Environmental protectionism: when environmental laws protect businesses from competition

The environment’s greatest friend is technological innovation. Human ingenuity–what Julian Simon called “the ultimate resource”–has consistently enabled us to make more with less. Yet environmental laws too often throw up roadblocks to that progress, favoring the dirty status quo over a cleaner future.

New leader of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service could steer agency in more collaborative direction

At long last, the Administration has chosen an acting leader for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service—an important federal agency … More

North Carolina chooses cronyism over property rights and the environment

North Carolina has enacted House Bill 467, which should be known as the “Crony Nuisance Protection Act.” Under it any agricultural or forestry business can violate its neighbors’ property rights and avoid fully compensating its neighbors for the harm.

Will the President reverse national monuments?

If the President undoes a monument and successfully defends that action, it could lead to broader reform of the Antiquities Act that allows monuments and many other federal lands to be managed more effectively for both people and the environment.

Ideological blinders affect both extremes of the climate debate

Climate change challenges conservative and libertarian instincts in a way that makes it harder to believe the evidence, no matter how strong it is. Climate evangelists likewise tend to embrace science and evidence when it confirms their prior political views and reject it otherwise. For progressives and big-government liberals, climate change is easy to accept to the extent it seems to call out for a big-government solution. But even among climate evangelicals, where science and their prior political commitments conflict, politics usually win.

Science is immensely important, but it has a hubris problem

Science is incredibly politicized. Science is extremely important and scientists have a meaningful role in policy questions. But not all science is created equal and not everything a scientist thinks is science.

On Earth Day, celebrate the environmental benefits of human prosperity

Free people and free economies have repeatedly shown they’re up to the task of solving environmental problems. Earth Day should be a celebration of that fact.