Environment

Texas Acts to Block Chinese Owned Industrial Wind Power Facility near a Military Base

  By Kenneth Artz, Heartland Environment and Climate News   The Texas legislature took steps to stop a massive Chinese-owned industrial wind facility from being built near Laughlin Air Force base in southwest Texas.   The Blue Hills Wind development attracted attention because its developer, GH America Energy, is the U.S. subsidiary of the Chinese […]

Health

Senate Finance Drug Pricing Framework Risks Similar Pitfalls of Price-Setting H.R. 3

  By Andrew Lautz, National Taxpayers Union   Last month, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-OR) released a “Principles for Drug Pricing Reform” document that outlines how the Senator, who chairs one of the most powerful committees in Congress, would like to address prescription drug costs this year. While the document is sparse on details, […]

Geopolicy

The Most Critical Metal You’ve Never Heard of

    By Larry Reaugh, American Manganese Inc.    Rare Earths Elements (REEs) may grab most of the headlines when the topic is critical minerals, but 21st Century technology is hungry for far more than REEs; take the lithium-ion batteries that literally drive our Electric Vehicles, which require not only the lithium that gives them their […]

Tech

Don’t Slow Up Race For Cancer Cures

  By Mark Pfeifle and Bob Jensen   While Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer was steering bipartisan legislation to stimulate major investments in science through the Senate, his former chief counsel, acting Federal Trade Commission chairwoman, Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, was leading the FTC in an unprecedented effort to block a merger of two U.S. companies […]

Competition & Regulation

The Hill: Our broken drug rebate system makes Americans sicker and poorer

  Writing in The Hill, David Balto, a former policy director of the Federal Trade Commission in the Obama Administration, and Wayne Winegarden, an economist with the Pacific Research Institute, discuss the growing pressure on public officials to address anti-competitive industry practices known as “rebate walls” or “rebate traps”.   “Rebates and discounts are generally […]

Tech

A Market-Orientated Approach Is The Best Way To Close The Digital Divide

    By Will Yepez, National Taxpayers Union     Senators Rob Portman (R-OH), Michael Bennet (D-CO), and Angus King (I-ME) recently introduced the Broadband Reform and Investment to Drive Growth in the Economy (BRIDGE) Act of 2021 (S. 2071). This well-intentioned legislation would provide $40 billion in funding to states, Tribal governments, U.S. territories, and […]

Environment

South Dakota Rocked Again as a Wind Turbine Plant Shuts Its Doors

By Selena Zito, Heartland   John F. Kerry, the special presidential envoy for climate, said only months ago that those losing fossil fuel jobs in coal and hydraulic fracturing will find they have a better choice of jobs either in the solar industry or as wind turbine technicians.   That was then. Now, a wind […]

Geopolicy

We need more borders and more states

    By Ryan McMaken, Fundación Internacional Bases    In the context of trade and immigration, borders are often explained as a means of excluding foreign workers. Thinking in a certain way, borders offer an opportunity for states to exclude private actors, such as workers, merchants and entrepreneurs. On the contrary, borders can also serve a […]

Society

Less taxes, less laws, less poverty: three successful European countries

    By Eben McDonald, Contrepoints   As Luxembourg, Switzerland and Ireland show, it is not necessarily social spending and redistribution that raises the level of the poorest.   The Social Democrats often praise the Nordic countries as examples of the success of progressive taxes, generous welfare states and powerful unions.   Free trade advocates […]

Tech

Washington’s War on Big Tech Continues

  By Edward Longe, American Consumer Institute   In an era of deep political divisions, no issue unifies Republicans and Democrats quite like punishing big tech. In the last twelve months, Senate Democrats and Republicans have released their own punitive proposals to reform America’s antitrust law. Additionally, Democrats in the House of Representatives just published […]