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January 17, 2024
Since early December, the end of my 20-year career teaching at Harvard has been the subject of articles, op-eds, tweets from a billionaire, and even a congressional hearing. I have become a poster child for how the growing campus DEI—Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion—bureaucracies strangle free speech. My ordeal has been used to illustrate the hypocrisy of the assertions by Harvard’s leaders…
November 6, 2023
The Covid-19 pandemic was a disaster. Over a million Americans died—many in isolation in hospitals and nursing homes, far from their friends and family—and millions more became seriously sick, lost their jobs, or felt the effects of widespread economic and social disruption. Students suffered irreversible learning losses, with many exiting the public-school system altogether. Patients delayed or…
October 23, 2023
A carbon tax is considered by most economists to be the most efficient and effective way to reduce carbon emissions. However, a long-standing political challenge to a carbon tax is the perception that it would disproportionately burden low- and middle-income households relative to high-income households. Many analysts and lawmakers have proposed using carbon tax revenues…
October 4, 2023
Dr. Mandy Cohen has been on a national tour. The new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, she aims to rebuild trust in that troubled agency at a moment when Covid-19 cases are rising again and the Biden administration has begun a new vaccine campaign. She has her work cut out for her. According…
September 30, 2022
While Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) has withdrawn his own permitting bill, it is expected to surface again as Congress turns to permitting reforms to make it easier to build the necessary infrastructure for the energy systems of the future — especially after authorizing $370 billion in funding for new, cleaner-energy sources. All the money in the world will not help…
September 26, 2022
A Biden administration official whose job is to ensure the “integrity” of government science has an integrity problem of her own. Last month the National Academy of Sciences suspended environmental scientist Jane Lubchenco for violating basic principles of research integrity. Despite this disciplinary action from one of the most prestigious science organizations in the world—and her own…
August 11, 2022
Will the CHIPS and Science Act be an inflection point for the U.S. scientific enterprise? The often overlooked “science” portion of the new bill is the culmination of one of the core legislative priorities of Senators Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Todd Young (R-IN): the Endless Frontier Act (EFA)—an attempt to jumpstart American science and innovation…
July 29, 2022
After two years of controversy and turmoil, President Biden’s federal science agenda finally may be getting back on track. The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation just voted to advance the confirmation of Dr. , the nominee to fill Biden’s only empty cabinet position — director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and…
June 21, 2022
“Look at my eyes. I guarantee you: we’re going to end fossil fuels.” That was President Biden’s dramatic 2020 campaign promise. On his first day as president he began to fulfill that promise, pausing oil drilling and leasing on federal lands and killing the partially-built Keystone XL pipeline. And investors took him seriously. Even as…
June 8, 2022
American consumers are still suffering from record gasoline prices as the summer driving season kicks off. President Biden recently proclaimed that these prices were driving an “incredible transition” that will make the world “stronger and less reliant on fossil fuels.” The unfortunate reality is that oil is as secure as it gets. America should expand…