Earth Day is coming!
Enviros celebrate by planting trees but they never celebrate the trucks that deliver the trees, or the gas that powers that truck, or the plastic handles of the shovels they use. Shouldn’t Mother Earth be thanked for making Earth Day events possible?
Join us in celebrating Earth Day by submitting your original artwork in our EARTH DAY FOSSIL FUELS ART CONTEST! Your entry should showcase the awesomeness of fossil fuels. We will be announcing two semi-finalists on Earth Day, April 22. The semi-finalists’ entries will be displayed at our Founders’ Night Dinner on Thursday, April 27. Guests at the event will vote and the winner will be announced at the event.
Both semi-finalists will receive:
• $75 in gift cards
• 1 ticket to our Founders’ Night Dinner ($250 purchase value)
The winner will also receive:
• One $100 gasoline gift card, suitable for framing and showing off to your smug in-laws.
All media are accepted. Artwork must be original (no clip art, please) and able to be displayed at the Founders’ Night Dinner event. Entries are due by April 21, 2017. Entries can be mailed or delivered to the Independence Institute (727 East 16th Avenue, Denver, CO 80203). Please contact tracy@i2i.org with questions.
Speaking of Founders’ Night…If you haven’t already, be sure to purchase your tickets or sponsor a table for the best event of the year! Get your tickets here.
When it comes to energy, it’s easy for ratepayers to feel powerless. State legislators and special interest groups go to battle and rake in money over legislation designed to kill jobs and raise electricity rates. Meanwhile, we, the ratepayers watch the bills arrive. We’re working to change that. After nearly a decade of holding the losing hand, the GOP finally has a chance to do what is best for ratepayers. Read Amy Cooke’s latest analysis of three bad House bills hitting the legislature this season here.
Linda Gorman is back with her latest report, in which she details a timeline of Colorado’s transportation and road spending. Somehow, despite the fact that the Colorado state budget has nearly doubled over the last decade, transportation funding has remained flat. Read “A Decade of Colorado Road and Transportation Spending in Pictures” to get the full story.
Senior Education Policy Analyst Ross Izard published Blaine’s Shadow: Politics, Discrimination, and School Choice, shedding light on one of the most critical—and least understood—aspects of the modern debate over educational choice in America. In this fascinating report, Ross pulls from a variety of historical and legal sources to help us all better understand Blaine clauses and their relevance to Colorado school choice today.
CompleteColorado.com, Colorado’s version of the Drudge Report, got some well-deserved kudos from Westword, naming it the BEST SOURCE FOR UP-TO-DATE POLITICAL INFORMATION. Justin Longo does a great job keeping this one-stop-news-shop running. Check it out daily.
Housing prices in Colorado are still skyrocketing. Why? Because of the growth-management tools such as urban-growth boundaries, the use of eminent domain for economic development, rent control, inclusionary zoning, and excessive impact fees. Of course, these all benefit only a few lucky people while crushing those of us who just want to own a home. Read Independence Institute’s Randall O’Toole in his latest issue paper, “Using Disparate Impact to Restore Housing Affordability and Property Rights in Colorado.”
Think Freedom,
Jon Caldara
