by Shikha Dalmia. To avert a tragedy, they'll cause one. You wouldn't know it from the happy spin emanating from the Oval Office, but a Third World revolt in Bonn, Germany, this week almost derailed the Paris climate change negotiations in November. Although peace has been restored for now, it only happened by papering over this ... MORE
by James Carafano. The House has passed legislation calling for liberalizing energy exports.
Two Senate committees have approved similar bills. Whether the
legislation becomes law this year remains unknown. But even if the bill
doesn’t make it, pressure on Washington will continue to build. At the height of the “energy crisis” in the 1970s, ... MORE
The verdict on hope and change is in. Today the Fraser Institute in Vancouver, Canada, released the 2015 Economic Freedom of the World Report (pdf) and it’s bad news for the United States, where economic freedom is falling. The U.S. ranks only 16th in economic freedom trailing Chile, Jordan, and Taiwan. The EFW Report measures the level ... MORE
by Barry Farber. If Donald Trump were to cure cancer, wouldn’t you feel like thanking him? Even if you were another Republican competing for the GOP presidential nomination, you’d want to thank him. Even if all of your Mexican relatives were priests and missionaries and not drug dealers and rapists, you’d still want to thank him. So go ahead! ... MORE
by Blake Clayton. Federal lawmakers should overturn the ban on exporting crude oil produced in the United States. As recently as half a decade ago, oil companies had no interest in exporting U.S. crude oil, but that has changed. Oil production has grown more in the United States over the past five years than anywhere else in the world, even as ... MORE
What happened to bipartisan consensus? For a long time, there was a bipartisan consensus for free trade. President George H.W. Bush, a Republican, negotiated the North American Free Trade Agreement, and Democrat Bill Clinton got it passed. It prevailed in the Senate in 1993 with the support of 27 Democrats and 34 Republicans. The consensus ... MORE
Demonizing freedom is always a mistake. Political debates often pit fear against hope, and when it comes to international trade agreements, many Democrats prefer to scare. It's a durable strategy that they can't relinquish—even though it usually fails. If you're going to make a horror movie, you need a villain who can make your blood run ... MORE
by Sean Higgins. Legislation to tax Internet sales is dead for the year, a key Senate aide said. No bill allowing the taxation will be taken up before Congress' lame-duck session ends, meaning that purchases made through online merchants such as Amazon will continue to be tax-free for the foreseeable future. A coalition made up of state and ... MORE
by Tim Worstall. The last few days have seen us regaled with a serious of stories about how the world is going to run out of chocolate. That would be, I think we can all agree, almost as bad as running out of bacon. So it’s worth thinking through the reasons as to why we might be running out. After all, cocoa, from which chocolate is made, is a plant, ... MORE