Research Brief
Environment
Regulation
Government regulations typically restrict people’s behaviors and choices– causing economic damage, especially to society’s vulnerable who can least afford to comply. Locke works to deregulate and support innovation and growth.
Research Brief
Health Care
DHHS Stops Reporting Covid Hospitalizations by Vaccination Status
Since last summer, the majority of Covid-19 hospitalizations in North Carolina have been to people fully vaccinated or boosted against Covid. Especially in recent weeks, fully vaccinated or boosted individuals…
Energy
Government Affairs Update: Securing Energy Choice
The North Carolina House of Representatives passed House Bill 130: Preserving Choices for Consumers, sponsored by Reps. Dean Arp, Jason Saine, Michael Wray, and Charlie Miller. Locke committed in its…
Agriculture
Save Oyster Farming from NIMBYism
The Not-in-My-Backyard (NIMBY) mentality is going after oysters. Complaining about unsightly materials and bad smells, some property owners on the coastline want oyster farmers to do their business elsewhere or…
Research Brief
Regulation
A Smart, Simple Fix for Some Unnecessary Overregulation
North Carolina’s administrative code is cluttered with over 1,000 rules whose authorizing statutes have been repealed. Though technically repealed, they were kept on the books owing to quirks in the…
Liberty
How deceptive language keeps us in the dark about ‘Daylight Saving’ Time
My recent column for the Foundation for Economic Education looks at Daylight Saving Time (DST). In it I discuss the negative repercussions of DST on health, the economy, the workplace,…
Freedom Focus
Freedom Focus
Being vs. Seeming in Crafting Policy
“To be rather than to seem” is a great guiding principle for effective public policy. Many policies started with good intentions don’t bring about the desired outcomes. Policymakers guided by…
Research Brief
Education
Protecting North Carolinians from Compulsory Covid Vaccination and School Masking
House Bill 98 would make long overdue changes to prohibit state and local governments, public schools, and universities from requiring Covid vaccination or discriminating against the unvaccinated, and it would…
Energy
Biden Bureaucrats vs. Gas-Fired Stoves
Last month people were outraged when a rogue commissioner on the U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission began speaking openly of banning gas stoves. In response, the Biden administration and their…
Regulation
Alcohol Taxation Graphics
Research Brief
Law & Public Safety
Restoring the Separation of Powers in North Carolina
The North Carolina State Constitution unequivocally declares, “The legislative, executive, and supreme judicial powers shall be forever separate and distinct from each other.” Despite that declaration, North Carolinians are increasingly…
Budget, Taxation & Economy
New-Normaling: How They Try to Get You to Accept Bad Policy Outcomes
Preface: The political class has drifted far from Lincoln’s vision of a government “of the people, by the people, for the people” — something that those words and the solemn…
Energy
NCUC’s Initial Carbon Plan Raises Questions
Last Friday, the North Carolina Utilities Commission (NCUC) issued a press release announcing it completed the initial Carbon Plan, which they were mandated to do per House Bill 951, a…