen from the White House—which pleases most Republicans and angers the left.
Environment/Energy · Featured · Regulation
US politicians and bureaucrats have less compassion and common sense that average Londoner.
Budgets/Taxes · Featured · Politics
…Farming and agriculture have been around for tens of thousands of years. For the vast majority of that time, we grew stuff just fine without a Farm Bill (let alone an entire Cabinet-level Department).
Environment/Energy · Featured · FIRE · Podcast
Businesses and industries looking for government handouts have produced studies that predict big paybacks. Roy Cordato of the John Locke Foundation says there’s a great reason to take these studies with a shaker or two of salt.
British Petroleum is still one of the world’s biggest oil companies. But as early as the late 1990s they didn’t want you think of them that way. CEO, Lord John[...]
I’m scanning headlines on the Internet. I see President Obama has announced he’ll agree to cut Social Security and other benefit programs in exchange for higher taxes. I think, “Take[...]
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is considering a proposal that would create a new tax on broadband Internet service. The new tax would be designated to fund the Connect America Fund[...]
Environment/Energy · Media · Taxes
A recently released report prepared by liberal think tank Citizens for Tax Justice (CFTJ) has attracted the attention of the MSM. Entitled “Corporate Taxpayers and Corporate Tax Dodgers 2008 –[...]
My critique of Gov. Haley Barbour’s exchange plan is at the DC Examiner today. Given Mississippi’s exceedingly poor population, under the exchange Barbour has endorsed combined with Obamacare, 76% of[...]
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