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3209308	有图 Паспорта берут на воинский учет Депутаты расширяют перечень оснований для лишения гражданства <p> <p>Госдума рассмотрит законопроект о лишении приобретенного гражданства за уклонение от воинского учета. Соответствующую инициативу 16 июля внесла группа депутатов во главе с председателем комитета по обороне Андреем Картаполовым («Единая Россия»). Параллельно в нижней палате планируют дополнить законопроект о прекращении гражданства за совершение преступлений. В частности, забирать паспорт предлагается у граждан, совершивших такие деяния «по экстремистскому мотиву или в целях оправдания терроризма или диверсионной деятельности».</p><p> <svg><use></use></svg> Выйти из полноэкранного режима <p> <svg><use></use></svg> Развернуть на весь экран <p> <p> <source srcset="data:image/webp;base64,UklGRh4AAABXRUJQVlA4TBEAAAAvDwACAAdQ97rXvf+BiOh/AAA=" data-lazyimage-srcset="https://iy.kommersant.ru/Issues.photo/DAILY/2025/126/KSP_017717_00095_2_t249_202827.webp> <source srcset="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhEAAJAIAAAO7u7gAAACwAAAAAEAAJAAACCoSPqcvtD6OclBUAOw==" data-lazyimage-srcset="https://iy.kommersant.ru/Issues.photo/DAILY/2025/126/KSP_017717_00095_2_t249_202827.jpg> <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhEAAJAIAAAO7u7gAAACwAAAAAEAAJAAACCoSPqcvtD6OclBUAOw==" rel="noopener noreferrer"> </p> <noscript> <img src="https://iy.kommersant.ru/Issues.photo/DAILY/2025/126/KSP_017717_00095_2_t222_202827.jpg" rel="noopener noreferrer"> </noscript> </p> <p>Фото: Александр Коряков, Коммерсантъ</p> <p> <p>Фото: Александр Коряков, Коммерсантъ</p> </p> </p> </p><p>В пояснительной записке к поправкам в федеральные законы о воинской службе и гражданстве авторы напоминают, что первый с августа 2024 года уже содержит норму о прекращении приобретенного гражданства в случае, если его обладатель сообщает «заведомо ложные сведения в отношении обязательства соблюдать Конституцию РФ», то есть не встает на первоначальный воинский учет. За полгода ее действия МВД приняло 198 решений о прекращении гражданства по этому основанию, однако конкретного правового механизма закон не содержал, указывают авторы.</p><p>Внесенные новеллы призваны устранить этот пробел. Так, они закрепляют конкретные положения, «определяющие порядок установления факта уклонения от исполнения обязанностей по воинскому учету, механизм прекращения российского гражданства по данному основанию, а также категории лиц, на которых распространяются соответствующие нормы». </p><p>В частности, устанавливать факты уклонения от постановки на воинский учет будут обязаны военкоматы, а направлять соответствующие заключения они должны будут в МВД. На основании этих данных ведомство сможет принять решение о прекращении гражданства.</p><p>Под действие закона попадут все натурализованные граждане РФ, факты уклонения которых от воинского учета будут установлены после 8 августа 2024 года. Вновь обратиться с заявлением о приеме в гражданство такие лица смогут не ранее чем через три года после утраты статуса.</p><p>Днем ранее спикер Госдумы Вячеслав Володин сообщил в Telegram, что депутаты намерены дополнить другой законопроект, уже принятый в первом чтении, новыми основаниями для лишения гражданства. В текущей редакции законопроекта, напомним, упоминаются 72 статьи Уголовного кодекса (УК РФ), преступления по которым влекут за собой прекращение статуса.</p><p>По словам господина Володина, депутаты договорились дополнить перечень еще девятью составами. Речь идет, в частности, о статьях об убийстве (ст.105 УК РФ), организации незаконной миграции (ст.322.1 УК РФ), развратных действиях в отношении двух и более лиц (ст.135 п.3 УК РФ), а также ряде статей о преступлениях против половой неприкосновенности несовершеннолетних.</p><p>Кроме того, отзывать гражданство депутаты предлагают за «любое преступление, если оно совершено по экстремистскому мотиву или в целях оправдания терроризма или диверсионной деятельности».</p><p>Выйти на принятие закона нижняя палата планирует до 23 июля, сообщил Вячеслав Володин.</p><p>Григорий Лейба</p> </p> В Госдуме предложили лишать гражданства за уклонение от воинского учета	查看 4616	生意人报	2025-07-17 01:19:56 2025-07-17 11:38:25	word
3209307	有图 «Моторинвест»: гибриды Voyah тестируются для работы в качестве такси <p> <p>Автомобили Evolute и Voyah соответствуют требованиям нового закона о локализации машин для таксомоторных парков, заявил глава «Моторинвеста» Андрей Резников в интервью «Ъ». Окончательная ясность появится после публикации перечня Минпромторга, отметил он.</p><p> <svg><use></use></svg> Выйти из полноэкранного режима <p> <svg><use></use></svg> Развернуть на весь экран <p> <p> <source srcset="data:image/webp;base64,UklGRh4AAABXRUJQVlA4TBEAAAAvDwACAAdQ97rXvf+BiOh/AAA=" data-lazyimage-srcset="https://iy.kommersant.ru/Issues.photo/NEWS/2025/07/16/KMO_194879_00005_2_t249_230321.webp> <source srcset="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhEAAJAIAAAO7u7gAAACwAAAAAEAAJAAACCoSPqcvtD6OclBUAOw==" data-lazyimage-srcset="https://iy.kommersant.ru/Issues.photo/NEWS/2025/07/16/KMO_194879_00005_2_t249_230321.jpg> <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhEAAJAIAAAO7u7gAAACwAAAAAEAAJAAACCoSPqcvtD6OclBUAOw==" rel="noopener noreferrer"> </p> <noscript> <img src="https://iy.kommersant.ru/Issues.photo/NEWS/2025/07/16/KMO_194879_00005_2_t222_230321.jpg" rel="noopener noreferrer"> </noscript> </p> <p>Генеральный директор «Моторинвеста» Андрей Резников</p><p>Фото: пресс служба «Моторинвест»</p> <p> <p>Генеральный директор «Моторинвеста» Андрей Резников</p><p>Фото: пресс служба «Моторинвест»</p> </p> </p> </p><p>В настоящее время Voyah проходит тестирование. Господин Резников рассчитывает, что уже в третьем квартале модель Voyah Dream может появиться в сегменте «круиз». Компания также готовит к выходу на рынок такси модели Voyah Passion и Voyah Free.</p><p>«В целом на рынке нет локализованных машин в сегментах "бизнес", "элит" и "круиз". Наши автомобили могли бы соответствовать всем требованиям»,— сказал господин Резников. Он подчеркнул, что Voyah является премиальным брендом, в отличие от некоторых китайских марок, позиционирующих себя как премиум только на российском рынке.</p><p><i>Подробнее об этом — в интервью Андрея Резникова, которое выйдет на сайте и в газете 17 июля.</i></p> </p> «Моторинвест»: гибриды Voyah тестируются для работы в качестве такси – Коммерсантъ	查看 2628	生意人报	2025-07-17 03:19:24 2025-07-17 11:38:25	word
3209306	有图 Силуанов анонсировал продажу ЮГК <p> <p>Власти планируют продать компанию, которая управляет «Южуралзолотом», перешедшую в собственность государства, сообщил министр финансов Антон Силуанов. Речь идет про ООО «Управляющая компания "Южуралзолото группа компаний"».</p><p> <svg><use></use></svg> Выйти из полноэкранного режима <p> <svg><use></use></svg> Развернуть на весь экран <p> <p> <source srcset="data:image/webp;base64,UklGRh4AAABXRUJQVlA4TBEAAAAvDwACAAdQ97rXvf+BiOh/AAA=" data-lazyimage-srcset="https://iy.kommersant.ru/Issues.photo/NEWS/2025/07/16/KMO_204495_00110_1_t249_204946.webp> <source srcset="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhEAAJAIAAAO7u7gAAACwAAAAAEAAJAAACCoSPqcvtD6OclBUAOw==" data-lazyimage-srcset="https://iy.kommersant.ru/Issues.photo/NEWS/2025/07/16/KMO_204495_00110_1_t249_204946.jpg> <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhEAAJAIAAAO7u7gAAACwAAAAAEAAJAAACCoSPqcvtD6OclBUAOw==" rel="noopener noreferrer"> </p> <noscript> <img src="https://iy.kommersant.ru/Issues.photo/NEWS/2025/07/16/KMO_204495_00110_1_t222_204946.jpg" rel="noopener noreferrer"> </noscript> </p> <p>Фото: Дмитрий Духанин, Коммерсантъ</p> <p> <p>Фото: Дмитрий Духанин, Коммерсантъ</p> </p> </p> </p><p>По словам министра, гособъекты переоцениваются для дальнейшего использования и передаются новым собственникам для эффективной работы. «Государство будет поступать с этим пакетом так же, как и с другими аналогичными случаями передачи государству объектов со стороны правоохранительных органов»,— сказал министр (цитата ТАСС).</p><p>Он добавил, что большая часть таких объектов уже реализована. В прошлом году от их продажи в бюджет поступило более 100 млрд руб. В этом году ожидается аналогичная сумма. 15 июля Росимущество стало владельцем 100% уставного капитала УК ЮГК.</p> </p> Силуанов анонсировал продажу ЮГК – Коммерсантъ	查看 2339	生意人报	2025-07-16 22:32:22 2025-07-17 11:38:25	word
3209305	无图 Силы ПВО сбили 48 БПЛА ВСУ за 3,5 часа <p> <p>В период с 20:00 по 23:00 мск 16 июля над регионами России было уничтожено 40 БПЛА, сообщили в Минобороны. С 23:00 до 23:30 мск силы ПВО сбили еще восемь украинских беспилотников. </p><p>Всего за три часа было сбито 29 БПЛА над территорией Белгородской области, еще 9 БПЛА — над Брянской областью и еще 2 — над Липецкой областью. </p><p>С 23:00 по 23:30 было уничтожено семь беспилотников над Брянской областью и еще один над территорией Орловской области. </p><p>Ранее губернатор Белгородской области сообщил об одном погибшем и шести пострадавших в результате атаки дронов. Раненые госпитализированы с ранами средней степени тяжести.</p> </p> Силы ПВО сбили 48 БПЛА ВСУ за 3,5 часа – Коммерсантъ	查看 739	生意人报	2025-07-17 04:51:51 2025-07-17 11:38:25	word
3209304	有图 Путин открыл участок трассы М-12 между Казанью и Екатеринбургом <p> <p>Президент Владимир Путин в режиме видеоконференцсвязи поучаствовал в церемонии открытия участка «Дюртюли — Ачит» автодороги М-12 «Восток». Скоростная четырехполосная автотрасса протяженностью 275 км в составе автомагистрали М-12 проходит по территории Башкирии, Пермского края и Свердловской области.</p><p> <svg><use></use></svg> Выйти из полноэкранного режима <p> <svg><use></use></svg> Развернуть на весь экран <p> <p> <source srcset="data:image/webp;base64,UklGRh4AAABXRUJQVlA4TBEAAAAvDwACAAdQ97rXvf+BiOh/AAA=" data-lazyimage-srcset="https://iy.kommersant.ru/Issues.photo/NEWS/2025/07/16/KMO_204650_00001_1_t249_213258.webp> <source srcset="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhEAAJAIAAAO7u7gAAACwAAAAAEAAJAAACCoSPqcvtD6OclBUAOw==" data-lazyimage-srcset="https://iy.kommersant.ru/Issues.photo/NEWS/2025/07/16/KMO_204650_00001_1_t249_213258.jpg> <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhEAAJAIAAAO7u7gAAACwAAAAAEAAJAAACCoSPqcvtD6OclBUAOw==" rel="noopener noreferrer"> </p> <noscript> <img src="https://iy.kommersant.ru/Issues.photo/NEWS/2025/07/16/KMO_204650_00001_1_t222_213258.jpg" rel="noopener noreferrer"> </noscript> </p> <p>Владимир Путин</p><p>Фото: пресс-служба президента РФ</p> <p> <p>Владимир Путин</p><p>Фото: пресс-служба президента РФ</p> </p> </p> </p><p>«Сегодня мы открываем новый автодорожный участок… С его введением в строй современные автомагистрали свяжут Санкт-Петербург и Москву с Екатеринбургом — столицей Урала, ведущим научным, промышленным и культурным центром России. Но и это, конечно, не все»,— сказал Владимир Путин.</p><p>«На всем протяжении трассы организовано скоростное, бесшовное движение без единого светофора, благодаря чему время в пути из Екатеринбурга в Москву сократится почти в два раза»,— добавил глава государства (цитата по сайту Кремля).</p><p>Проезд по трассе будет платным. Автомагистраль разделена на три участка: Дюртюли — Бураево (1211-1279 км трассы М-12), Бураево — Октябрьский (1279-1427 км) и Октябрьский — Ачит (1427-1487 км). Плата за проезды на всех трех участках для легкового автомобиля составит без скидок 1,713 тыс. руб. С учетом максимальной скидки в 15% по программе лояльности с транспондером T-Pass - 1,456 тыс. руб. Для грузовиков проезд без скидки — 2,985 тыс. руб., с ее учетом — 2,537 тыс. руб.</p> </p> Путин открыл участок трассы М-12 между Казанью и Екатеринбургом – Коммерсантъ	查看 2910	生意人报	2025-07-17 00:37:16 2025-07-17 11:38:25	word
3209303	有图 Хаменеи пригрозил США и Израилю «еще более сильным» ударом в случае новых атак <p> <p>Верховный лидер Ирана аятолла Али Хаменеи заявил, что страна готова ответить на новые удары со стороны Израиля и США. Господин Хаменеи подчеркнул, что новый удар Ирана будет намного сильнее его прошлой атаки по американской военно-воздушной базе «Аль-Удейд» в Катаре, сообщает TRT Global.</p><p>«Наш народ не боится ни США, ни их пса на поводке — сионистского режима», — заявил он в эфире государственного телевидения. </p><p>В конце июня Али Хаменеи заявил, что в результате американских атак на иранские ядерные объекты не произошло «ничего существенного». В то же время, по его словам, американцы преуменьшают ущерб от атаки Тегерана на американскую военную базу в Катаре.</p><p>13 июня Израиль начал операцию «Народ как лев», атаковав крупнейшие ядерные и оборонные объекты Ирана. Тегеран развернул ответную операцию. Взаимные атаки продолжались 12 дней. 22 июня США нанесли удары по ядерным объектам в Исфахане, Натанзе и Фордо. На следующий день Иран атаковал военные базы Штатов в Ираке и Катаре. Одна из них — крупнейшая в регионе база «Аль-Удейд».</p><p><img src="https://iv.kommersant.ru/CorpImages/Themes/баннер_сюжет.png" rel="noopener noreferrer"></p> </p> Хаменеи: Иран готов ответить на новые удары Израиля и США	查看 1304	生意人报	2025-07-17 03:54:59 2025-07-17 11:38:25	word
3209302	无图 США могут рассмотреть введение пошлин на российский палладий <p> <p>Первый заместитель госсекретаря Майкл Ригас, отвечающий за вопросы управления и ресурсов, предложил ввести пошлины на поставки палладия из России. Об этом он рассказал на слушаниях в комитете по иностранным делам Сената Конгресса США. </p><p>Так Майкл Ригас ответил на вопрос сенатора-республиканца от Монтаны Стива Дэйнса о мерах США в связи с предполагаемым «наводнением» рынка палладием из России, что привело к падению цен. Господин Дэйнс отметил, что из-за этого в Монтане, где добывают палладий, уволили около 700 работников.</p><p>«Похоже, что этот вопрос может быть связан с национальной безопасностью и требовать введения пошлин на важнейшие полезные ископаемые»,— сказал господин Ригас (цитата по ТАСС).</p><p>Однако господин Ригас отметил, что заявления о введении пошлин в администрации США уполномочены делать другие сотрудники.</p><p>Россия поставляет в США удобрения, урановое сырье и палладий, который используется в производстве автомобильных катализаторов, в электронной и химической промышленности, а также в других отраслях.</p> </p> США могут рассмотреть введение пошлин на российский палладий – Коммерсантъ	查看 1170	生意人报	2025-07-17 05:50:37 2025-07-17 11:38:25	word
3209301	无图 Силы ПВО сбили три БПЛА на пути к Москве <p> <p>Мэр Москвы Сергей Собянин сообщил об отражении атаки двух беспилотников на пути к столице. Об этом он рассказал в своем Telegram-канале. На месте падения обломков работают сотрудники экстренных служб. </p><p>Позже Сергей Собянин сообщил о еще одном беспилотнике, сбитом на пути к Москве, </p><p>Об атаке в ночь на 17 июля также сообщили главы Белгородской и Смоленской областей. Из-за риска ударов БПЛА ограничения на полеты ввел аэропорт Калуги. Всего в период с 20:00 по 23:30 мск 16 июля было сбито 48 БПЛА над регионами России.</p> </p> Силы ПВО сбили три БПЛА на пути к Москве – Коммерсантъ	查看 637	生意人报	2025-07-17 07:48:14 2025-07-17 11:38:25	word
3209300	无图 <p>A new study and interactive dashboard by the Yankee Institute and Reason Foundation show that Connecticut’s 2017 bipartisan financial reforms known as the “fiscal guardrails” have saved the state more than $170 million since enacted and, if kept intact, can save $7 billion over the next 25 years.</p><p>The Case for Connecticut’s Fiscal Guardrails: How to Protect Public Pensions and Taxpayers examines how they have improved Connecticut’s creditworthiness, making it less expensive for the state to borrow money to finance necessary projects. Moreover, the guardrails have reversed decades of pension underfunding, reducing the risk that Connecticut will face tax increases to make the pensions’ minimum liability payments during a recession.</p><p>TheinteractiveReason Foundation-Yankee InstituteCT Pensions Dashboard explores various economic scenarios for reducing the state’s public pension debt. The study and dashboard are built upon dual pension models of the State Employee Retirement System, SERS, and the State Teacher Retirement System, STRS. The models account for the assumed rates of investment returns, payroll growth rates, cost-of-living adjustment provisions, and mortality assumptions, among dozens of other variables.</p><p>Connecticut Pensions Dashboard</p><p> Stay in Touch with Our Pension Experts <p>Reason Foundation’s Pension Integrity Project has helped policymakers in states like Arizona, Colorado, Michigan, and Montana implement substantive pension reforms. Our monthly newsletter highlights the latest actuarial analysis and policy insights from our team.</p> </p><p> <p><form> <p><p><label>Email Address(Required)</label></p><p><label>Email</label><p>This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.</p></p> </form> </p> </p> How Connecticut pensions can save $7 billion in interest costs over the next 30 years	查看 1911	理智基金会	2024-09-28 04:48:14 2025-07-17 11:26:17	word
3209299	有图 Introduction: Overview of mileage-based user fees<p>For the past 100 years, most arterial highways throughout the United States, including the Interstate Highway System and most state highways, have been funded by the motor fuel tax. However, over the last 20 years, due to the combination of a growing number of electric vehicles, a growing number of hybrid vehicles, and the greater fuel efficiency of vehicles powered by internal combustion engines, fuel tax revenue has declined significantly. Given these trends, the motor fuel tax will not be a sustainable revenue source for roads and highways over the next 100 years.</p><p>The motor fuel tax can be compared to a rock star on his farewell tour. It is still producing revenue, but it is not as effective a mechanism as when it was at its peak. Further, most transportation analysts know that it is time for something more sustainable.</p><p>Over the past 20 years, researchers have examined a number of different alternative transportation funding sources, such as a freight charge per ton, tire fees, registration fees, and sales taxes. About 10 years ago, officials with the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) created a comprehensive funding matrix. The impetus for the chart was the decline in revenue from the motor fuel tax. AASHTO was examining how fuel tax revenue could be replaced. The organization looked at more than 35 funding sources based on the users-pay/users-benefit principle (in which people who use roadways more pay more, those who use roadways less pay less, and those who do not use them pay nothing at all) and using general funds, the most significant of which are detailed below in Table 1.</p><img src="data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns=" rel="noopener noreferrer"><noscript><img src="https://a8d50b36.delivery.rocketcdn.me/wp-content/uploads/image-50.png" rel="noopener noreferrer"></noscript>Source: Matrix of Illustrative Surface Transportation Revenue Options, American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials<p>After looking at all of the options, researchers determined that the mileage-based user fee (otherwise known as a road usage charge, road charge, or vehicle-miles traveled fee) was the most promising of all of the revenue sources that they studied. A mileage-based user fee (MBUF) charges drivers based on the number of miles driven, compared with the fuel tax, which charges drivers based on the number of gallons of fuel consumed, or a sales tax, which charges consumers based on the value of goods purchased. The mileage fee ranked extremely high in economic efficiency and equity, and medium-high in implementation and administrative efficiency.</p><p>From a fiscal perspective, mileage-based user fees would generate $246 billion over an estimated six-year period, dwarfing every other revenue source, including a 10% increase in the motor fuel tax rate ($120 billion) and implementation of a gasoline sales tax ($156 billion). </p><p>Further, MBUFs were the only option that could generate enough revenue to replace the motor fuel tax (more than $200 billion for automobiles and trucks combined), more than any other option in the AASHTO matrix.</p><p>MBUFs also more closely adhere to the users-pay/users-benefit principle. In addition to being an economic advantage, it is also a political one. Transportation must compete with other policy priorities such as health care, education, and defense. And transportation usually loses out to those other priorities in a fight for general revenue sources, such as sales taxes and income taxes. Therefore, any revenue sources that do not rely on the users-pay principle are unlikely to lead to sustainable transportation revenue.</p><p>Even though MBUFs scored well in implementation and administrative efficiency, there is room for improvement. Parts 3 and 4 of this policy brief examine some of these challenges and how they can be addressed.</p><p>Equity implications are mentioned multiple times in the 2015 and 2019 versions of the AASHTO matrix. Specifically, the report examined geographic equity and equity among drivers of different propulsion methods. While many drivers would assume that rural residents would pay more, many rural drivers would pay less in MBUFs than in fuel taxes because they tend to drive older, less fuel-efficient vehicles. With fuel taxes, drivers pay varying amounts depending on their vehicle’s powertrain, despite the fact that all light-duty vehicles wear out pavement at about the same rate. Drivers of electric vehicles pay no fuel tax at all, while drivers of hybrid vehicles pay approximately half of what drivers of conventional fuel vehicles pay. With MBUFs, all light-duty vehicles that travel the same distance pay the same amount, regardless of powertrain.</p><p>The AASHTO matrix did not seek to explain MBUFs, but in some ways, they are most similar to what Reason Foundation calls 21st-century per-mile tolling. Both mileage-based user fees and tolling charge drivers a per-mile rate. The biggest difference is in the geography. Tolls are charged for a specific stretch of highway, while MBUFs are charged for the entire system. For this reason, both are better user fees than the fuel tax, which charges drivers a per-gallon rate regardless of where they drive.</p><p>However, both MBUFs and 21st-century tolling would be different from today’s toll roads, which often employ double taxation. Currently, motorists on most toll roads pay both a fuel tax and a toll, with only two states offering a rebate on fuel taxes. Motorists may also pay a variable toll on express toll lanes, although that toll is designed to manage congestion, not to raise revenue. In mileage-based user fee pilot and permanent programs where money is exchanged, drivers receive a rebate for any fuel tax that they pay. It is crucial that any potential MBUF pilot refunds fuel taxes and tolls to prevent any double taxation.</p><p>Regarding implementation, because they charge for the exact amount of roadway that a vehicle uses and can be varied based on the type of highway, many transportation researchers consider GPS-enabled and location-based MBUFs to be the ideal solution. Currently, pilot and permanent MBUF systems are divided into high-tech and low-tech MBUFs. The following section of this brief provides a brief overview of how a high-tech MBUF functions.</p><p>Full Policy Brief: Low tech mileage-based user fee options</p><p><object aria-label="Embed of Low tech mileage-based user fee options."></object>Low tech mileage-based user fee optionsDownload</p> Low tech mileage-based user fees options	查看 6607	理智基金会	2025-06-23 12:01:00 2025-07-17 11:26:17	word
3209298	无图 Introduction<p>In an era where personal data is both a critical economic asset and a sensitive aspect of individual autonomy, privacy laws worldwide increasingly rely on user consent as the primary mechanism for governing data collection, processing, and sharing. However, despite its central role, the effectiveness of current digital consent frameworks remains highly contested. </p><p>This paper critically reviews how consent currently operates within major regulatory frameworks, particularly contrasting the European Union’s stringent, opt-in-based General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) against the predominantly opt-out approach of the United States, exemplified by California’s Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).</p><p>Part 2 outlines key legal frameworks and definitions. </p><p>Part 3 examines how consent mechanisms shape user behavior, finding that repeated prompts often lead to disengagement rather than meaningful choice. </p><p>Part 4 analyzes the broader economic effects, showing that consent requirements tend to favor large firms, raise compliance costs for smaller players, and constrain innovation. </p><p>In the final section, we synthesize leading policy and academic proposals to outline a set of potential reforms. These reforms include risk-based consent frameworks, universal privacy management tools, and co-regulatory accountability models.</p><p>The GDPR, adopted in 2016 and enacted in 2018, is built around the more stringent opt-in approach and aspires to consent that is “freely given, specific, informed, and unambiguous.” </p><p>The CCPA, adopted in 2018 and enacted in 2020, in effect for U.S. firms doing business in California, follows an opt-out approach, where consent is presumed unless actively withdrawn. As the U.S. and other countries debate national approaches to data privacy, the debates remain unresolved.</p><p>Drawing on empirical studies, this review highlights persistent shortcomings in current consent models—from interface design flaws to the disproportionate compliance burden on smaller entities. It concludes by identifying potential reforms aimed at balancing user autonomy, regulatory flexibility, and market competitiveness.</p><p>Full Policy Brief: Consent requirements in comprehensive data privacy laws</p><p><object aria-label="Embed of Consent requirements in comprehensive data privacy laws: Current practices and the path forward."></object>Consent requirements in comprehensive data privacy laws: Current practices and the path forwardDownload</p> Consent requirements in comprehensive data privacy laws	查看 2517	理智基金会	2025-06-24 12:01:00 2025-07-17 11:26:17	word
3209297	无图 <p>Welcome to Reason Foundation’s newsletter on psychedelics policy. This edition covers:</p>The FDA commission’s statement on psychedelicsNew psychedelics-related hire at HHSRoundup of state policiesDEA permit for a churchMeet with Reason Foundation staff in DenverResearch reform for psychedelics is a ‘top priority’ for the FDA<p>In an Interview with Jillian Michaels on NewsNation, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary discussed psychedelics and clinical trial reform. “This is one of our top priorities at the FDA: to listen to doctors, to listen to patients, and to make sure we don’t get in the way with red tape,” noted Makary, referring to doctors who have seen positive results with psychedelics.</p>New psychedelics-focused hire at the Department of Health and Human Services<p>Attorney Matthew Zorn has been hired by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as deputy general counsel and will reportedly be working on psychedelics-related reforms. Zorn has been active in psychedelics policy, including in a court case in 2021 attempting to require the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) to permit psilocybin-assisted therapy for a terminally ill patient. Though HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been vocal in the past on expanding access to psychedelics, his agency has not announced any major policy reforms. Zorn’s hiring signals that HHS may soon start working on policy changes that could impact psychedelic pharmaceuticals.</p><p>Additionally, on June 5, James O’Neill received enough votes in the Senate to be confirmed as deputy secretary of HHS. O’Neill has commented that drugs ought to be approved by the FDA based primarily on the agency’s review of safety data and that evaluations of “efficacy” could be completed after more patients have access to approved drugs.</p>Church gets DEA greenlight to administer ayahuasca<p>A Washington-based religious organization, the Church of Gaia, has reportedly been permitted by the Drug Enforcement Agency to administer ayahuasca in a ceremonial setting. Previous petitions have faced agency opposition. Soul Quest, for instance, needed to pursue its petition through lengthy court proceedings before it was ultimately denied by the DEA.</p><p>It is unclear if this signals a new approach to approving religious exemptions for the use of psychedelic substances under the Trump administration or whether Gaia approached the approval process differently. According to The Spokesman-Review, a DEA spokesperson said the agency will not disclose details of the petition but confirmed that the Church of Gaia “was among only a few churches that had or were nearing such approval.”</p>More state policy progress<p>There were significant wins for psychedelics reform at the state level this spring. The Texas legislature appropriated $50 million for grants to study the medical applications of ibogaine through FDA-supervised clinical trials. Gov. Greg Abbott signed the appropriation, Texas Senate Bill 2308, into law on June 11. Ibogaine has shown tremendous promise as an alternative treatment for opioid use disorder. Reason Foundation provided testimony in support of the study bill.</p><p>Next door to Texas, New Mexico became the first state to legalize psychedelic services through a state legislature (instead of a ballot measure). Read more about state-level reform in our state roundup. </p>Come meet Reason Foundation’s drug policy team<p>Reason Foundation Vice President of Policy Len Gilroy and Research Director Geoff Lawrence will speak at this week’s Psychedelic Science Conference in Denver, Colorado. Come say hi to the drug policy team at this large gathering of professionals in the psychedelics industry.</p><p>Sign up for the Psychedelics Policy Newsletter</p> <p><form> <p><p><label>Email Address(Required)</label></p><p></p><p><label>Phone</label><p>This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.</p></p> </form> </p> </p> Psychedelics Policy Newsletter: FDA prioritizes drug reform for psychedelics, Texas advances ibogaine research, and more	查看 4096	理智基金会	2025-06-17 02:34:05 2025-07-17 11:26:17	word
3209296	有图 <p>In ThisIssue:</p><p>Articles, Research & Spotlights</p>Reason’s Annual Pension Report Updated through 2024More Threats to California’s Pension Debt Elimination PlanPolicymakers Shouldn’t Use Colorado’s Pension for Police Funding<p>News in Brief</p><p>Quotable Quotes</p><p>Data Highlight</p><p>Reason Foundation in the News</p><p>Contact the Pension Reform Help Desk</p><p>Articles, Research & Spotlights</p><p>Update to Reason’s Annual Pension Solvency and Performance Report</p><p>Reason Foundation’s Pension Integrity Project has updated our Annual Pension Solvency and Performance Report with data from public pension systems that hadn’t reported their 2024 data when the previous report was published. The update finds the national total of state and local public pension debt is now $1.61 trillion, up from $1.59 trillion. Reason’s updated report also includes new features to evaluate each state’s pension status and compare them side-by-side with other states. With these tools, policymakers and taxpayers can gather information crucial to dealing with the growing challenges of pension debt.</p><p>California Bill Would Undermine Important Pension Reforms</p><p>A proposal in the California Legislature, Assembly Bill 569, threatens to undo previous reforms that are crucial to protecting taxpayers from runaway pension costs. These reforms, from the 2013 California Public Employees’ Pension Reform Act (PEPRA), were designed to control spending and tackle the state’s debt of more than $200 billion. The bill would weaken these rules, allowing government agencies to promise more pension benefits through supplementary plans despite the public pension promises they’ve already made remaining significantly underfunded. The proposal would allow local governments to get around the cost-saving measures established in PEPRA, ultimately placing more risk and higher costs on future generations of California’s already overburdened taxpayers. State lawmakers need to reinforce, not undermine, the prudent pension reforms that have been adopted in the past.</p><p>Colorado Should Not Use PERA to Invest in Non-Pension Programs</p><p>Through a 2024 referendum, voters in Colorado approved spending an additional $350 million on law enforcement over the next decade. Now, it is up to lawmakers to determine how to implement the referendum. One proposal by the Joint Budget Committee would take money from the state’s emergency reserve and add it to the Public Employees Retirement Association (PERA) investment pool to leverage market returns to maximize this funding. But, as Reason Foundation’s Rich Hiller warns, using the state’s pension fund for this purpose applies undue risks on PERA, and would inappropriately ask the pension plan to deliver on a scheme that is beyond its core purpose.</p><p>News in Brief</p><p>Overestimating returns is what created pension debt</p><p>A paper in the Journal of Pension Economics and Finance by David Hengerer,</p><p>Jonathan Moodyand Anthony Randazzo examines why state defined-benefit pension plans accumulated $1.33 trillion in unfunded liabilities from 2000 to 2020. Using actuarial data from 145 state pension systems, the study finds that 41% of the increase can be attributed to investment returns falling short of overly optimistic assumptions. Another 28% came from assumption changes, primarily lowered discount rates, and 24% was due to interest accumulating on prior underfunding. The authors caution policymakers that unrealistic investment return expectations have effectively masked true funding needs, leading to long-term structural pension debt. Read the full report here.</p><p>How to turn retirement savings into guaranteed lifetime income</p><p>A new issue brief from the American Academy of Actuaries explains the various ways workers can convert their defined contribution plan savings into income during retirement. Thanks to recent laws, more plans can now offer annuities—insurance products that provide guaranteed monthly payments for life. These “plan-selected” annuities are often cheaper and more flexible than those sold to individuals. The brief also covers other options, such as withdrawing a fixed percentage each year, spreading payments over a set number of years, or just withdrawing the required minimum distributions, which are minimum amounts that retirees must withdraw each year after age 73 from their tax-deferred retirement accounts. Each option has trade-offs: annuities protect against running out of money but reduce flexibility, while non-insured approaches offer more control but provide no guarantees. The authors encourage employers to offer a mix of options and provide clear explanations so that members can make informed decisions. Read the full brief here.</p><p>Airports offer opportunities to generate funding for growing pension debt</p><p>The Reason Foundation’s recently published Annual Aviation Infrastructure Report examines the potential funding that state and local governments could generate from their publicly owned airports. Through public-private partnerships, governments could agree to long-term leases of their airports with private companies, potentially generating billions in additional revenue. With growing pension debt being a multi-billion-dollar problem for many states and cities, this could be a prudent solution that could secure pensions and save taxpayers money. The report indicates that private ownership of airports is the norm outside of North America. In other regions, such as Europe and Latin America, over 76% of airports are owned and operated by private companies, whereas in North America, more than 96% of airports are government-owned. Read the full report here.</p><p>Quotable Quotes on Pension Reform</p><p>“It’s a big complicated system, and what’s being proposed here is to make it less secure. As a member of the pension system, I object to that..Every year there’s an effort to achieve more benefits for the organizations, and some organizations like firefighters have a much more compelling case than others, but nevertheless the government has to live within limits…The great danger of pensions is that risk comes later when the current lawmakers and advocates are no longer around, so the current leadership has to act as stewards for future beneficiaries, and that is very difficult because the future is not here, but the present is now.”</p><p>—Former California Gov. Jerry Brown quoted in “Unions want to chip away at Jerry Brown’s pension law. He has something to say about that,” CalMatters, June 10, 2025.</p><p>“Our advice to [Andrew] Cuomo and all of his [New York City mayoral race] competitors is to stay out of pension politics. Playing that game will cost the city a lot in the long run, well after your four or eight years in City Hall are up.”</p><p>—New York Daily News Editorial Board in “Cuomo’s pension pander: The Tier 6 reform was necessary and should not be undone,” May 20, 2025.</p><p>“It’s cost-neutral under this one actuarial note, but if they miss their 7% return by just a little bit it will not be cost neutral—it will have a significant, meaningful cost to the city.”</p><p>—Josh McGee, former chairman of the Texas Pension Review Board, quoted in “Mayor Whitmire supports Texas bill that would reverse some Houston pension reforms, alarming experts,” Houston Chronicle, June 3, 2025.</p><p>“I just think that conversation about understanding what expenses are paid and improving the transparency—that’s a concerted effort across the alternative space, not just hedge funds.”</p><p>—John Claisse, CEO of consultant Albourne, quoted in “How Texas Teachers pushed back on hedge fund fees — and won,” Pensions and Investments, May 27, 2025.</p><p>Data Highlight</p><p>Each month, we feature a pension-related chart or infographic. This month, Reason’s update to the Annual Pension Solvency and Performance Report is a dashboard visualizing pension funding levels at state levels. Users can select their state to see the aggregated funding history and 2025 projections. Access the full report and dashboard here.</p><img src="data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns=" rel="noopener noreferrer"><noscript><img src="https://a8d50b36.delivery.rocketcdn.me/wp-content/uploads/Screenshot-2025-06-13-at-3.30.34-PM-1024x614.png" rel="noopener noreferrer"></noscript><p>Reason Foundation in the News</p><p>“If that bet fails, even slightly, the plans will face serious funding gaps..Washington’s choice to swim against this national trend by adopting a more aggressive return assumption significantly increases the likelihood of future shortfalls.”</p><p>—Ryan Frost, Pension Integrity Project Managing Director, quoted in “Washington bill’s changes to public pension funding could cost taxpayers, critic warns,” The Center Square, May 14, 2025.</p><p> Stay in Touch with Our Pension Experts <p>Reason Foundation’s Pension Integrity Project has helped policymakers in states like Arizona, Colorado, Michigan, and Montana implement substantive pension reforms. Our monthly newsletter highlights the latest actuarial analysis and policy insights from our team.</p> </p><p> <p><form> <p><p><label>Email Address(Required)</label></p><p><label>Phone</label><p>This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.</p></p> </form> </p> </p> Reason's Annual Pension Report updated through 2024	查看 9459	理智基金会	2025-06-18 23:19:33 2025-07-17 11:26:17	word
3209295	无图 <p>In this issue:</p>Bold new idea: control tower consolidationWhy the “Brand New ATC System” will not workReason’s annual report on aviation infrastructureInforming pilots of possible runway incursionsCould airport screening be privatized?News NotesQuotable Quotes<p>A Bold New Idea: Control Tower Consolidation</p><p>Consolidating U.S. air traffic control facilities has a fairly long history of being proposed, but with very little to show for it, except for a few consolidated terminal radar approach control facilities (TRACONs). Yet since today’s technology permits air traffic to be managed anywhere from anywhere, the concept continues to make sense.</p><p>I’m pleased to report that a bold new consolidation proposal is being worked on by leading companies that have pioneered remote/digital air traffic control towers. Going beyond the already-implemented remote tower centers in Europe, which are mostly focused on managing a dozen or more small-airports from one remote tower center, this idea suggests a much more expansive approach called a control tower complex.</p><p>A control tower complex (CTC) would focus on a geographical region and manage up to a dozen towers of various sizes and complexity. For example, a hypothetical consolidated tower complex might include managing five small airports, four medium airports, and one larger airport, all managed from a single CTC. As with all existing remote tower centers, there would be real productivity gains (due to economies of scale), some alleviation of current shortfalls in air traffic controller numbers, and significant cost savings due to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) not having to replace numerous obsolete physical air traffic control towers. Instead, it would only incur the costs of demolishing them and replacing them with cameras and other sensors at each airport site. For example, the recent cost of replacing the tower at Teterboro, NJ, a general aviation airport, was $74 million.</p><p>The FAA has succeeded over the years in consolidating a handful of TRACONs, but no other types of air traffic control (ATC) facilities. One major obstacle has been political: Members of Congress generally oppose losing any FAA facility in their state or district. </p><p>Another concern is likely opposition from air traffic controllers to proposed relocations. But this new concept calls for locating each CTC in the region where the to-be-replaced towers are and vetting potential CTC locations for cost of living and related quality of life factors that would be attractive for controller and manager relocation.</p><p>With a range of tower sizes in the CTC, there would be opportunities for controllers to train and qualify for moving to a higher-level remote tower, without having to relocate. Also appealing to controllers would be state-of-the-art technology, as well as a training lab with a control tower simulator at each CTC. As for congressional opposition, while the usual resistance can be expected, if the benefits and cost savings are in the ballpark CTC advocates suggest, the good-government case should be overwhelming.</p><p>One way to find out is to try this approach via a pilot program to implement one or two such control tower complexes. The FAA’s Air Traffic Organization (ATO) could offer this as a public-private partnership, open to companies with a track record of developing and operating remote tower centers overseas. Qualified companies would likely include Frequentis, Indra/Kongsburg, and Saab, which have each implemented remote tower centers in Europe.</p><p>The procurement process would reveal the likely cost of a new CTC, which could be compared with the cost of replacing each of the conventional towers based on recent replacements, such as Teterboro’s tower. The cost savings would be just one of the benefits. If the CTC idea lives up to its potential, adopting it as the way forward would accelerate the pace of replacing potentially several hundred smaller, aging brick & mortar towers. And it would likewise help to alleviate the ongoing controller shortage, not just initially but also by encouraging controllers at a CTC to make use of on-site simulator training to qualify for shifting to a more complex airport, without having to relocate.</p><p>This strikes me as an unprecedented innovation that would address a number of air traffic control problems.</p><p>I note that in the 2024 FAA reauthorization legislation, the FAA is directed to expand the scope of its remote tower efforts to include a remote tower center serving at least two airports. There is no sign of the FAA taking any action on this provision of the law.</p><p>» return to top</p><p>Why DOT’s “Brand New Air Traffic Control System” Will Not Work</p><p>By Rick Castaldo</p><p>This month, with fanfare and publicity, Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced an ambitious goal to overhaul the U.S. air traffic control system infrastructure with a large congressional appropriation of tens ofbillions of dollars. Within three to three and a half years, he promised, this plan would produce “a brand new air traffic control system.”</p><p>This is a laudable goal, but it ignores two basic underlying realities. The first is the Federal Aviation Administration’s deteriorating infrastructure, which is truly on its last legs. This must be addressed with far more urgency than “buying new stuff.” Many believe Secretary Duffy is not being provided accurate data on the condition of the 70,000 pieces of equipment he discusses that make up the National Airspace System, NAS. To put it bluntly, he is being misled.</p><p>The second reality is that the FAA’s process for procuring new systems and technology is seriously flawed, as illustrated by lengthy delays and limited benefits from the 20-year NextGen modernization project, which is widely recognized as producing very little bang for the tens of billions of bucks spent.</p><p>Secretary Duffy’s call to action was apparently driven by the deadly mid-air collision near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and the numerous outages at the Newark TRACON, causing major air traffic disruptions.In addition, last year’s nationwide NOTAM system outage caused havoc as well, with additional failures after an influx of capital and promised changes of that 50-year-old-system.</p><p>Secretary Duffy’s “brand new air traffic control” plan is to award an integration contract to a single commercial company, committing many billions of dollars in advance of any detailed plan—and all to be accomplished in less than four years. More disturbing is that an attitude of “Let them tell us how to do it” is a recipe for cost growth and failure. Whoever is advising Secretary Duffy on this path is 100% wrong. The integration contractor would need direction from someone highly knowledgeable. And whatever contractor is chosen, they would need more than a cursory understanding of the complexity of the existing National Airspace System, NAS, infrastructure, archaic electrical interfaces, and the vast number of existing contractors that provide key services, like telecommunications. They would also need the authority to execute anything needed in very short time frames, unheard of at the FAA.</p><p>One seasoned executive (recently retired) with years of FAA experience as well as at air navigation service providers (ANSPs) worldwide, tells me this approachis akin to a feeding frenzy of a school of sharks, all fighting for a piece of the $15 billion carcass. Another retired executive, instrumental in many successful FAA programs, writes, “If you want it bad, you get it bad.” He gives credit to the secretary for understanding that this effort cannot be undertaken within the seriously flawed FAA procurement system with traditional FAA contracting involvement.</p><p>Another writes, “The approach proposed ignores the reality that the current infrastructure must be maintained. This is not an option.” </p><p>The entire US economy depends on the predictable movement of aircraft throughout the world, into and out of the country, and between major US hubs.</p><p>In 2000, a single ASR-9 radar system fell over at Boston Logan Airport. The FAA had no spares for the (at that point) eight-year-old ASR-9 antenna, so it took the training academy system from Oklahoma to replace the Logan system. The failure was traced to a poor structural design, and the FAA paid tens of millions of dollars to the contractor for a repair kit affecting more than a hundred of those radars. That family of radars is still in use 25 years later and is the basis of surveillance service and weather information at all our major airports.The FAA has been attempting to modernize this equipment for years and has failed. That radar outage in Boston, lasting only three days, caused air traffic control disruptions throughout the country for a week, and that was a single radar at a single hub.</p><p>My point is that the current infrastructure must absolutely be kept operating at almost any cost while, at the same time, new equipment is infused into a system that basically never shuts down.</p><p>The integrator must be taskedspecificallywith the mission to maintain 24/7 operations. In my opinion, there is no single integrator in the world capable of this. It will take many of the same manufacturers and contractors utilized today, just to keep the NAS basically functional. One writer suggests that a program similar to the World War II Manhattan Project be chartered. Some believe it requires a single person, with the authority over every single element of a project of this scope, right down to guaranteeing zoning permits and electrical connections, with the ability to waive any regulation, specification, or rule, local or federal. That will never happen.</p><p>Many people inside the Beltway, as well as the FAA staff, continue to blame a lack of funding for the FAA. That is a minor part of the overall problem. Much of the billions spent on NextGen did not prove beneficial. The entrenched FAA staff running the failed procurement system deserves much of the blame.</p><p>One retired FAA senior contracting officer tells me that when FAA got its own acquisition system in April 1996, it didn’t change the fact that FAA has arisk-adverse, “cover your ass” culture thatcontinued with lengthy legal reviews and processes that drive costs up, cause program delays, and do nothing for the quality of products procured.</p><p>A former FAA chief systems engineer writes that the discipline of systems engineering is a lost art at the FAA. Many of the current heads of these functions have near-zero qualifications in engineering, lack a core understanding of requirements development, and have an over-reliance on archaic military specifications for equipment. Over-specifying equipment has resulted in tremendous cost growth and delays in numerous procurements.</p><p>A recent attempt at replacing a 40-year-old surface radar with a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) system resulted in hundreds of additional requirements and environmental specifications that made a true COTS product a fictional pursuit. For example, the FAA demanded that a COTS radar continue to operate in 100-mile-per-hour winds at an airport with no reduction in performance. Who lands in 100-mile-per-hour winds? More importantly, the chief operating officer and senior staff should have been asking about this during the many reviews on the way to the issuance of a request for proposals.</p><p>Unfortunately, Secretary Duffy is being advised by many of the same FAA staff who have been instrumental in running the FAA and aviation trade associations for many years. These inside-the-Beltway professionals have near-zero domain expertise on the operation, maintenance, and logistical support for the technology used by the National Airspace System. Moreover, the vast array of companies and associations supporting this effort are currently involved in some of the failed programs, now behind schedule and over budget.</p><p>Given the above realities, what should be done instead?</p><p>Duffy’s plan calls for new, innovative investments. This should be suspended until the current NAS is stabilized. Spending billions on new elements is not today’s priority if the current NAS equipment cannot be kept working. But:</p>Speeding up TDM-IP under a nationwide effort is essential.Also, modernizing the voice switches at hub airports immediately.Continuing to replace radios as they fail is prudent under existing contracts.<p>Duffy should direct the FAA Administrator and the ATO Chief Operating Officer to choose a single individual with responsibility for ensuring that the 31 major hub airports (which handle the majority of all passengers) receive priority for spare parts, available trained technicians, and requisite controller workforce for safe movement of air traffic at each of those airports.</p><p>The COO should install a second individual to ensure that nationwide systems such as the wide area augmentation system, the national airspace data interchange network (NADIN), NOTAMs, and flow control at the command center are given priority for spare parts and staff to maintain those operations.</p><p>The COO should cease all installations of new program equipment and redirect funding to maintain the NAS systems that are essential for the 31 major airports. This will cause complaints from the current vendors. Many of these programs are far over budget and behind schedule. They eat up precious resources and are not focused on maintaining air traffic flow or air safety. Terminal flight data manager (TFDM) is one such program, with hundreds of millions spent and near-zero current benefit, and far behind schedule.</p><p>A third individual should be assigned absolute authority over the procurement of spare parts, without regard to various “stovepipe” organizations. This should be the top priority for funding and dedicated staff. This individual should have direct access to the Logistics Center inventory of available spares and the ability to direct the manufacturing of spares essential to keeping existing systems running.</p><p>A fourth individual should be put in charge of repairing aging physical infrastructure, including all TRACONs, centers, and towers. Repair-only should be a priority for existing funds by an individual with a construction background (e.g., Army Corps or Navy Seabees).</p><p>Finally, all four key individuals should be given every latitude to execute their mission. The transportation secretary, FAA administrator, and COO should hold weekly reviews of every major task undertaken by this group.</p><p>Rick Castaldo recently retired from a long career in air traffic control technology. With a degree in electrical engineering from Oklahoma University, he served in multiple positions within the FAA, including the Logistics Center, the Tech Center, and FAA headquarters. After 10 years as an international ATC consultant, he returned to U.S. DOT as a subject matter expert on radar systems and ADS-B. He has been an advisor to this newsletter for a number of years.</p><p>» return to top</p><p>Reason’s Annual Report on Aviation Infrastructure P3s</p><p>By Marc Scribner</p><p>The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic will be long-felt, but 2024 marked the first year that global air traffic exceeded 2019 levels. Also proving resilient was the long-term global trend of private investment in airports—via outright purchase, long-term lease, or public-private partnerships (P3s) for select airport projects—and the continued modernization of air traffic control. These activities are documented in Reason Foundation’s recently releasedAnnual Aviation Infrastructure Report 2025.</p><p>The airport section includes an updated table of 2023 revenue of the world’s 38 largest investor-owned airport companies, with the five largest being Aeroports de Paris, Aena Aeropuertos, Heathrow Airport Holdings, Fraport, and Vinci Airports. Combined revenue from these 38 airport companies totaled $52.1 billion, representing 35.7% of the 2023 world airport revenue of $146 billion. For pre-pandemic comparison, these investor-owned airport companies collected $48.3 billion in 2019, or 26.6% of the 2019 total global revenue of $181.7 billion.</p><p>The robust recovery of the private airport sector is especially interesting because the United States led the global air traffic recovery while possessing only one privately operated commercial service airport (San Juan, Puerto Rico). The relative financial resilience of private airports can be partially explained by the involvement of private infrastructure funds. Recent empirical research from New York University’s Stern School of Business found that airports with majority infrastructure fund ownership enjoy faster passenger growth and attract more new airline entrants, especially low-cost carriers. In addition, research by Airports Council International on the rise of the airport group model, in which private companies manage multiple airports, has found that airport groups improve airport financial resilience.</p><p>The rebound in airport privatization and P3 activity ledInfrastructure Investorto run an article in July 2024 headlined, “Airports are once again a favourite.” It highlighted airport investors’ global portfolio rebalancing as passenger traffic began exceeding pre-pandemic levels, as well as interest in new markets. Analysis by Reason Foundation of transactions contained in Acuris’sInfralogicdatabase found that the total deal value of projects reaching financial close in 2024 was nearly double the value of 2023 transactions, increasing from $17.7 billion to $32.9 billion.</p><p>Last year saw a number of major private airport developments worldwide. In April, Spanish airport company Aena agreed to invest $401 million to expand the capacity of Congonhas Airport, the second-largest airport in São Paulo, Brazil. The four-year project will replace the existing terminal with one more than twice its size, increasing the airport’s capacity from 17 million annual passengers to 29.5 million. The project will also upgrade the airport’s runways.</p><p>A new airport development, financing, and management company was founded in Canada. In July, Vancouver-based Centerline Airport Partners signed a contract to manage Parma Airport in Italy and is seeking to raise $100 million from investors. Centerline has partnered with Atlantico Capital to help it raise funds in the United States, Europe, and Latin America.</p><p>In November, Germany’s AviAlliance agreed to acquire AGS (Aberdeen, Glasgow, Southampton) Airports from Ferrovial and Macquarie for $1.95 billion, or approximately 23 times EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization). AviAlliance owns stakes in the airports of Athens, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, and San Juan, Puerto Rico.</p><p>The United States is an outlier in the worldwide trend of private airport investment and management. While P3s for major projects such as passenger terminals, cargo facilities, and consolidated rental car centers are growing in popularity, whole-airport P3 leases remain rare.</p><p>The notable exception has been the P3 lease of San Juan, Puerto Rico’s Luís Muñoz Marín International Airport in 2013, which for years was the only airport to successfully enter the FAA’s Airport Privatization Pilot Program, now mainstreamed as the Airport Investment Partnership Program (AIPP). In Dec. 2023, the FAA issued its record of decision and finding of no significant impact for the planned airport expansion accompanying the P3 lease of Tweed New Haven Airport (CT). This became the first whole-airport P3 lease approved on the mainland United States. Interestingly, Tweed New Haven’s private partner Avports, which had previously been the airport’s long-time contract manager, structured the agreement so that the airport did not seek relief from existing FAA mandates that would have required AIPP approval.</p><p>In Nov. 2024, south-central Florida’s Avon Park Executive Airport was approved by the FAA to enter AIPP. The general aviation airport is under a 30-year P3 lease with Florida Airport Management (FAM), which had previously managed the airport under contract with the city of Avon Park. The terms of the long-term lease require FAM to complete 13 improvement projects in the airport master plan that were estimated to cost $14.3 million in 2015. If FAM performs well according to agreed-upon metrics, it will have the option to extend the concession by up to 19 additional years.</p><p>There is continued speculation about why the United States is such an outlier compared with most of the rest of the world on airport privatization and long-term P3s. The Congressional Research Service released a report on the subject in early 2021. After comparing the global trend with the very limited use of the recent and current federal program, CRS analysts suggested that unequal tax treatment of revenue bonds (tax-exempt municipal bonds for existing airports versus taxable revenue bonds for private partners) could be a causal factor.</p><p>Turning to air traffic control, Reason’sAnnual Aviation Infrastructure Reportfinds that 98 countries are now served by air navigation service providers (ANSPs) operated as corporations funded by user fees. FAA, which operates as both a regulator and an ANSP, is increasingly an outlier. Just 24 countries—mostly developing ones—continue to cling to this legacy civil aviation authority model, which has been out of step with International Civil Aviation Organization best practices since 2001.</p><p>FAA’s outdated institutional model is the root cause of the agency’s delayed air traffic control modernization efforts. The agency has yet to adopt space-based ADS-B for surveillance of its oceanic airspace, something even much poorer countries such as Azerbaijan and Papua New Guinea have been able to do in the last few years. FAA has also yet to commission a single remote/digital tower, which are rapidly proliferating in Europe and Asia, as is discussed in more detail in a recent Reason Foundation report,Advancing Remote Tower Deployment in the United States.</p><p>U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced a planned overhaul of the FAA’s aging air traffic control facilities and equipment in May. Alas, as was discussed in detail in a previous issue of this newsletter, Secretary Duffy’s focus is on increasing taxpayer funding for the same broken system, rather than needed governance reforms to address the root cause of these problems. This suggests that management of the U.S. National Airspace System will remain mired in the status quo for the time being, and innovations in air traffic control will continue to take place outside the United States.</p><p>In addition to theAnnual Aviation Infrastructure Report 2025, readers of this newsletter may also be interested in Reason’sAnnual Transportation Finance Report, 2025. Robert Poole examines developments in the infrastructure investment fund world, provides updates on the largest companies and major P3 projects underway, and reviews pension funds’ increasing investment in revenue-generating infrastructure.</p><p>» return to top</p><p>Informing Pilots of Potential Runway Incursions</p><p>When ADS-B became required on U.S. aircraft operating in controlled airspace more than 20 years ago, some engineers at Honeywell and Sensis came up with a brilliant safety idea. When that system detects a potential conflict between an aircraft and some other vehicle (aircraft or ground vehicle), don’t just inform controllers in the tower: notify the cockpit crew(s) automatically. Seconds count when moving vehicles are heading for a collision. But the FAA relied only on notifying controllers in the tower (who were then supposed to notify cockpit crews).</p><p>As my aviation friend and colleague Mike Gahen reminded me this week, he was present at Syracuse’s Hancock Airport 20 years ago when Honeywell and Sensis demonstrated a cockpit alert system to do exactly that. Pilots witnessing the demonstration were eager to have such cockpit notifications.</p><p>Honeywell understood the benefits and began developing and then selling to airlines systems called SmartRunway and SmartLanding, with Southwest being a major customer. The systems are add-ons to Honeywell’s enhanced ground proximity warning system, EGPWS, which all Southwest’s 737s already had.Aviation Dailyreported that installation is complete on 94% of that fleet and should be at 100% by October. Reporter Sean Broderick says Honeywell estimates that about 25% of the active commercial fleet has those two systems activated, mentioning as examples Alaska Airlines and Emirates Airlines.</p><p>But Honeywell is not stopping there. It has a successor system called Surf-A, now in the FAA certification process.Aviation Week‘s Thierry Dubois reports that the company expects certification by the end of this year. Surf-A relies on ADS-B signals and also links to the aircraft’s Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning System, and it can provide both aural and visual warnings to cockpit crews. Honeywell’s Bob Buddecke said the retrofit involves a software update and a minor hardware change. They expect FAA certification for the first aircraft type (757) by year-end, with others following in 2026. He points out that “Thousands of aircraft could be equipped for a fraction of the cost of installing equivalent infrastructure at airports.”</p><p>Why the FAA did not see the merits of this 20 years ago is puzzling, but at least this significant improvement is finally being implemented.</p><p>» return to top</p><p>Could Airport Screening Be Privatized?</p><p>The Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) Acting Administrator Ha Nguyen McNeill startled some members of Congress last month in response to a question about privatized airport screening from a member of the House Appropriations Committee’s homeland security panel. “Nothing is off the table,” she said. “If new privatization schemes make sense, then we’re happy to have that discussion to see what we can come up with—it’s not an all-or-nothing game.” She also said that “airport choice” on how to proceed is important, bafflingPolitico’s reporter.</p><p>As one who was present at TSA’s creation, let me explain. As one of the few aviation policy analysts who knew something about airport security screening prior to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, I was invited to Washington in Nov. 2001 to advise the House aviation subcommittee on to-be-drafted legislation to beef up the rather pathetic pre-9/11 screening at U.S. airports. In three days in D.C., I had meetings with the White House and committee staff and took part in a news conference with committee members on the Capitol steps.</p><p>In these meetings, I explained that the problem with U.S. airport screening was not that it was being provided by private security companies. Rather, those companies were being hired and paid by the airlines in the relevant terminals, who wanted fast, inexpensive screening—something of a conflict of interest. I explained that in most of Europe, screening was done by private security firms (or in some cases, trained airport staff). In both cases, the screening had to meet government-prescribed security performance measures. The resulting House bill favored this approach to beefed-up screening.</p><p>The Senate was a different story. In the post-9/11 panic, private screening was mistakenly seen as the basic flaw, and a 100% federal takeover was prescribed as the answer—not only federal standards and regulations but a new federal workforce imposed on nearly every U.S. airport. The House rejected the Senate bill by a four-vote margin and passed its own bill instead. When it came time to work out a compromise, a White House official said that if a bill based mostly on the Senate approach was negotiated, President George W. Bush would sign it. That undercut House negotiators, and the compromise allowed airports to request private screening, but only under TSA control. That’s how we got today’s TSA Screening Partnership Program (SPP), under which about 20 airports (including SFO) have TSA-selected screening companies rather than TSA screeners.</p><p>Hence, what Acting Administrator McNeil was apparently suggesting is that TSA would be open to revisions to the current SPP. As Marc Scribner explained in the March 2025 issue of this newsletter, the way TSA operates SPP is bizarre. Instead of the airport being able to select a TSA-certified screening company that best meets its needs and contract with it, TSA itself selects a company and enters into a contract with it. This is not how other public services are outsourced. A meaningful reform would be for TSA to allow airports to solicit proposals from TSA-approved security companies and allow the airport to contract with the one that best meets its needs. TSA would still regulate its performance.</p><p>A more-fundamental reform would be for Congress to remove TSA’s dual roles. As currently structured, TSA is both the federal aviation security regulatorandthe primary provider of airport screening—so it basically regulates itself, a clear conflict of interest. TSA should be the aviation security regulator, period.</p><p>» return to top</p><p>News Notes</p><p><u>Progress on Newark ATC Problems</u></p><p>There is some good news from the FAA on the ongoing problems at Newark. First, the runway that had been out of service, supposedly until mid-June, has reopened thanks to the work having been completed ahead of schedule. Second, DOT Secretary Duffy announced on May 28 that the new fiber line that transmits flight data from the New York TRACON to the Philadelphia TRACON (which handles EWR airspace) has been installed, but that operational testing will not be completed until sometime in July. And once that line is in use, a second fiber line will replace the remaining copper line.</p><p><u>Inspectors General to Review DCA Safety Regulation</u></p><p>DOT Secretary Sean Duffy has asked the agency’s Inspector General to review current air safety protocols in the airspace of Reagan National Airport (DCA). TheNew York Timesreported that the Senate Commerce Committee has asked both the DOT and the Department of Defense Inspector General to do likewise. In addition, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigation into the fatal Jan. 29 collision continues and is scheduled to run through next January.</p><p><u>Florida Airports Planning Remote/Digital Towers</u></p><p>Several sources reported last month that Bartow and Winter Haven, in central Florida, are pursuing a remote tower (RT) center to be developed by Frequentis. The RT center will be located at Bartow Executive Airport and will manage traffic at Winter Haven. City commissioners of the latter city have approved requesting a $500,000 grant from Florida DOT for the project, which is part of a $1.5 million appropriation in the state’s draft (not yet approved) budget. The project will require approval from the FAA and spectrum approval from the FCC.</p><p><u>House Bill Would Permit Over-Land Supersonic Flight</u></p><p>On May 14, Sen.Ted Budd (R-NC) and Rep. Troy Nehls (R-TX) introduced legislation to repeal the 1973 ban on supersonic flight over land within the United States. The change would permit supersonic flights whose sonic booms do not reach the ground. Test flights of the Boom Supersonic demonstrator aircraft early this year appear to have achieved “boomless cruise.” On June 6, President Donald Trump issued an executive order on the subject, directing the FAA administrator to remove the current prohibition on overland supersonic flight and establish an interim noise-based certification standard. Separately, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) is working on new aircraft noise standards (including for supersonic flight), asAviation Dailyreported (May 15).</p><p><u>Increased Space Launch Activity Prompts Senate User Fee Proposal</u></p><p>Pending environmental impact statements (EISs) for new and refurbished launch sites at Cape Canaveral, FL, are based on projections of 120 annual launches of SpaceX’s giant Starship within the next few years. That is in addition to 100 or more Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches. In response, the Senate Commerce Committee has proposed a commercial launch user fee to account for the increasingly large amounts of airspace that must be closed during launches and recoveries of spent boosters. The fee would be charged by the FAA, and the proceeds would be used for replacing aging radars and other equipment, and potentially other facilities and equipment improvements.</p><p><u>Frequentis Announces Digital Tower Runway Capacity Gains</u></p><p>Austrian avionics company Frequentis says improved image processing could enable large airports to gain 10-20% more runway throughput. The key technology is a new image processing capability in 4K cameras that can now match the human eye, seeing up to 8 nm. Controllers could then use the panoramic screen as their main information source, without having to manually operate cameras. According to anAviation Dailyarticle, this could make digital towers feasible for large airports. During Munich Airport’s refurbishment, controllers are using this kind of high-capacity digital tower system. The German ANSP (DFS) plans to keep Munich’s digital tower in place as a contingency tower, with the capacity to manage 100% of airport flights.</p><p><u>Aireon Starts Next Phase of Space-Based VHF Communications</u></p><p>Last month, space-based ADS-B pioneer Aireon announced plans for a new 20-satellite constellation in equatorial orbit, aimed at being operational by 2028. Last year Aireon launched its Space-Based VHF Consortium with ANSPs AirNav Ireland, NATS, and Nav Canada, along with satellite operator Iridium. This year’s focus includes identifying vendors to develop ths satellites and support systems. Space-based ADS-B has thus far lacked space-based voice communications, so this will be a significant step forward.</p><p><u>Jet Zero to Produce Blended Wing Body Airliner in North Carolina</u></p><p>Aviation Dailyreportedthat JetZero, developer of the most advanced blended wing body (BWB) airliner, has selected a location at Piedmont Triangle Airport in Greensboro, NC, as the site where it will produce its Z4 commercial aircraft. The prototype is under construction by Scaled Composites in Mojave, CA. The Piedmont Triad airport is also the location selected by Boom Supersonic for its production facility, and Honda Aircraft’s HondaJet assembly plant is also located there. JetZero plans to begin building production prototypes at its new plant in 2029.</p><p><u>Philippines Plans Regional Airports Privatization</u></p><p>The Philippines Department of Transportation plans to offer “bundles” of regional airports for long-term public-private partnerships (P3s), according toInfralogic(May 12). Transportation Secretary Vince Dizon said the agency is working with the International Finance Corporation and the Asian Development Bank to plan the P3 procurements. Bidding is expected to take place in the fourth quarter of this year, with long-term contracts awarded in 2026. The aim of the program is to have 20 regional airports being managed via P3s by the time the current administration ends in Jan. 2029.</p><p><u>Ultra-Short-Take-Off Company Raised $115 Million</u></p><p>Electra.aero announced in mid-April that it had raised $115 million to begin production of its EL9, the first-ever ultra-short-take-off/landing aircraft (which can take off and land in 150 feet). Electra has more than 2,200 pre-orders valued at over $10 billion for the EL9. It has also won military contracts and is underway on a U.S. Air Force contract to develop military use cases for the EL9. The battery-powered aircraft has a cargo payload of up to 3,000 lbs. and a range of up to 1,100 miles with in-flight battery recharging.</p><p><u>Venice Airport New P3 Nears Completion</u></p><p>A bid by new investors to buy out the current SAVE consortium that runs the airport of Venice, Italy was nearing a financial close last month, reportedInfralogic(May 13). The new team is backed by Ardian Infrastructure; the majority members of SAVE are DWS and Infravia, which hold 88% of SAVE. Ardian and Finint would each hold 50% of the new entity if the deal goes through as planned.</p><p><u>Curacao Developing Remote Tower Center</u></p><p>A groundbreaking ceremony took place on May 27 for a new ATC operations center in Seru Mahuma, Curacao. The new center is located next to the headquarters of DC-ANSP, the Dutch Caribbean Air Navigation Service Provider. By including remote/digital tower facilities, the new center will manage traffic for both Curacao and Bonaire. DC-ANSP sees the new capability as positioning Curacao as a “technological leader in Caribbean airspace management”. Too bad our FAA cannot make a similar claim.</p><p><u>Washington State’s Paine Field Plans P3 Expansion</u></p><p>Snohomish County, WA, has begun “formal discussions” with airport terminal developer/operator Propellor Airports to consider a further P3 to expand the terminal that Propellor financed, built, and operates at the formerly general-aviation-only airport. Thanks to the passenger terminal, Paine Field is now served by Alaska and Frontier Airlines, but the small size of the terminal limits air travel growth. The region’s major airport, Sea-Tac, will reach its maximum passenger capacity in 2034, and no expansion is planned. Since 2019, investment fund Global Infrastructure Partners has been an investor in the Paine Field terminal.</p><p><u>NAV Portugal Implements Point Merge at Lisbon Airport</u></p><p>The ANSP for Portugal has reconfigured airspace in the vicinity of Lisbon’s international airport, using a system called Point Merge, developed in 2006 by Eurocontrol but not widely implemented thus far in Europe. The new Lisbon airspace was launched in May 2024, and in its first year, delays in that airspace have decreased more than 30% overall. Point Merge replaced traditional holding patterns. And the delay reductions are even larger when considering delays directly attributable to ATC. NAV Portugal puts that those reductions at 40 to 92%, according to a June 6Aviation Dailyarticle.</p><p><u>Article Explains ARINC Role in Beginning ATC</u></p><p>A recent article inAviation Intelligence Reportersaid that both ARINC and SITA were created after World War II. When I explained to its editor, Andrew Charlton, that ARINC was founded in 1929 and introduced this country’s first air traffic control, he invited me to submit an article on the subject. ARINC also pioneered the nonprofit, stakeholder-governed ATC corporation model, eventually re-appearing as Nav Canada in 1995. My article appears in that newsletter’s June 2025 issue. Andrew has offered a three-month trialAIRsubscription to readers of this newsletter. Go to:https://aviationintelligencereporter.aero/free-trial. If you would like a copy of my article, send a request to me at bob.poole@reason.org.</p><p><u>Reaching Non-Aviation Audiences on ATC Reform</u></p><p>If Congress is ever going to take up fundamental air traffic control reform, the reason for such changes needs to reach opinion leaders beyond aviation. An excellent example is “The Real Problem with the FAA,” inThe Atlantic, May 19. The author is Dorothy Robyn, who has held a number of high-level positions in the federal government. I first met her when she was on the staff of the White House National Economic Council during the Clinton administration, where she worked on that administration’s USATS air traffic control corporation proposal.</p><p><u>View from the Wing</u><u>on Remote Towers</u></p><p>In an excellent article, Gary Leff ofView from the Wingtakes on the FAA’s bizarre opposition to remote/digital towers. The piece appeared online on May 24.</p><p><u>History of ATC Corporation Proposals From CRS</u></p><p>If you are curious how many times serious analysts and institutions have proposed shifting U.S. air traffic control from the FAA to a self-supporting ATC corporation, the Congressional Research Service has done your homework for you. It dates all the way back to a 1974 study by Glen Gilbert, whom the FAA and the Air Traffic Control Association consider the “father of US air traffic control.” Others include my 1982 Heritage Foundation policy study, the National Performance Review, and USATS proposals from the Clinton administration, the 2014 FAA Management Advisory Council report, and the 2016 House bill championed by Rep. Bill Shuster. It isAir Traffic Inc.: Considerations Regarding the Corporatization of Air Traffic Control. The updated version is dated May 16, 2017</p><p>» return to top</p><p>Quotable Quotes</p><p>“Unfortunately, our Airspace System is no longer considered the gold standard worldwide. Several critical issues, including aging infrastructure, outdated technology, staffing shortages, and a broken hiring and training process, have been persistent concerns for decades. The consequences could be severe, impacting efficiency safety, and national security. . . . FAA leadership acknowledges the dire state of infrastructure. The condition of our ATC facilities and radars continues to worsen. FAA towers now average 40 years old, TRACONs 27 years, and ARTCCs 62 years, and the majority of radars are approaching 40 years. . . . The FAA Reauthorization and Reform Act of 2018 provided a viable framework for separating the Air Traffic Organization (ATO) from federal appropriations, ensuring stable, predictable funding. However, any effort must not operate as a for-profit model that prioritizes revenue over safety.”</p><p>—Paul M. Rinaldi, former president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, written testimony before the Aviation Subcommittee of the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee, March 4, 2025</p><p>“[Mr. Duffy], you’ve often mentioned the need to hire more air traffic controllers. That’s a great idea. But what’s your strategy for that? For decades, the plan has been simple. If the system needs 2000 new controllers, hire 2000 new controllers. Except that idea has never worked, because the failure rate of trainees still hovers around 30-35 percent. If you want 2000 new controllers, you probably need to begin training 2500-3000 people to end up with 2000. . . . . . . The core of the staffing issue dates back to August 3, 1981 when President Reagan fired nearly 13,000 controllers . . . [and] the agency never took the action it should have to fix staffing back then.”</p><p>—Robert Mark, “Secretary Duffy’s ATC Modernization Plan Has a Couple of Problems,”Jetwhine, May 12, 2025</p><p>“It is baffling that this Administration, which wants to reduce the size of the federal government, isn’t proposing to take over 35,000 people off the federal payroll (the FAA’s Air Traffic Organization) and allow them to operate a nonprofit public corporation that is freed from stifling government regulations…This is an old idea, recommended by virtually every group that has ever studied the situation. And as theJournalpoints out, this structure has been proven in Canada and numerous other countries throughout the world to work safely and effectively. It also has the great benefit of separating the safety regulator from the operating organization. Finally, and equally important, any entity given this massive responsibility should be given the tools and resources to make long-term capital investments just like successful US companies do every day. That can only be done by freeing the agency from the vice-grip of federal budgeting.”</p><p>—Will Ris, letter to theWall Street Journal, May 10, 2025</p><p>» return to top</p><p>Sign up for the Aviation Policy Newsletter</p> <p><form> <p><p><label>Email Address(Required)</label></p><p></p><p><label>Email</label><p>This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.</p></p> </form> </p> </p> Control tower consolidation is a bold idea	查看 44297	理智基金会	2025-06-23 22:38:21 2025-07-17 11:26:17	word
3209294	无图 <p>The debate over vaping and e-cigarettes remains mired in fearmongering, and the American Medical Association (AMA) is a key contributor to the problem. On May 30, the AMA published an interview with Dr. Bilal Shahid Bangash titled “What Doctors Wish Patients Knew About E-Cigarettes,” authored by Sara Berg. While the AMA’s stated goal may be to inform, its messaging strays far from scientific accuracy, prioritizing misleading narratives over evidence-based harm reduction.</p><p>Berg’s piece cleverly presents technically true claims that lack critical context, creating a distorted picture of e-cigarettes’ role in public health. This obscuration ignores the reality that e-cigarettes are a vital tool for adult smokers seeking to quit traditional combustible cigarettes. Consider some specific claims from the AMA’s interview to highlight the gaps between their narrative and the evidence:</p>Claim 1: “E-cigarettes, once marketed as a safer alternative to smoking, have found a stronghold among teens and adults alike.”<p>This opening statement implies that e-cigarettes are no longer considered a safer alternative to smoking, but it stops short of making that claim explicitly—it’s a subtle inference designed to mislead. The truth is, e-cigarettes are still widely recognized as safer than smoking. Back in 2015, Public Health England published a landmark review that concluded e-cigarettes are approximately 95% less harmful than combustible cigarettes. Recently, King’s College London reaffirmed this observation, arguing that “vaping products rather than smoking leads to a substantial reduction in exposure to toxicants that promote cancer, lung disease and cardiovascular disease.” By omitting this context, the AMA avoids an outright lie while ignoring inconvenient facts.</p><p>The claim of a “stronghold among teens and adults alike” is equally misleading. First, youth nicotine use is at an all-time low, as evidenced by the 2024 National Youth Tobacco Survey (NYTS), which reported a decline in e-cigarette use among high school students from 10% in 2023 to 7.8% in 2024. Second, while e-cigarette use among adults has risen, overall adult nicotine use has remained stable since 2017, according to a CDC review of the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS). Meanwhile, cigarette smoking among adults fell to a record low of 11% in 2024, which suggests that adult smokers are switching to e-cigarettes without a significant increase in new nicotine users—a public health victory the AMA fails to acknowledge.</p>Claim 2: “While vape use went down between 2023 and 2024, for the 11th year in a row, e-cigarettes have been the most commonly used tobacco product among middle- and high-school students…”<p>The AMA highlights the decline in youth vaping between 2023 and 2024 but omits the broader trend: youth e-cigarette use has dropped nearly every year since 2019. By focusing on e-cigarettes as the “most commonly used tobacco product” among youth, the AMA distracts from the fact that overall youth nicotine use is at a historic low. The 2024 NYTS reported that only 10.1% of high school and 5.9% of middle school students currently used any tobacco products in 2024, a significant decline from previous years that should be celebrated. Indeed, current cigarette smoking among many youth demographics, such as black high school students, is now so low that it’s statistically indistinguishable from zero.</p>Claim 3: “Vaping not shown to help you quit… No e-cigarettes or vapes have been found to be safe and effective by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in helping smokers quit…”<p>It’s true that the FDA has not approved any e-cigarette as a safe and effective smoking cessation tool—but this is a regulatory failure, not a reflection of the science. The science is clear: E-cigarettes do help smokers quit. An ongoing review by Cochrane Library that was updated this year found that nicotine e-cigarettes are much more effective than all of the traditional nicotine replacement therapies that are FDA-approved, like patches or gums. Such observations motivated a 2024 editorial in The New England Journal of Medicine, which urged the medical community to “add e-cigarettes to the smoking-cessation toolkit,” highlighting the overwhelming scientific evidence that they can save lives.</p><p>The burdensome regulations that the FDA has arbitrarily produced have made it nearly impossible for e-cigarette manufacturers to make cessation claims, as none have yet to successfully navigate the process. The FDA has barely approved any e-cigarettes to be legally sold (PMTA), and none to be advertised as modified risk products (MRTP). This regulatory framework prevents e-cigarette manufacturers from disclosing truthful information about their products, which prevents smokers from knowing that they can switch to a less harmful alternative—a consequence the AMA fails to address. Some legal scholars and I argue that these laws violate free speech protections under the First Amendment.</p>Claim 4: “Using any other tobacco product or any other product that contains nicotine is not actually quitting.”<p>Dr. Bangash’s assertion that vaping isn’t “quitting” because it involves nicotine misses the point of harm reduction. The goal of switching to e-cigarettes isn’t necessarily to end nicotine use but to reduce health risks. While long-term data on e-cigarette use is still emerging, early studies are promising. A 2017 study in the Annals of Internal Medicine found that former smokers who switched to e-cigarettes had significantly lower levels of carcinogens in their saliva and urine compared to current smokers. And a 2018 study published by the AMA itself noted that within a year of switching to e-cigarettes, former smokers’ blood carcinogen levels were nearly indistinguishable from those of never-smokers.</p><p>The benefits are particularly striking for vulnerable populations, such as pregnant women. Smoking during pregnancy is well-known to cause adverse outcomes like low birth weight and miscarriage. However, a 2019 presentation published by the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology found that babies born to mothers who exclusively used e-cigarettes during pregnancy were nearly indistinguishable in health outcomes from those born to nonsmokers. Leading publications, including The Lancet’s EClinicalMedicine, have replicated these results multiple times. By dismissing vaping as “not quitting,” the AMA overlooks significant harm-reduction benefits for both adults and children.</p>A call for nuance and honesty<p>Perhaps most troubling is the AMA’s failure to encourage adult smokers to switch to vaping. In 2023, the CDC reported that 24.3 million U.S. adults still smoked combustible cigarettes, contributing to approximately 447,000 smoking-related deaths that year. Such circumstances have motivated The New England Journal of Medicine to issue an editorial calling on clinicians to recommend e-cigarettes to smokers in appropriate situations, emphasizing the potential to save lives through harm reduction. Yet the AMA’s focus on youth vaping—despite declining rates—overshadows this urgent need, perpetuating a narrative of fear rather than opportunity.</p><p>The AMA should be a beacon of scientific integrity, not a purveyor of misleading narratives. Instead of obscuring reality, the AMA should foster a nuanced discussion about the competing interests of promoting e-cigarette use among adult smokers while minimizing youth exposure to nicotine. E-cigarettes are not risk-free, but they are a proven tool for reducing the harm caused by smoking—a fact supported by decades of research. By ignoring this reality, the AMA undermines public health and misses a critical opportunity to save lives.</p> The AMA’s misleading narrative on vaping harms public health	查看 7770	理智基金会	2025-06-13 18:00:00 2025-07-17 11:26:17	word
3209293	无图 <p>On his first day in office, President Donald Trump fulfilled his promise to withdraw the United States from the World Health Organization (WHO). Now, the Trump administration should work to end the World Health Organization’s influence over the Food and Drug Administration.</p><p>The World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) performance during the COVID-19 pandemic was poor, with questionable public health guidance and a reluctance to hold the Chinese Communist Party to account for its role in the virus’s spread. As Zach Weissmuller reported at Reason.com:</p><p>The WHO also praised China for releasing the virus’s genome while neglecting to mention that it took them at least 17 days to do so. It didn’t report human-to-human transmission until late January—even though Chinese doctors suspected it at least a month earlier. Although the extreme lockdown of Wuhan likely saved thousands of lives, WHO scientists weren’t allowed into Wuhan until 3 weeks after the outbreak first came to light, leaving open many questions about measures the government took in the interim. Meanwhile, the WHO praised the country for its supposed openness.</p><p>Despite these failures, the WHO is encouraging members to sign a pandemic treaty that would threaten free speech and intellectual property if the U.S. were to remain a member.</p><p>While the WHO’s potential interference has diminished, remnants of its influence over American health policy remain. In the final days of the Biden administration, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) resurrected a proposal to mandate the removal of almost all nicotine from cigarettes, a de facto cigarette ban. The FDA justifies its action based on modeling informed by the guesstimates of a handful of public health academics, claiming a vast number of smokers will quit and subsequently live longer.</p><p>The rule was initially pushed by former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb in 2017. However, after Gottlieb left the first Trump administration to take on other projects, the ban was wisely cast aside. While Gottlieb was the first to advance the rule and Biden the one to try and push it over the line, the ban’s origins lie just as much with the WHO and its advisory note, titled “Global Nicotine Reduction Strategy,” published in 2015.</p><p>The FDA’s proposed rule follows the WHO’s playbook. “In alignment with this recommendation from the World Health Organization, this proposed rule would cover combusted cigarettes and certain other combusted tobacco products (i.e., cigarette tobacco, RYO tobacco, cigars other than premium cigars, and pipe tobacco),” said the FDA at the time. </p><p>Following the World Health Organization’s guidance, the FDA’s plan would ban more than 99% of cigarettes, small cigars, and pipe tobacco.</p><p>The FDA also points to the WHO’s guidance that the ban be combined with providing behavioral support, nicotine replacement therapies (NRT), and other medications for smokers denied legal access to cigarettes. The pharmaceutical industry’s smoking cessation products are unpopular and less effective compared to offerings consumers prefer, such as vapes and nicotine pouches, which the industry has lobbied to place under stricter regulations. Indeed, Pfizer has funded research claiming that denicotinized cigarettes used in combination with pharmacotherapies increase smoking cessation rates, research that has been cited by the only company making products that would comply with the FDA’s rule.</p><p>No country has implemented such a radical policy, so no real-world evidence suggests it will work out as the FDA says it will. When a similar policy was advanced in New Zealand in 2022, it was abandoned after the election of a conservative government. Left unchecked, the FDA would have America serve as a guinea pig for a dangerous policy experiment.</p><p>The risks of the policy are clear, with law enforcement already warning it could mean disaster and “a gift with a bow and balloons toorganized crime cartelswith it, whether it’s cartels, Chinese organized crime, or Russian mafia. It’s going to keep America smoking, and it’s going to make the streets more violent,”Rich Marianos, former assistant director of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the current chair of theTobacco Law Enforcement Network, told Fox News.</p><p>The WHO itself recognized these concerns in a 2018 report, highlighting fears over increased illicit trade, relapses by ex-smokers thanks to low-priced black market cigarettes, and declining tax revenue, but continues to believe these risks will be worth the benefit.</p><p>On April 2, 2025, FDA Commissioner Martin McKary told staff in an all-hands meeting that the agency needed a new approach: “Challenging what we believe to be true, challenging deeply held assumptions that lack evidence, and allowing experts to debate new approaches to old problems is exactly what we need right now.”</p><p>The Trump administration is swiftly junking some costly and unnecessary regulations advanced by the Biden administration. Trump was right the first time to ditch an untested, potentially dangerous policy, and it is in keeping with McKary’s mission to base policy on sound evidence, not intuitions, hopes, and optimistic models, to do so again.</p> Trump should end WHO's sway over the FDA	查看 5287	理智基金会	2025-06-20 12:01:00 2025-07-17 11:26:17	word
3209292	无图 <p>Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s veto of Senate Bill 3 is a notable win for pragmatism in government. The bill aimed to outlaw nearly all consumable hemp products—even those unlikely to cause intoxication—and would have hurt farmers, small businesses, and patients, all without meaningfully improving public safety. A well-regulated market for hemp products—including those that cause intoxication—with clear rules on safe manufacturing, accurate labeling, and age-gated sales would make Texans significantly safer than the unregulated market prohibition tends to stimulate. It appears Abbott agrees.  </p><p>Rather than yielding to Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s demand for an outright ban, Abbott has called for a special session in July to develop a regulatory framework that protects consumers while preserving the thriving legal industry. This is the right move, and the Texas legislature should seize the opportunity to implement policies that balance public safety, personal choice, and economic freedom. </p><p>SB 3 was a classic example of politics being led by moral panic rhetoric rather than sound policy and public welfare. Proponents, led by Patrick, sold the measure on fears about hemp with tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)–the chemical that gives marijuana its intoxicating effects—and framed prohibition as necessary to protect schoolchildren. In reality, the bill would have not only banned those hemp products with any detectable amount of THC, but also those with any other cannabinoid except cannabidiol (CBD) and cannabigerol (CBG). But, since even non-intoxicating CBD products typically contain trace amounts of THC and other cannabinoids, even these would not have escaped SB 3’s prohibitions.  </p><p>History has repeatedly shown that the prohibition of substances doesn’t eliminate demand; it simply drives the market underground, where unregulated producers are not held accountable for safe manufacturing practices, accurate labeling, and ensuring intoxicating products are only sold to adults. Instead, prohibition puts consumers at even greater risk while also increasing the effort and resources needed to enforce the law. Texans already experience this firsthand with cannabis, where prohibition has merely resulted in mass arrests and a thriving illicit market worth an estimated $6 billion.  </p><p>A ban on hemp-derived THC would have done the same, forcing consumers toward unregulated products, stimulating illicit and cross-border sales, and actually increasing youth access through these unregulated and age-unrestricted channels. Pediatric patients and veterans who rely on hemp products for therapeutic purposes would have been particularly harmed by the ban, forced to rely on unregulated products or turn to potentially more dangerous substances, like opioids. On top of that, it would have devastated a burgeoning market that supports around 50,000 jobs and generates $8 billion in tax revenue for the state annually, according to industry data.  </p><p>In his veto statement, Abbott agreed with SB 3 proponents on the need for immediate and strong regulation of consumer hemp products. However, he also rightly acknowledged that SB 3 would have clashed with federal law—the 2018 Farm Bill, which legalized hemp and its derivatives. If approved, the measure would have faced immediate legal challenge, as it constituted an uncompensated taking of private property and business investments. Abbott warned that it would also inadvertently “make felons of other innocent Texans, like pharmacists stocking health supplements, veterans treating PTSD, and parents caring for epileptic children with FDA-approved medications.”  </p><p>Instead of SB 3’s prohibitionist approach, Abbot wants lawmakers to use the July special session to craft sensible regulations. Similar toReason Foundation’s recommended frameworkfor state regulation of hemp products, he suggests that lawmakers approach regulating these products similarly to alcoholic beverages. He also detailed specific provisions he’d like to see lawmakers adopt, including limiting sales to retailers that restrict access to minors, imposing testing and labeling requirements, outlawing public consumption, restricting permissible THC levels in products, limiting individual purchases, and allowing local governments to ban or limit retail hemp sales.  </p><p>To strike the right balance, there are several key issues that the Texas legislature will need to carefully negotiate.  </p>Issue 1: Potency limits <p>The first and perhaps most complex of these issues will be how limits on THC potency are set and determined. Currently, Texas—like many other states—follows federal law, which limits hemp products to no more than 0.3% THC by dry weight. Because THC is measured based only on the dry portion of products, this standard allows companies to produce hemp products—particularly in beverage and edible form, since their weight is primarily comprised of water or gelatin—with as much THC as marijuana products while still adhering to THC thresholds for legal hemp.  </p><p>In its final form, SB 3’s prohibition on hemp products with cannabinoids other than CBD or GBG was a draconian standard that would have effectively outlawed most hemp products. The House committee substitute for SB 3 (CSSB 3), on the other hand, abandoned this approach in favor of THC limits based on milligrams per serving and package. This milligram-based limit is far more accurate in terms of gauging products’ potential for intoxication and is an increasingly popular approach among states to close the “dry weight loophole.”   </p><p>Under the House substitute version of the bill, hemp products would have been limited to no more than 10 mg of THC per serving and 100 mg per package (with stricter limits for certain products). While this is both more practical and sensible than the original bill, it still fails to distinguish between high-THC and very low-THC hemp products—treating them all the same despite vast differences in psychoactive risk.  </p><p>Some states, like Minnesota, have adopted a two-tiered system for hemp products, imposing lighter regulations on products with minimal THC (e.g., less than 5 mg per package) that are extremely unlikely to cause intoxication even if consumed in full. Reason Foundation encourages Texas lawmakers to consider a similar approach in order to ensure that low-THC hemp products—particularly those used for therapeutic purposes—will remain accessible and affordable without unnecessarily burdensome restrictions.  </p>Issue 2: Purchasing limits and privacy concerns <p>Another contentious issue will likely be if—and how—the legislature should impose purchasing limits on individuals. In his veto proclamation, Abbott explicitly endorsed such limiting purchases “in a given period,” though he did not specify exactly what those limits ought to be. While some states, like Washington and Oregon, track cannabis purchases through state-run databases to enforce daily limits, this will likely raise concerns in Texas about government overreach, surveillance, and data security. For example, thousands of cannabis consumers across the U.S. had personal data leaked—including photographs of their government-issued photo IDs—after a point-of-sale system used throughout the cannabis industry was breached. Moreover, a person’s presence on a state purchasing database could endanger their rights to possess a firearm or could be used as evidence against them in a family court proceeding. </p><p>Fears over data privacy and surveillance can deter customers, potentially pushing some to opt for purchasing hemp through unregulated channels. This would not only put those consumers at greater risk from unregulated products but would also thwart the underlying goal of regulatory oversight. If Texas lawmakers opt to impose limits on individual purchases, they should do so in a way that protects the rights and privacy of consumers.  </p><p>The easiest way to do this would be to impose such restrictions only on shops, not individuals. This would be similar to Michigan’s rules, which impose limits on how much recreational cannabis can be sold per transaction but do not require tracking of individual consumers. Oregon, which also imposes per-transaction limits on cannabis sales, explicitly bars dispensaries from collecting or retaining this sort of customer data over privacy concerns.  </p><p>While these approaches would allow customers to work around purchasing limits by visiting multiple shops, it would still be more effective at deterring large purchases than would be achieved in the illicit market. In their special session, Texas lawmakers will have to decide if strict enforcement of purchasing limits is worth the trade-offs when it comes to protecting consumer privacy and encouraging compliance.  </p>Issue 3: Local bans and market fragmentation <p>Another recommendation Abbott suggested is giving local governments the option to prohibit or limit hemp sales. While this might sound like a reasonable concession, it could lead to access issues that would undermine the regulated market. California cannabis law, for example, includes a similar provision that has led to around half of the counties in the state banning cannabis sales. As a result, nearly half the state’s population lives in “pot deserts” where the closest legal dispensaries might be more than 60 miles away. Unsurprisingly, this has continued to fuel illicit sales with consumers searching for more convenient, if unregulated, options. If Texas enshrines local bans, it may stifle industry growth and undermine enforcement by encouraging similar illicit activity. However, if legislatures deem such provisions as necessary, they should be careful to include safeguards to avoid or address access deserts if they arise, such as by allowing the state to preempt local bans in underserved areas.  </p>Issue 4: Licensing fees  <p>While the House committee substitute version of SB 3 established a relatively reasonable fee structure for licensing hemp businesses, such details were conspicuously absent from the bill’s final form. Had it been enacted, this version of the law would have given the regulatory agency the power to dictate licensing fees through rulemaking without additional feedback from the legislature. How much or how little to charge hemp businesses for the privilege of operating within Texas will likely be a major subject of the July special session, and for good reason. Fees that are too high can artificially restrict the market in ways the legislature didn’t anticipate or desire. In particular, exorbitant licensing cost can price out small businesses and consolidate the market in the hands of those companies with deep pockets or political connections.  </p><p>In addition to contradicting Texas’s business-friendly stance, market consolidation poses a threat to the state’s ability to enforce its laws, as would-be entrepreneurs and customers opt to stay in the illicit market for the simple fact that they cannot afford licensure. To avoid this outcome, Texas should avoid excessively high licensing fees and create a tiered fee structure with cheaper options for small or micro-businesses. Several states, including California, New York, and Michigan, have adopted this sort of tiered licensing fees based on business scale. This approach not only encourages greater participation in the legal market but also reduces consolidation and increases competition, keeping consumer prices low.  </p>Issue 5: Interstate commerce and out-of-state products <p>Yet another issue legislators ought to weigh carefully during their special session is how Texas should regulate out-of-state hemp products. This is a critical issue both in terms of complying with constitutionally protected interstate commerce—and avoiding legal challenge—as well as establishing a market which encourages compliance and consumer safety. Even if hemp products were not federally legal and states were thereby prevented from entirely blocking interstate commerce, law enforcement simply does not have the ability to stop the flow of products across state borders. Without a viable path for legitimate products to legally enter Texas’ market, consumers would have no way to verify whether those products are sanctioned by the state and meet Texas’ safety standards.     </p><p>While all versions of SB 3 made some allowance for out-of-state hemp products, all failed to adequately address the issue. In its original and final form, SB 3 would have allowed the sale of out-of-state hemp products so long as they were produced, processed, and tested in compliance with Texas law. Yet, that would have applied to such a small segment of the hemp market—those products with no detectable THC—that it would have done little to curtail cross-border distribution, leaving consumers of these other hemp products without clarity. The House committee substitute version of SB 3 set out a robust pathway for out-of-state hemp products to become certified for sale in Texas but included a “Texas origin” requirement for hemp flower, essentially limiting legal hemp flower to hemp grown within the state. This would have almost certainly been successfully challenged as a violation of the U.S. Constitution’s dormant commerce clause by creating a bias against out-of-state economic interests.  </p><p>A better option for Texas would be to follow Kentucky’s approach, where out-of-state products can be sold in the state so long as they register with regulators and meet baseline testing, labeling, and quality rules. This streamlined path to interstate commerce allows Kentucky consumers to trust that products available to them are free of contaminants, accurately labeled, and regulated by their state, regardless of their origin. Texas should seriously consider doing the same.  </p>Issue 6: Protecting civil liberties and avoiding overcriminalization <p>The last issue likely to generate debate in the legislature’s special session is how violations of the law ought to be treated. Past versions of SB 3 included needlessly punitive enforcement measures—such as criminal penalties and jail time for possession of unsanctioned hemp products—that risked turning minor infractions into criminal offenses and trampling Texans’ civil liberties.  </p><p>A glaring omission from all versions of SB 3 was any safeguard against warrantless searches or seizures based solely on the odor of hemp or possession of legal hemp products. This loophole would perpetuate the same types of discriminatory policing practices state-level marijuana legalization hoped to address—where the odor of marijuana served as a pretext for searches and seizures. Even with federal legalization of hemp, law enforcement unable to distinguish hemp from marijuana by sight or smell, continue the same sort of unjustified stops and searches. To protect Texans’ civil rights, legislators should incorporate explicit language into any proposal that protects people from being stopped, searched, detained, or arrested solely on the basis of law enforcement seeing or smelling hemp—or marijuana since their scent is the same—unless they have probable cause to believe a crime has been committed.  </p><p>Iterations of SB 3 also treated minor violations—like small-scale possession, minor breaches on THC limits, and open containers in vehicles or minor THC breaches—as criminal misdemeanors rather than civil infractions. This ignores the reality that many violations can stem from unintentional errors (e.g., lab testing variances) and lack of consumer awareness. Lawmakers can address this by reserving harsh criminal penalties for willful violations of the law’s most serious provisions, such as falsifying lab reports or large-scale illegal distribution, while treating minor or accidental violations as civil infractions. Not only would this protect consumers from unnecessary policing, it would also ensure law enforcement resources are being used efficiently and focused on major violations rather than policing people’s hemp use.  </p>A conservative approach to drug legalization <p>In addition to infuriating Patrick, Abbott’s veto of SB 3 has exposed the growing rift between prohibitionist hardliners and those conservatives who acknowledge the failure of the War on Drugs. Even prominent right-wing voices, like former National Rifle Association spokesperson Dana Loesch, criticized SB 3 for “idiotically expanding government” while ignoring parental responsibility.  </p><p>The upcoming special session offers Texas lawmakers an opportunity to bridge this divide and gives Texas a chance to demonstrate how conservative states can responsibly regulate adult-use substances without resorting to big-government overreach and freedom-stomping bans. To succeed, legislators must carefully listen to stakeholders, reject fear-driven narratives, and prioritize consumer welfare. Crafting a light-touch regulatory framework—one that fosters compliance, promotes agency coordination, and affords both businesses and regulators sufficient clarity and flexibility—can ensure public safety without sacrificing economic opportunity or personal freedom.  </p><p>The governor made the right call. Now it’s time for the legislature to follow through with a regulatory system that keeps Texans safe and free. </p> Hemp in Texas: Regulation—not THC prohibition—is the sensible path forward	查看 17355	理智基金会	2025-07-01 01:57:56 2025-07-17 11:26:17	word
3209291	无图 <p>Los Angeles Unified School District’s fiscal outlook is bleak, with a structural deficit projected to hit $1.3 billion in the 2028 fiscal year. “It’s not a rosy picture,” said LAUSD school board member Tanya Ortiz Franklin. “We are not getting more money.”</p><p>But despite what United Teachers Los Angeles and others might claim, LAUSD’s budget woes aren’t due to a lack of funding. According to the latest federal data, LAUSD received nearly $26,900 per student in fiscal year 2023. Taxpayers sending over $537,000 for each LAUSD classroom of 20 students is enough to provide a good education for kids.</p><p>Instead, LAUSD’s problem is its lavish spending. Between 2012-13 and 2024-25, the district’s enrollment plummeted by 164,000 students, yet it added over 17,000 non-teachers such as instructional aides, school counselors, and social workers. The district also doled out a 21% pay raise to teachers in 2023, knowing that billions in federal COVID-19 pandemic relief dollars were set to expire the following year.</p><p>California ranks fourth in the nation in public school spending growth since 2002, which has masked LAUSD’s financial mess. However, after two years of budget deficits and the current economic uncertainty, the state budget is projected to tighten in the coming years, and the district’s mishandling of COVID-19 reopening has accelerated its enrollment declines.</p><p>LAUSD can do a few things to get its fiscal house in order, or it risks the same fate as school districts like Oakland and San Francisco, which are on the brink of insolvency.</p><p>For starters, LAUSD needs to cut spending to sustainable levels. On average nationally, labor accounts for roughly 80-90% of typical public school budgets, so personnel reductions are unavoidable for LAUSD. This is never easy, but can be done in ways that minimize disruptions to classroom learning, such as trimming back on administration and non-instructional school staff. Regular attrition, such as retirements and resignations, can also be leveraged to minimize the need for pink slips.</p><p>LAUSD can also save money by reducing its facilities footprint. Research published by Available to All indicates that nearly half of the district’s elementary schools have experienced enrollment declines of 50% or worse in the past two decades, leaving an estimated 160,000 empty seats.</p><p>Underutilized schools are costly to maintain and spread the school district’s financial resources thin, which can result in fewer elective classes and enrichment opportunities for kids. School closures are politically challenging but necessary if LAUSD is going to get on a sustainable path.</p><p>Next, LAUSD can mitigate enrollment losses by giving families more options. States and school districts across the country are moving away from residential assignment, where students are zoned to schools and have limited or no options. Public school open enrollment gives students access to seats in schools regardless of where they live, putting parents in the driver’s seat and creating a competitive environment where public schools are incentivized to innovate, improve and attract students.</p><p>A study on LAUSD’s Zones of Choice program—a limited form of open enrollment—suggests that embracing an expansive policy would pay dividends for the school district. In their working paper on the impact of the Zones of Choice program, the University of Chicago’s Christopher Campos and the University of California-Berkeley’s Caitlin Kearns found significant gains in student achievement and college enrollment, which they attribute to increased competition.</p><p>“The evidence demonstrates that public school choice programs have the potential to improve school quality and reduce neighborhood-based disparities in educational opportunity,” the researchers conclude.</p><p>Next, LAUSD can mitigate enrollment losses by giving families more options. States and school districts across the country are moving away from residential assignment, where students are zoned to schools and have limited or no options. Public school open enrollment gives students access to seats in schools regardless of where they live, putting parents in the driver’s seat and creating a competitive environment where public schools are incentivized to innovate, improve, and attract students.</p><p>A study on LAUSD’s Zones of Choice program—a limited form of open enrollment—suggests that embracing an expansive policy would pay dividends for the school district. In their working paper on the impact of the Zones of Choice program, the University of Chicago’s Christopher Campos and the University of California-Berkeley’s Caitlin Kearns found significant gains in student achievement and college enrollment, which they attribute to increased competition.</p><p>“The evidence demonstrates that public school choice programs have the potential to improve school quality and reduce neighborhood-based disparities in educational opportunity,” the researchers conclude.</p><p>The solutions to LAUSD’s fiscal woes are straightforward—spend less, give parents choices, and focus on academics. The challenge will be overcoming objections from United Teachers of Los Angeles and other groups that oppose anything that disrupts the failing status quo. However, adopting these reforms would be a win-win for the district and students and would be worth the political fight.</p><p>A version of this column first appeared at the Los Angeles Daily News.</p> How LAUSD can address budgeting deficit and declining enrollment	查看 5498	理智基金会	2025-06-12 18:00:00 2025-07-17 11:26:17	word
3209290	有图 <p>Good morning,</p><p>More than 1.6 million students are using open enrollment, meaning approximately 6% of public school students in the 19 states examined use it to choose a public school, according to a new Reason Foundation report, “Open Enrollment by the Numbers: 2025.” The study reviews K-12 open enrollment, which lets students attend public schools other than their residentially assigned ones when there are open seats.</p><p>Table 1 shows open enrollment participation in each of these states.</p><p>Table 1: Open enrollment participation in 19 states</p><p></p><p>Public school transfer laws and policies vary widely by state. These 19 states were examined because they could provide data on open enrollment transfers. Colorado and Delaware have the highest participation rates in their programs, with about one in four students using open enrollment.</p><p>The report also details open enrollment participation in other publicly funded K-12 education options. Between students using open enrollment, charter schools, and private school scholarships, about 16% of students choose publicly funded education options other than their residentially assigned schools in the 19 states examined.</p><p>Figure 1 shows how many students use publicly funded private and public school choice programs in comparison to those who remain in their assigned public schools in these states.</p><p>Figure 1: Publicly funded K-12 education options</p><img src="data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns=" rel="noopener noreferrer"><noscript><img src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXc_HlOY3jlItJzi3GbNkkW1k8BUbkeitE5VE2IvvbacFL1s4fYvX0UkBlQhOOWEa70OfW68pDeWd3NEibCGo_QTfPfHR_LA2bf__ysmpObw2-bqmYokug103Sujj8xbv8W-HfRupw?key=CXSxCZBFjPedvKabLs1dmg" rel="noopener noreferrer"></noscript><p>Of these 19 states, Arizona stands out the most. Over a third, 35% of Arizona’s publicly funded students chose education alternatives through open enrollment, charter schools, and private school scholarships during the 2022-23 school year. Open enrollment accounted for 10% of these students in the Grand Canyon State.</p><p>After Arizona, students in Colorado, Delaware, and Wisconsin chose publicly funded alternatives to their residentially assigned public schools at the highest rates.</p><p>As more states expand and adopt universal private school scholarships and strong open enrollment laws, even more students will participate in these programs. In 2025, Texas, Arkansas, and Indiana established or significantly strengthened their school choice laws.</p><p>Reason Foundation obtained data from seven states showing that open enrollment participation generally increases over time, as families become more familiar with their choices. Figure 2 shows open enrollment participation trends in select states.</p><p>Figure 2: Open enrollment growth over time in seven states</p><p></p><p>Wisconsin, which publishes the most extensive open enrollment data, shows that open enrollment participation has increased by about 14% each year, growing from 2,500 participants during the 1998-99 school year to nearly 61,000 participants during the 2023-24 school year.</p><p>Accordingly, states that recently launched their open enrollment programs, such as West Virginia, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas, will likely see increased participation rates in future years.</p><p>More states should maximize students’ transfer opportunities by codifying strong open enrollment policies. These laws can make a big difference in students’ transfer opportunities. On average, about 10% of students transferred via open enrollment in states with strong open enrollment laws, while only about 6% of students used it in states with weaker laws that allow public school districts to reject transfer students. This underscores the importance of adopting stronger open enrollment policies in the 34 states with weak ones.</p><p>In the 2026 legislative sessions, state policymakers should support strong open enrollment policies so more public school students can attend schools that are the right fit, regardless of where they live.</p><p>From the States</p><p>In other important education and school choice developments, policymakers in New Hampshire, Louisiana and Nevada consider school choice proposals.</p><p>In Louisiana, the Senate Finance Committee cut $50 million from the LA GATOR private school scholarship program. The proposal provides $44 million to fund 6,000 scholarships for existing participants, but it eliminates the expansion backed by Gov. Jeff Landry and the House, which aimed to add 5,300 new scholarships to the program.</p><p>Gov. Joe Lombardo signedNevadaSenate Bill 460into law. This bill would establish a statewide within-district open enrollment program to let students attend public schools inside their district other than their assigned one with open seats. Nevada’s open enrollment program would improve its score by 15 points, improving its overall score to 50 out of 100 points in Reason Foundation’s next annual evaluation of every state’s open enrollment best practices.</p><p>New Hampshire Gov. Kelly Ayotte signed Senate Bill 295, which expands student eligibility for the state’s Education Freedom Accounts–private school scholarships—by removing the income cap. Program participation will be capped at 10,000 students during the 2025-26 school year, but after that, the cap will automatically increase “by 25% in any year when applications exceed 90% of the limit,” ExcelinEd in Action reported. According to EdChoice, 5,600 students received an account during the 2024-25 school year, which can be used to pay for private school tuition, textbooks, and other approved education expenses.</p><p>What to Watch</p><p>The U.S. Supreme Court was deadlocked 4-4 on St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School v. Drummond. As a result, the Oklahoma State Supreme Court’s ruling that a publicly-funded religious charter school violates the separation of church and state remains in place.</p><p>New data from Step Up for Students, the organization that administers education choice scholarships, showed nearly 1.8 million students, 51% of the state’s K-12 students, used some sort of school choice option during the 2023-24 school year.</p><p>The Latest from Reason Foundation</p><p>–Strengthening open enrollment laws is key to unlocking public school choice for kids</p><p>–Which K-12 finance systems foster school choice?</p><p>–How LAUSD can start grappling with budget deficit, declining enrollment</p><p>–Don’t trust the federal government with the nation’s largest school choice program</p><p>Recommended reading</p><p>The pandemic is over. It’s time for schools to get the message.</p><p>American Enterprise Institute’s Nat Malkus and Sam Hollon at The Washington Post</p><p>“All signs indicate that many more of today’s students are falling behind academically but are still being allowed to graduate. What this means in practice is that more students will leave school underprepared for the world of college or work. School leaders need to act now to reset basic expectations — including consistent school attendance — for graduates, or pandemic exceptionalism will become the new normal.”</p><p>ESA rules review: Improving rulemaking for ESA programs</p><p>Jenny Clark, Michael Clark, and George Khalaf at State Policy Network</p><p>“While procedural and administrative rules are necessary for efficient program management, substantive decisions—such as determining eligible expenses and qualifying education providers—must remain in the hands of elected lawmakers. Otherwise, agencies risk overstepping their bounds, either by imposing burdensome restrictions or by slowly reshaping the program away from its intended purpose. ”</p><p>Schools closing in Arizona? Blame the failing schools, not school choice</p><p>Heritage Foundation’s Jason Bedrick and Matthew Ladner at The Daily Signal</p><p>“Critics claim that school choice “diverts funding.” But public education dollars are meant for students, not systems. In Arizona, when families leave a district school for a charter or private school, or to another district, the funding follows the child to the learning environment that works best for him or her—and away from one that didn’t. That’s not a bug, that’s a feature. That’s the system working to be responsive to the needs of students and their families.”</p><p>Sign up for the Funding Education Opportunity Newsletter</p> <p><form> <p><p><label>Email Address(Required)</label></p><p></p><p><label>Comments</label><p>This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.</p></p> </form> </p> </p> Study: More than 1.6 million students using K-12 open enrollment in 19 states	查看 8769	理智基金会	2025-06-17 23:35:13 2025-07-17 11:26:17	word
3209289	无图 <p>The latest federal data paint a bleak picture of public school enrollment trends.</p><p>Research by Stanford University’s Thomas Dee shows declining birth rates, domestic migration, and more families choosing private schools and homeschooling during and after the COVID-19 pandemic school closures are all factors in declining public school enrollment.</p><p>However, enrollment trends vary across states. Some major school districts and states saw student numbers drop even before the pandemic. To put the public school enrollment figures into perspective, it is useful to examine state-level and longitudinal data reported by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES).</p><p>Here are five key takeaways from the data and interactive tools to explore other key trends.</p>1. Public school enrollment has fallen by 1.28 million students since the start of COVID-19.<p>In the U.S., the COVID-19 pandemic is viewed as starting in February or March 2020. Between the 2020 and 2024 fiscal years (FY), public school enrollment fell by 1.28 million students or 2.5%.</p><p>States such as New York, California, Mississippi, and West Virginia all lost more than 5% of their students during that period. </p><p>Only nine states saw growth in public school enrollment during that time. In fact, North Dakota is the only state with public school enrollment gains over 2% from the pre-pandemic year.</p><p>In comparison, in the four years leading up to the COVID-19 pandemic, public school enrollment increased in 31 states, with sharp increases in North Dakota (6.9% enrollment growth), Idaho (6.4%), Nevada (6.3%), Utah (5.7%), and Washington (5.1%). Chart 1 shows public school enrollment trends between the 2012 and 2024 fiscal years, according to NCES data.</p><p>Chart 1: Public school enrollment trends (FY 2012 to FY 2024)</p>2. The short-term public school enrollment recovery after the pandemic in 2022 and 2023 appears to be over.<p>In the 2022 and 2023 fiscal years, the nation’s public schools recouped some of their pandemic enrollment losses with slight increases each year over FY 2021 levels, when enrollment was at its post-pandemic low point. </p><p>However, the latest National Center for Education Statistics data signals that any hope of further year-over-year enrollment gains might be over. In the 2024 fiscal year, nationwide, public schools lost over 102,000 students compared to the number of students in 2023, with 39 states experiencing a decrease in enrollment, according to NCES data.</p><p>The states with the largest public school enrollment declines from 2023 to 2024 included West Virginia (-1.7% enrollment decline), Arkansas (-1.7%), and Wyoming (-1.5%).</p><p>Among the 11 states that increased public school enrollment in FY 2024, the states with the largest gains included New Jersey (0.6% enrollment growth), South Carolina (0.6%), and North Dakota (0.4%).</p>3. Public school enrollment was inching upward before COVID-19.<p>Before the COVID-19 pandemic, public school enrollment increased by 1.3 million students, or 2.6%, from 2012 to 2020. During this time, the majority of states experienced an increase in public school enrollment, with North Dakota (19%), Utah (14.3%), and Nevada (13%) seeing the most significant increases.</p><p>U.S. public school enrollment started to flatten somewhat in the years immediately preceding the COVID-19 pandemic, but 32 states still had an increase in public school students between 2019 and 2020.</p>4. COVID-19 aggravated existing enrollment loss trends in some states while reversing growth trends in others.<p>For some states, the pandemic aggravated existing declines in public school enrollment. From the 2012 to 2020 fiscal years, states like New Hampshire (-7.6% drop in enrollment), West Virginia (-6.9%), and Illinois (-6.7%) lost considerable percentages of their public school student populations.</p><p>Other states saw the pandemic stop and reverse their enrollment trends. For example, Oregon saw a 7.5% increase in public school enrollment between FY 2012 and FY 2020 but a 6.2% enrollment loss between FY 2020 and FY 2024.</p><p>Washington experienced a similar trend, with 9.2% enrollment growth from 2012 to 2020 and a 4.2% enrollment loss during and after the pandemic. Other states like New York (-0.4%), California (-0.6%), and Massachusetts (0.6%) had relatively flat enrollment changes pre-pandemic that turned sharply downward after FY 2020. Chart 2 compares pre-pandemic and post-pandemic trends in public school enrollment, based on NCES data</p><p>Chart 2: Changes in each state’s public school enrollment from 2012 to 2024</p><p></p>5. Public school enrollment declines are expected to continue for years.<p>The National Center for Education Statistics projects that public school enrollment will decline to 46.9 million students by the 2032 fiscal year, representing a 5.3% decrease from 2024.</p><p>States such as Hawaii, California, Mississippi, New Mexico, and New York are forecasted to lose over 12% of their public school students during this time, with only 13 states projected to increase the number of students.</p>Conclusion<p>Nationwide, public school enrollment has decreased by over one million students since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. This significant drop reversed the modest growth observed in the years leading up to the pandemic. Local context is essential. Not all states experienced declines after the pandemic, while some states faced enrollment decreases that had started well before the pandemic.</p><p>As public schools become increasingly underutilized and school districts face mounting cost pressures, state and local policymakers must adjust to current enrollment and the forecasts of fewer students in the decade ahead. Public school enrollment trends will impact state and local budgets, bond elections, and teacher pension liabilities that policymakers must grapple with.</p> A look at the latest K-12 public school enrollment data	查看 5930	理智基金会	2025-06-26 22:06:33 2025-07-17 11:26:17	word
3209288	有图 <p>As Louisiana’s educators continue to face challenges on multiple fronts, from staff shortages to stagnant pay, lawmakers have approved a pair of measures that, while seemingly helpful, could ultimately burden taxpayers without solving the underlying problems.</p><p>House Bill 473 by Rep. Julie Emerson (R-39) and House Bill 466 by Rep. Josh Carlson (R-43) would, together, execute a three-step plan aimed at producing a permanent pay increase for Louisiana’s public educators. Without any actuarial review, the legislature concluded that the resulting savings to employers would be enough of a budget windfall to fund a permanent teacher pay raise. However, appropriating $2 billion to the Teachers’ Retirement System of Louisiana (TRSL) without addressing the glaring weaknesses that led to a $8 billion growth in pension debt is akin to bailing out a sinking boat without first plugging the hole.</p><p>The well-intended, though misguided, three-step plan is simple, in concept. Step one, as passed in HB 473, is a question lawmakers will put before voters on the April 2026 ballot. If approved on the ballot, HB 473 would dissolve the Louisiana Education Quality Trust Fund, the Louisiana Quality Education Support Fund, and the Education Excellence Fund (EEF). The beginning Fiscal Year 2025 balances in the three funds, according to the Legislative Fiscal Office, totaled nearly $2 billion, with the Quality Fund equaling $1.45 billion, the Support Fund totaling $36.2 million, and EEF being worth $482 million. Step two would be the reallocation of that $2 billion towards TRSL and its $8 billion unfunded liability. Step three, outlined in HB 466, occurs when the sudden influx of cash into the TRSL trust fund triggers a change in the subsequent actuarially determined annual employer contribution rate. HB 466 ensures employers use funds freed by the resulting rate reduction to fund permanent pay raises.</p><img src="data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns=" rel="noopener noreferrer"><noscript><img src="https://a8d50b36.delivery.rocketcdn.me/wp-content/uploads/la_trsl_contribution_rate-1-1024x753.jpg" rel="noopener noreferrer"></noscript><p>In 2023, over half of all funds contributed towards TRSL–15.71% of the required 28.82% contribution–went towards paying down unfunded liabilities, rather than funding teacher benefits. If the voters approve HB 473 in April and the three-step plan is implemented, the 15.17% figure will be reduced to around 12%, resulting in a cost reduction of approximately 3% for hiring new educators in Louisiana. However, those cost savings are unlikely to materialize when the vast majority of the employer rate goes to servicing past debt. This is because contribution rates change annually based on investment returns. This issue was raised indirectly by the legislative auditor’s office in their fiscal note on HB 473 when they warned that the legislation’s “actual impacts will not be known until the time the funds are fully liquidated, their balances transferred to TRSL, and the retirement contribution rate of TRSL is re-amortized.”</p><p>Indeed, a $2 billion supplemental contribution to the TRSL fund is expected to immediately lower the required employer contribution rate by about 3% and improve the system’s funded ratio by about 8%. The multi-billion dollar question is, what happens the next time investments underperform actuarial assumptions?</p><img src="data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns=" rel="noopener noreferrer"><noscript><img src="https://a8d50b36.delivery.rocketcdn.me/wp-content/uploads/TRSL-line-chart.png" rel="noopener noreferrer"></noscript><p>The answer isn’t complicated—but it is costly. The shortfall becomes new pension debt, stretched over 30 years, which means a larger unfunded liability and higher employer contribution rates the very next year. Even a basic economic stress test of TRSL makes clear just how fragile the system becomes under market pressure.</p><p>Only by coupling the three-step plan proposed in HB 466 and HB 473 with a modernized TRSL tier for new hires can lawmakers confidently say Louisiana provides sustainable benefits without burdening future generations of taxpayers. All active and retired members of TRSL should feel confident that their retirement benefits are constitutionally protected and guaranteed. That doesn’t mean the state should be relegated to legislative budgeting with a perpetual albatross around its fiscal neck. Other benefit designs that include guaranteed lifetime income and inflation protection options, while better managing risk, could be considered.</p><p>Voters will decide in April 2026 if they want to dedicate another $2 billion towards the $8 billion TRSL debt and execute the legislature’s misguided plan for a permanent teacher pay raise. In the meantime, liberal actuarial assumptions, unsuitable benefits, high costs, and limited transparency remain well-known issues with TRSL that lawmakers should address in the next session. Without systemic reform, the extra funding could disappear, and lawmakers will continue to expose taxpayers to cost overruns, thereby preventing the much-needed modernization of retirement benefits for today’s increasingly diverse and mobile public education workforce. This is precisely why Gov. Jeff Landry must reject injecting more taxpayer funds into a structurally unsound system via HB 466 and instead reform the TRSL benefit for new hires.</p><p> Stay in Touch with Our Pension Experts <p>Reason Foundation’s Pension Integrity Project has helped policymakers in states like Arizona, Colorado, Michigan, and Montana implement substantive pension reforms. Our monthly newsletter highlights the latest actuarial analysis and policy insights from our team.</p> </p><p> <p><form> <p><p><label>Email Address(Required)</label></p><p><label>Comments</label><p>This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.</p></p> </form> </p> </p> Taxpayers shouldn’t bail out the Teachers' Retirement System of Louisiana without reform	查看 6055	理智基金会	2025-06-28 00:00:00 2025-07-17 11:26:17	word
3209287	无图 <p>When it comes to America’s prison system, it’s rare to find policy proposals that advance both public health and personal freedom. In the world of tobacco policy, proposals offering clear public health benefits without triggering concerns about costs or youth exposure might be even rarer. But, in a recent Filter article, author Jonathan Kirkpatrick offers a policy idea that accomplishes both: Let prisons sell safer alternatives to smoking through commissaries.</p><p>It’s an idea that, if implemented carefully, could improve inmate health, reduce contraband tobacco markets in prisons, and lower prisons’ healthcare expenses without increasing risk to the public. For those of us who have spent years advocating for pragmatic, science-based policies to reduce the harms associated with tobacco use, this proposal checks nearly every box. Importantly, it also centers discussion on a population too often ignored by both the tobacco harm reduction and tobacco control movements. For that reason alone, it deserves careful consideration by all experts in the field, regardless of their ideological camp.</p><p>Smoking among incarcerated people is staggeringly high, with estimates ranging from 70 to 80 percent. That’s roughly seven times the national average, even though tobacco has been banned in federal prisons since 2014 and removed from commissaries since 2006. Most state-run prisons prohibit smoking inside prison facilities, many extending that ban to include possession or use of any tobacco product anywhere on prison grounds.</p><p>But like every form of prohibition, these prison tobacco bans haven’t eliminated tobacco use. Instead, illicit tobacco markets thrive in prisons, with inmates obtaining contraband cigarettes through smuggling or bribery. Some turn to improvised tobacco products—made by inmates who collect used tobacco chew spit out by guards—with some reportedly turning to more hazardous alternatives, like “spice” (synthetic cannabinoids), to mimic the experience of smoking. </p><p>The public health rationale underlying “smoke-free prison” policies is the idea that non-smoking prisoners and guards should be protected from second-hand smoke, as well as a belief that forcing smoking inmates to break their nicotine dependence while in prison will improve their health and lead to long-term smoking cessation after release. Even if those goals justified such coercive and cruel tactics—like using solitary confinement to punish inmates caught with contraband cigarettes—the fact is that prison tobacco bans do not work. The vast majority of inmates who quit smoking while incarcerated typically relapse upon release—around 98% by some estimates. Many incarcerated people, in fact, only begin smoking while they are incarcerated.</p><p>In his Filterarticle, Kirkpatrick—who is currently incarcerated in Washington Corrections Center in Shelton, Washington—argues that allowing the sale of nicotine vapes in prison commissaries could accomplish what tobacco bans have not: reduce smoking among inmates and keep them smoke-free after release. A significant amount of evidence suggests he is right.</p><p>Numerous studies indicate that smokers who switch from cigarettes to vapes see rapid health improvements. For prisoners, that could translate into fewer smoking-related illnesses, doctors’ visits, and health emergencies. Smokers who switch to harm reduction products are also less likely to relapse—with high-quality evidence for e-cigarettes, in particular—indicating that they are even more effective for smoking cessation than traditional nicotine replacement therapies, such as the nicotine patch or gum. This could lower the rate of smoking among inmates after release, reducing healthcare costs both during and after incarceration.</p><p>E-cigarettes, unlike other tobacco harm reduction products, might raise concerns within the context of prisons as they can pose a fire hazard or potentially be used in improvised weapons. However, prisons can opt to purchase specially designed vapes, with soft plastic casings and low-voltage, non-rechargeable batteries—like those already offered in Kentucky and Pennsylvania prison commissaries. </p><p>And, unlike most policy proposals involving e-cigarettes, this one sidesteps the two biggest political landmines: youth use and taxpayer cost. Youth access to e-cigarettes or other tobacco harm reduction products is a non-issue in adult prisons. And there’d be no cost to taxpayers so long as prisons marked up commissary prices just enough to cover costs. But to truly succeed, this policy proposal requires careful implementation.</p><p>Prices that commissaries charge for tobacco harm reduction products are a pivotal factor in whether this policy would succeed or fail. Kirkpatrick, in presenting his idea, reasonably points out that commissary sales of tobacco harm reduction products might generate modest revenue for prisons, which he suggests they direct toward prison maintenance and programming. However, while this potential for cost-offsetting might enhance the policy’s political appeal, any discussion about “revenue generation” from imprisoned people should justifiably raise alarm bells.</p><p>Too many prison systems already engage in financial exploitation of inmates—charging exorbitant fees to make phone calls and send emails, inflating commissary prices, and taking hefty cuts out of low- or non-existent prison wages. Reports suggest that prisons that already sell vapes in commissaries impose markups exceeding 700% over cost. In addition to being exploitative, these sky-high prices undermine the goal of giving inmates safer alternatives to smoking. If smoking inmates cannot afford commissary prices for tobacco harm reduction products, they will continue to smoke or turn to the contraband market, reinforcing harmful behaviors rather than replacing them. Worse, the policy could become just another revenue stream wrung out of a captive population. </p><p>To work as intended, the safer products at prison commissaries must be attractive, affordable, and accessible, and they must be competitive with combustible cigarettes in both cost and appeal. That means avoiding price gouging, ensuring product quality, and offering inmates real choices. Offering choices to inmates might be among the harder parts of implementing this policy, particularly if prisons are limited to purchasing only those products that have received authorization by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Thus far, the FDA has approved only a handful of e-cigarettes, heated tobacco products, nicotine pouches, and smokeless tobacco products. Yet, affordable access to even some of these products would give inmates a chance to switch from smoking to safer alternatives and represent an improvement on the status quo.</p><p>At its core, allowing prison commissaries to sell safer alternatives to smoking isn’t just about reducing tobacco-related disease or helping prisons save money on healthcare. It is about giving incarcerated adults some sliver of control over their own lives and health—it acknowledges their agency in a system built to deny it. That alone is reason to take the proposal seriously. </p><p>For those working in tobacco policy, it is also a chance to put marginalized nicotine users at the center of our advocacy—an imperative too often neglected. Putting safer alternatives to smoking in prison commissaries won’t fix everything, but it is a humane place to begin that might move our criminal justice system ever-so-slightly toward human dignity.</p> Prisons selling vapes? Smart public health policy and a step toward autonomy behind bars	查看 7565	理智基金会	2025-07-02 18:00:00 2025-07-17 11:26:17	word
3209286	无图 <p>Each year, more than 80,000 lives are lost to drug overdose deaths in America. This staggering toll stretches far beyond hospital walls and deep into our communities, compromising public safety, overwhelming an already strained healthcare system, and cutting short countless futures. Supervised consumption sites (SCS), also known as overdose prevention centers, offer a practical, community-driven response. These facilities allow individuals to use pre-obtained drugs under trained supervision, significantly reducing fatal overdoses while easing the burden on emergency rooms, law enforcement, and local taxpayers.</p><p>SCSs do not necessarily condone nor encourage drug use. Instead, they exist to minimize chaos in places where chaos usually rules: sidewalks, parks, alleyways, and public bathroom stalls. In lieu of reacting only after finding someone collapsed in one of these discreet locations, SCS serve as controlled environments that mitigate the risks of open-air drug scenes, discarded needles in public parks, and unnecessary emergency calls. In New York City, where two SCSs have been operating since 2021, officials report that more than 1,700 overdoses have been reversed without a single death on site.</p><p>The services offered at SCSs are simple, consistent, and rooted in practicality. Clients receive access to sterile supplies and safe disposal containers, helping prevent the spread of HIV, hepatitis, and other infectious diseases. Medical professionals are on site to respond to overdoses immediately, often within seconds. Many locations offer wound care, testing for different communicable diseases, and drug checking to detect lethal contaminants like fentanyl. These tools, when offered in a single setting, significantly lower healthcare costs and alleviate pressure on already overstretched emergency departments.</p><p>Hepatitis C infections, commonly associated with injection drug use, cost the United States over $10 billion annually. The financial burden grows when factoring in emergency response: ambulance rides can range from hundreds to tens of thousands of dollars if an air lift is needed or if the patient doesn’t have insurance. Emergency room visits add even more, with each visit averaging $1,800, contributing to an estimated $32 billion in annual costs. Every infection prevented, every ambulance ride avoided, and every emergency room bed freed up adds up to real cost savings to the taxpayers who have to subsidize the costs of public insurance. In one space, clients get what they need to survive today and what they might need to recover tomorrow.</p><p>Just as we accept seatbelts and smoke detectors as essential tools for reducing preventable deaths, supervised consumption sites provide a structured response to a crisis we can’t ignore. SCSs acknowledge the reality on the ground and respond with practical interventions that keep people alive. With local control and real-time data, municipalities can tailor these programs to fit their neighborhoods, saving lives, saving money, and reducing the visible chaos that too often accompanies untreated addiction.</p>A brief history of supervised consumption sites<p>SCSs were forged in moments of urgent local crisis. Switzerland opened the first sanctioned site, named Contact Netz, in Bern in 1986 amid a growing HIV epidemic and overdose surge. Results were immediate and impactful: fewer syringe purchases on the street, safer injection practices, reduced public drug use, and a significant drop in sexual assault incidents among vulnerable users. By 2022, Switzerland had established 14 SCSs across 10 communities, codifying harm reduction into national law through the Four Pillars Policy: prevention, treatment, harm reduction, and law enforcement.</p><p>Germany followed with its first facility in Berlin in 1994, largely to address visible public drug use in urban spaces. By 2011, a national assessment concluded that Germany’s SCSs had significantly reduced open-air drug scenes, cut down on HIV and hepatitis transmission, and saved lives by preventing fatal overdoses. Germany now hosts 29 SCSs, 27 fixed and two mobile, across 17 cities, averaging hundreds of supervised injections daily with no reported on-site deaths.</p><p>In 2001, Sydney opened the Uniting Medically Supervised Injection Centre in the Kings Cross district in response to rampant public injection and overdose deaths in the area. Since opening, the center has supervised over 1.2 million injections, managed more than 10,800 overdoses, and recorded zero fatalities. The center also provides critical health care access for clients who have rarely engaged with other services. A second site opened in Melbourne in 2018. From 2018 to 2022, it oversaw 300,000 supervised injections, managed over 6,000 overdose events, and made more than 15,975 health and social support interventions, with zero overdose deaths reported on-site.</p><p>Canada became the first country in North America to legalize an SCS with Insite in Vancouver in 2003, following a dramatic spike in overdose deaths and HIV infections in the Downtown Eastside. In its first two years of operation, overdose deaths were reduced by 35% in and around the area. That immediate success sparked a national expansion, and as of 2022, Canada has the highest number of SCSs at 39.</p><p>Today, over 200 SCSs are operating across 18 countries, including mobile units and facilities that accommodate drugs delivered via inhalation along with injectable drugs, an important innovation in line with changing patterns of drug use.</p>International models: Discipline meets compassion<p>Germany’s model strikes a deliberate balance between public order and public health, with over 32 drug consumption rooms operating part-time as of 2023. Access to these sites is generally limited to adults ages 18 and over who are actively using illicit substances and unwilling to stop, often requiring a documented history of addiction or social marginalization. Registration systems in many facilities track visit frequency and allow for personalized health engagement, while ensuring anonymity and confidentiality. These requirements align with stipulations in Germany’s Narcotics Act, which was established to ensure harm reduction services adhere to public health and safety standards. Instead of working at odds, health providers, lawmakers, and law enforcement coordinate efforts under this act, building trust and improving outcomes on both sides. In 2023 alone, Germany’s drug consumption rooms recorded over 650,000 supervised drug use episodes, managed 650 medical emergencies without a single death, provided services to over 18,500 individuals, and facilitated 52,000 counseling sessions and referrals. Germany’s experience demonstrates how harm reduction services can link people to care while maintaining public order.</p><p>In Canada, the focus is on low-barrier access. At Insite in Vancouver, clients not only find a safe space to use substances but also gain access to detox services, primary care, and mental health support under one roof. While federal resistance and public scrutiny have fluctuated, Insite has consistently delivered results, having had over 4.6 million visits and 71,000 off-site service referrals since its inception. Over 11,856 overdoses have been reversed, not a single death has occurred on site, and support from both the public and law enforcement has steadily grown.</p><p>In the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Spain, Supervised Consumption Sites are thoughtfully structured to reach the most marginalized populations, following requirements similar to those in Germany. Across Europe, there are currently over 78 official drug consumption rooms operating across seven countries. Moreover, these countries’ approach has proved adaptable to shifts in drug use patterns, with inhalation booths becoming more common in Europe and gaining traction in Canada as fentanyl smoking has become more popular. In the U.S., both Rhode Island and New York’s programs include this feature.</p><p>Across these international models, results consistently show that SCSs implemented with clear protocols, integrated services, and community input lead to significant reductions in overdose deaths, lower rates of public drug use and syringe litter, and increased referrals to health and detox services.</p>Current U.S. landscape: Legal barriers and local action<p></p><p>Legal barriers remain the biggest obstacle to expanding Supervised Consumption Sites in the U.S. The most notable is 21 U.S.C. § 856, formally known as the Maintaining Drug-Involved Premises statute, commonly referred to as the “Crack House Statute.” Enacted during the Reagan era, this law makes it a federal crime to knowingly open, lease, rent, use, or maintain any place for the purpose of manufacturing, distributing, or using controlled substances, with no exception for efforts aimed at reducing overdose deaths or providing life-saving care.</p><p>In 2019, Safehouse, a nonprofit in Philadelphia, challenged this statute in court, arguing that the purpose of the site was not to facilitate unlawful drug use but to provide life-saving medical services. Their challenge was initially successful in the District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, but in 2021, the Third Circuit Court overturned the ruling, holding that the statute clearly prohibits operating any site where illegal drug use occurs, regardless of the operator’s intent or public health motivations. The Supreme Court declined to hear the case, leaving the ruling intact. With 1,200 overdose deaths in 2020, the ruling highlights the stark disconnect between the city’s public health crisis and the limitations of federal law. While the Third Circuit’s ruling reflected a strict interpretation of the statute, it also highlighted the need for legislative reform to allow innovative, life-saving interventions, like supervised consumption sites, to operate within a legal framework.</p><p>Some states and municipalities have moved to expand supervised consumption sites despite federal bans. New York City opened the first SCS in the U.S. in 2021, with two facilities operated by OnPoint NYC. In their first year, these sites intervened in over 636 overdoses during more than 48,000 visits by 2,841 registered participants. Rhode Island passed legislation to launch a pilot SCS program in 2021, opening a site in Providence in 2025. In its first two months of operation, 135 individuals visited the center over 420 times, 22 overdoses were reversed, and 50 people were connected to external health services. Other cities, including San Francisco and Philadelphia, have begun opening temporary or “pop-up” SCSs in response to local need.</p><p>Though SCSs are not federally sanctioned, the change in presidential administrations has led to some signs of evolving attitudes, at least within the executive branch. In 2022, under the Biden administration, the Department of Justice expressed openness to establishing “appropriate guardrails” around local SCS programs. Since then, however, little progress has been made at the federal level under the new Trump administration. Harm reduction services have faced significant federal funding cuts, including for naloxone distribution, and Congress has taken a more oppositional stance by introducing bills like the Defund Heroin Injection Centers Act of 2025, which seeks to bar federal funds from being used to support supervised consumption sites. While there’s currently no pathway for an SCS to gain federal authorization, these developments highlight the importance of local innovation and flexibility. Instead of waiting for top-down approval, cities and states have moved forward with targeted, community-driven solutions. If these efforts prove effective, especially when supported through voluntary public-private partnerships, they can build a stronger case for broader policy shifts.</p>Legislative recommendations: Moving forward with practical reform<p>Supervised consumption sites aren’t about growing government or endorsing drug use. Rather, they are a targeted, community-driven, and compassionate response to an urgent crisis.</p><p>Policymakers can support them by:</p><p>1. Amending the Crack House Statute: Congress should revise the Maintaining Drug-Involved Premises statute (21 U.S.C. §856) to create a clear exemption for state- or locally-sanctioned SCSs. This amendment would resolve the current legal ambiguity that deters cities and nonprofits from launching these vital programs. As highlighted in the current version of the New York City Council Resolution 0313-2024, a formal call for Congress to amend the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, the fear of felony liability has chilled the implementation of SCS. In Canada, a similar exemption under the country’s Controlled Drugs and Substances Act allowed Insite to open in Vancouver legally.</p><p>2. Launching Time-Limited Pilots: States should follow Rhode Island’s example by piloting SCS programs with intermittent evaluation. Rhode Island authorized its first SCS in 2021, and in 2024, the facility opened in Providence with support from local officials and nonprofit operators. These pilots can be run at low cost with clear goals and benchmarks, allowing lawmakers to reassess after three to five years. Because the overdose crisis directly affects community health and safety, such pilot programs fall within the powers and responsibilities of state governments. State authorities are informed by their local authorities, who are closer to the front lines, witnessing the everyday impact of overdose in emergency rooms, public spaces, and neighborhoods.</p><p>3. Establishing Basic Standards Without Overreach: Regulations for supervised consumption sites should ensure safety without creating barriers to access. At a minimum, sites should have trained staff, emergency medical protocols, proper waste disposal systems, and age restrictions for clients. Oversight could be managed by state health departments, with quarterly inspections to ensure compliance. Staff should be trained not only in medical overdose response but also in how to de-escalate tense or potentially volatile situations, such as when someone is in crisis or exhibiting erratic behavior. They should also be equipped with trauma-informed care practices, which emphasize understanding the lasting effects of trauma and responding in ways that promote safety, dignity, and trust.</p><p>Apart from minimum safety standards, implementation should remain flexible to tailor solutions to local needs. Insite in Vancouver, for example, is a model site, run by local Vancouver Coastal Health and Progressive Housing Community Service Society. It maintains rigorous protocols, including trained medical staff, emergency response procedures, and strict hygiene standards. The outcomes from 20 years of operation show that, when implemented with the right controls, SCS can reverse nearly 12,000 overdoses—without a single death on site.</p><p>4. Prioritizing Local Control: SCSs should only be implemented where local officials and communities support them. Switzerland followed this model in the 1990s, allowing cities like Zurich and Geneva to set up services based on local needs. This local buy-in helped turn once-controversial initiatives into publicly supported health responses that cleaned up city parks and streets.</p><p>Supervised consumption sites are about reducing preventable deaths, easing the burden on emergency systems, and helping communities regain control of public space. Lawmakers can choose to maintain the current approach, but the evidence points to a better path. The SCS model is working. It’s saving lives—and that’s what public health initiatives and harm reduction are ultimately about.</p> Reducing harm, saving lives: the case for supervised drug consumption sites	查看 15832	理智基金会	2025-07-03 18:00:00 2025-07-17 11:26:17	word
3209285	无图 <p>Vermont lawmakers have introduced Senate Bill S.23, a proposal aimed at curbing the use of AI-generated synthetic media—commonly known as “deepfakes”—in state elections. The bill would make it a criminal offense to create or knowingly distribute digital content intended to deceive voters about a candidate’s words or actions in the 90 days leading up to an election.</p><p>The legislation attempts to overcome constitutional and logistical hurdles faced by other state restrictions on political deepfakes, as it explicitly exempts parody.</p><p>Supporters of S.23 have stressed its role in protecting the integrity of Vermont’s elections. State Sen. Ruth Hardy (D-Addison), the bill’s lead sponsor, told Vermont news site VTDigger:</p><p>“The bill is really just about making sure Vermonters can trust what they see and hear during an election. We’re not trying to stop satire or free speech. We’re trying to prevent intentionally deceptive use of AI and deepfakes that could change the outcome of an election.”</p><p>As specified in Section 3(b) of the bill: “A person shall not, within 90 days of an election … knowingly distribute or cause to be distributed … materially deceptive synthetic media of a candidate, with the intent to injure the candidate’s reputation or to deceive a voter into voting for or against the candidate.”</p><p>Violations of the bill are enforced by the attorney general and range from less than $1,000 up to $15,000, if they have previously committed a violation and intended to cause “bodily harm”.</p><p>Perhaps most importantly, the bill attempts to avoid the legal pitfalls of similar attempts in other states by exempting humorous content. Section 3(e)(2) of S.23 states: “This section does not apply to any… communication that is satire or parody.”</p><p>Parody has been a legal puzzle for those who wish to regulate deepfake content. Vermont’s S.23 closely mirrors California’s Assembly Bill 2839, which was designed to combat the use of AI-generated “deepfakes” in elections by requiring prominent disclosures on altered media. Like Vermont’s bill, the California law aimed to prevent voters from being misled by synthetic videos or audio in the lead-up to an election, but it quickly faced pushback from free speech advocates and the courts. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), a national free speech advocacy organization, criticized California’s law for its mandatory labeling of parody and satire, arguing:</p><p>“The law also requires satire and parody to be labeled, like requiring a comedian to preface every joke with an announcement he’s making a joke. That’s not funny — it’s scary.”</p><p>This critique was echoed by a federal judge who issued a preliminary injunction against most of California’s statutes. The case involves a conservative content creator, Christopher Kohls, who shares humorous political videos using AI-generated content. The court held that California’s law’s disclosure requirements rendered satire and parody unworkable.</p><p>Additionally, the question of “intent to deceive” is especially challenging in today’s media environment, where political messaging often blurs the line between parody and genuine advocacy. For example, a recent video circulating online depicted President Donald Trump and other world leaders celebrating in a glitzy, Atlantic City–style resort set in the Gaza Strip—a region currently embroiled in conflict. The video, which appeared exaggerated and outlandish, was created by a reportedly unaffiliated account, but Trump himself later shared it as a point of pride. The ambiguity of the video’s purpose—whether it was an over-the-top parody meant to mock the president’s proposal or a sincere endorsement—highlights just how difficult it is to discern intent.</p><p>Under Vermont’s bill, it would be up to a court to decide whether such content was intended to deceive or merely to satirize, creating legal uncertainty for both creators and those who share such media.</p><p>Previous state bills largely focused on publishers of content, not anyone who shares the videos. When Virginia lawmakers attempted their own restrictions on political deepfakes, the bill applied only to those who had made campaign contributions of $1,000 or more. Senate Bill 775 from state Sen. Scott Surovell, (D-Fairfax) would have required conspicuous disclosure on synthetically generated political advertisements, but it did not apply to any citizen who shared the media. The bill was ultimately vetoed by the governor, who argued that the bill’s “broad and vague approach lacks the precision necessary to ensure fair and enforceable application.”</p><p>Vermont’s attempt at regulating deepfakes may ultimately avoid some of the pitfalls of other states, but the lack of precise definition in the bill itself may still find its way to court for enforcement.</p> Vermont attempts to regulate political AI deepfakes	查看 4871	理智基金会	2025-07-04 02:21:09 2025-07-17 11:26:17	word
3209284	无图 <p>It has been nearly 17 years since voters approved California Proposition 1A, which allocated $10 billion to the California High-Speed Rail Authority to build a new high-speed rail line between Los Angeles and San Francisco. The state says “approximately $13 billion” hasbeen invested in the rail system, but taxpayers have nothing to show for it. The high-speed rail project has been defined by mismanagement, exorbitant costs, and it’s timeto pull the plug.</p><p>Current estimates say the high-speed rail system’s first segment in the Central Valley, connecting Merced and Fresno,may open in 2033, eight years from now and a quarter of a century after the 2008 Prop. 1A vote approving the project. The total estimated cost of the system is now over $100 billion.</p><p>At this point, it is almost universally agreed upon that it is doubtful, at best, that the high-speed rail line will ever reach the major metropolitan areas of Los Angeles or San Francisco. So, it is time to ask: How will the state wind down the project, and what should the California High-Speed Rail Authority do with the land it acquired?</p><p>First, the state needs to admit defeat. The Mercury News asked a team of 13 university economics professors and executives across the political spectrum if it was time to step away from the high-speed rail project. Twelve of the 13 said yes. The $9.95 billion approved in 2008 to start a rail project originally estimated to cost $33 billion was never realistic. As a Reason Foundation and Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association study warned at that time, the original business plan underestimated costs, overestimated ridership, and lacked serious discussion of construction costs, train capacity, service levels, and possible speeds and travel times.</p><p>Further, for political reasons, the government decided that instead of the rail system running in a straight line between Los Angeles and San Francisco, or straight along I-5, it would veer off to run through multiple parts of the Central Valley. This was intended to build political support for the project in the region. But it increased the possible travel times, making them slower than promised, and almost doubled the cost. From there, the mistakes piled up. Rather than start with Los Angeles or San Francisco, places conducive to high-speed rail due to their large population, employment bases, existing urban transit service, and percentages of high-income workers, the state did the exact opposite,starting in the Central Valley.</p><p>Today, an orderly wind-down of the rail program would be most beneficial. Stopping the work is technically as easy as the California High-Speed Rail Authority ordering a pause on all construction activities. The state may have to pay some contractors a termination fee, but that is a fraction of the costs of completing the line.</p><p>California may also have to remove some of the tracks. Since the track is being built on state-owned right-of-way, the agency could contract with an outside entity to remove or sell it as is and let the new owners remove it.In the Central Valley, 44% of households are renters, often because there’s a lack of housing supply. Selling the rail project’s CentralValley land to homebuilders would allow the construction of many homes, which could help decrease housing prices across the region.</p><p>In walking away from the rail plan, the biggest cost will be that the state must raise revenue to pay off the bonds and the debt already accumulated from the project. Even if the project is canceled, the debt won’t be.But since studies show the train system would lose millions of dollars annually if it ever started operating, paying down the debt is still cheaper for taxpayers. It’s a painful choice for policymakers, but it is time to abandon California’s failed high-speed rail project.</p><p>A version of this column appeared in the Orange County Register.</p> California should walk away from the state's high-speed rail project	查看 3924	理智基金会	2025-07-07 19:00:00 2025-07-17 11:26:17	word

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