As Congress grapples with how to deal with the immediate health and public safety impacts of the COVID-19 epidemic, including making tests kits available and helping states with additional funding for safety efforts, many are also beginning to think about how to best mitigate any economic fallout resulting from the…
The Novel Coronavirus (nCoV) or COVID-19 is in the process of reshaping the order of things at home and abroad. As we all react to the spread of the virus, there are many obvious considerations – groceries, work, event cancelations, hand washing, and apparently toilet paper. But a less obvious…
The Highway Trust Fund is the federal fund for road and bridge maintenance and repair. It once built the Interstate Highway System and helped keep our roads safe and smooth. Now, it is under the shadow of looming insolvency, with revenue failing to keep pace with spending. The…
As technology improves, law and regulation must improve for the sake of public safety. Excavation damage has been a leading – and in many years the leading – cause of pipeline incidents for decades. More than ten years ago, Congress addressed what was then the leading contributor to these incidents…
s the immense tragedy in Australia continues apace, helpless onlookers are grappling for emotionally and intellectually satisfying explanations. How could such a conflagration begin, grow, and seemingly thwart all efforts to extinguish? As human lives are threatened, property burns, and animal losses rise to nearly incalculable tolls, pinning all…
Despite years of lobbying from the U.S. to stop the Russian natural gas pipeline, Nord Stream 2, it is all but complete as we enter 2020. And with it, Germany and others may have made themselves dependent –to one degree or another– on Russia for their natural gas supply for…
Everyone makes mistakes, but regulators have a higher responsibility to be careful and deliberate. Institutional speed bumps help keep the pace slow, reducing the speed at which bad decisions can be made and forcing more deliberation over good ones. Some of these features like checks and balances or notice and…
hile it may not be the main reason that roads across the country are in disrepair, lack of information is one starting point to find solutions. Simple intuition suggests that officials cannot know about every pothole, collapsed sign, or damaged median. While perfect knowledge is impossible, we have the…
Hurricanes, floods, and other natural disasters can be truly devastating. Not only are precious lives lost, but property damage can decimate local communities and business activity. As concerns over climate change cause many to fear stronger or more frequent storms, one simple solution stands ready to protect lives, economic activity,…
Environmentalists and activists on the further reaches of the green movement occasionally go as far as to say ‘leave all fossil fuels in the ground.’ While a legitimate fear of climate change may make this view understandable, it is ultimately misguided. Modern life unequivocally requires fossil fuels, but that doesn’t…
As China celebrates 70 years of communist rule, the U.S. Congress is mulling over the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to reauthorize funding and programs within the Department of Defense. Within that national security bulwark is a simple provision aimed at Chinese encroachment. The Transit Infrastructure Vehicle Security Act (TIVSA),…
