Last January, a week after he became president, Joe Biden suspended oil and gas leasing on public lands, pending a full Interior Department review. That suspension was put on hold by a federal court in June after 14 states sued to overturn it. Now, the Biden administration is trying to open up federal lands for…
The Snail Darter Is Back
Remember the snail darter (or, more likely, hearing about it)? In 1975, the Endangered Species Act temporarily halted construction of the Tellico Dam on the Little Tennessee River because it would endanger the habitat of the snail darter, a three-inch fish (shown above). The snail darter will be taken off the list, reports Dino Grandoni…
Do I Want an Electrical Vehicle? My Personal Assessment
Sterling Burnett, Ph.D. (hburnett@heartland.org) is a senior fellow at The Heartland Institute, a nonpartisan, nonprofit research center headquartered in Arlington Heights, Illinois. I’ve been thinking about electric vehicles a lot lately. My wife and I take pleasure trips every year—sometimes three- or four-day getaways, sometimes week-long vacations, sometimes longer journeys. Many of these trips are…
Another Mixed Review for Nordhaus on Climate Change
In general, economists like William Nordhaus. He understands the role of prices, has highlighted the value of innovation, and received a Nobel Prize in 2018 for tackling the costs and benefits of global warming. That work revealed that the costs of trying to mitigate global warming too severely can outweigh the benefits. But David Henderson,…
Are Cloth Totes ‘Environmentally Friendly’?
In the past there was a debate over whether cloth diapers were really environmentally better than disposable diapers. The answer: not in areas where water and energy are scarce, because rewashing cloth uses more resources (water and heat) than do plastic and cellulose production and landfill disposal. Now the New York Times poses another environmental…
The West Is a Fire Plain. Get Over It.
Guest author Randal O’Toole has a degree in forestry from Oregon State University and has spent several decades studying forest policy. He is the author of six books, including Reforming the Forest Service, and author of The Perfect Firestorm: Bringing Forest Service Wildfire Costs under Control, a Cato Institute Policy Analysis. Every summer, smoke from…