Colorado's electric rates higher than neighbors'
USA Today reports that Americans’ household electric bills are going up and up and up. While Colorado’s residential rate is slightly below the national average of 11.54 cents per kilowatt hour, its higher than all neighboring states and second highest among the Mountain West states. Only Nevada has higher residential electric rates than Colorado. Most […]
Effective Math and Science Program Making Big Leap in Colorado High Schools
Raise your hand if you agree with me that the USA — and Colorado in particular — can do a better job preparing enough students for success in the areas science, math and technology. Don’t worry about feeling self-conscious if you are in a room with other people. If you can’t overcome it, at least […]
Salazar defends fracking; waiting for the "real facts."
While the Denver Post played the role of Rocky Mountain eco-Chicken Little of record, another news outlet — the Casper Star-Tribune — reported former Colorado Senator and current Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s opinion of the EPA’s premature press release about a “draft finding” regarding a link that may or may not exist between hydraulic fracturing […]
Authorities to decide what health plans in “exchanges” cover, not a freed market
The political process for controlling health plans is akin to having the FCC decide what features cell phone plans should cover. Surely there would be groups pushing to ban, say, plans that lack unlimited text messaging. This would increase the price of all plans, even for those who never text.
Central Planning Gone Wild
In 1957, Nikita Khrushchev bragged that the Soviet Union would overtake the United States in production of steel and other important products within 15 years. Not to be outdone, Mao Zedong immediately decided that China’s own steel industry would overtake Britain’s–then the world’s second-leading manufacturing country (14). Thus began the Great Leap Forward, one of […]
Judge Sets Constitution Aside in School Finance Ruling
Joshua Dunn, professor at the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs and author of Complex Justice, deconstructs Denver District Court Judge Sheila Rappaport’s December 9 decision for the plaintiffs in the school finance case Lobato v State. Dunn says the judge’s “absolute contempt for the constitution” is unique among the hundreds of rulings in similar cases nationwide that he has read and analyzed, and identifies clear grounds for a very likely appeal.
New Colorado School Grades Website Offers Important Info to Families
Having more educational choices by itself is a good thing. Yet without enough accompanying information for families to make wise and effective choices, a lot of potential is lost. That’s one of the reasons why my Education Policy Center friends continue to offer the fantastic School Choice for Kids (SCFK) website, with all its helpful […]
U.S. health care: Do We Really Spend More and Get Less?
Spending computations are inaccurate. [T]here is another way to assess the cost of health care. We can count up the real resources being used. … doctors per capita, more hospital beds, etc.,… On this score, the United States looks really good. Continue reading
Is the U.N. Taking Over America?
At a recent meeting about Oregon’s land-use planning system, someone asked how much Agenda 21 has influenced Oregon’s laws and rules. The answer the Antiplanner gave was a big, fat zero. Agenda 21, after all, was written in 1992, while Oregon’s legislature passed the state’s land-use law in 1973. The most radical conception of that […]
The EPA press release we didn't read
No one read a press release from the Environmental Protection Agency stating that drinking water in Dimock, Pennsylvania is safe to drink and not contaminated by hydraulic fracturing because the EPA didn’t issue one. Instead it sent an email to Dimock residents. -Original Message—– From: Taylor.Trish <Taylor.Trish@epamail.epa.gov> To: Cc: Polish.David <Polish.David@epamail.epa.gov> Sent: Fri, Dec 2, […]
Media acts like eco Chicken Littles
Has any media outlet bothered to ask if the EPA’s theory on groundwater contamination in Wyoming and hydraulic fracturing is even right? The Independence Institute’s Energy Policy Blog can’t be accused (at least not accurately) of being in the tank for the oil and gas industry. We’ve been on opposite sides of several of the […]
Original intent? Understanding? Meaning?
When the Constitution was written, there were specific legal rules about how one goes about interpreting constitutional phrases. Over the course of time, however, judges and commentators gradually forgot them. In the 1980s, some argued that the courts should “return” to applying the original intent behind the Constitution—that is,what the framers (drafters) of the document […]
