Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Chairman Gregory Jaczko has ordered his staff to stop the review of the nuclear materials repository at Yucca Mountain. Aside from the harmful policy implications of this action, the chairman seems to be moving forward without any authority to do so. President Obama has made it clear that he supports terminating the Yucca Mountain nuclear repository. And despite there being no scientific or technical evidence to support the decision and the fact that he has no plan for how the United States should manage its nuclear …
On August 4, Carol Browner, director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy, appeared on ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC and Fox News morning shows to declare Mission Accomplished on handling the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster. Specifically, she told the Today show: “I think it’s also important to note that our scientists have done an initial assessment and more than three-quarters of the oil is gone, the vast majority of the oil is gone.” Now it appears that Browner spoke too soon and, even worse, suppressed criticism …
President Obama’s National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling released four papers discussing several aspects of the federal response, including the use of dispersants and contingency plans for possible future spills. But a large part of the commission’s report and what’s garnering most of the attention in the media is the government’s mismanagement of the spill. One of the four paper says, “The federal government created the impression that it was either not fully competent to handle the spill or not fully candid with the …
“Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated,” Mark Twain is supposed to have said. Rumors about the demise of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program (DCOSP) would come as a similar surprise to more than a thousand scholarship recipients in Washington, D.C., who are attending schools of their choice this fall. It’s true that the DCOSP is in survival mode, but it remains alive to fight another day. Neither the Obama Administration nor this Congress has dared snatch away current students’ scholarships, and the real battle for the program’s future lies …
In a recent CQ article, former Secretary of Homeland Security, Tom Ridge, weighed in about congressional oversight of homeland security. Congressional oversight of homeland security may sound as exciting as a colonoscopy, but it is actually a very big problem. Currently, over 100 committees and subcommittees have jurisdiction over the Department of Homeland Security. As you can guess, Members of Congress use this as a political tool—holding hearings completely unrelated to actual security and many times making unreasonable or uneducated requests of the department. All of this undoubtedly distracts DHS …
There are many reasons to be against the Obama tax hikes, especially as the economy struggles to recover. However, even putting aside economic growth considerations, it is simply not true that only the “rich” will be affected by the tax increase. For example, small businesses (and their workers), as well as all holders of capital gains and dividend income—many of whom are seniors—would be hit with a tax increase. Even the poorest seniors would face higher taxes: about 1 in 5 seniors in each of the first 3 income quintiles …
It’s not that Bill O’Reilly was pecksniffian in his verbal sparring with Bill Maher last week on the topic of religion. The powerhouse host of Fox News was just plain ill-equipped. A good-natured O’Reilly failed to put up an effective defense as an unhappy-looking Maher unpacked his usual smug ridicule of anyone who believes in God – especially those imbecilic Christians – in a segment aired over two nights on “The O’Reilly Factor.” Bill, Bill, Bill: Many viewers were a little discouraged when the best you could do, having bloviated …
There are legitimate concerns over Chinese dominance in rare earth minerals but the near-frenzied nature of some of some assessments is unjustified. The long-term problems stemming from Chinese control will be resolved by the market; only the short-term problems are potentially threatening, and those remain vague. Rare earths have achieved a lofty status. They are recognized as important in military, environmental, and other high tech equipment. In the past few weeks, foreign policy joined that list, on speculation China’s interference with rare earth exports to Japan caused Tokyo to back …
The White House recently released a video defending President Obama’s tax hike plan featuring the new Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, Austan Goolsbee. Goolsbee replaced Christina Romer in September. Even though the personnel have changed, the flawed arguments supporting the President’s tax hike plan remain the same. In the 90-second video, Goolsbee commits enough errors to fill a 30-minute speech. First, he argues that extending the 2001 and 2003 tax relief for all taxpayers would be a tax cut for “very high income people.” But extending the tax …
Raising taxes on successful businesses is one thing we cannot afford to do. Large, successful businesses that create jobs would be hit the hardest, but small businesses would also be hurt by such a tax increase. Although economists disagree on many aspects of economic growth and recession, there is near-unanimity on at least one issue: raising taxes during a recession is a bad idea. It seems clear then, that a jobs-killing tax increase, such as the one planned by President Obama, is a bad idea. Of course, Obama has argued …
