Tuesday, November 28, 2017

Think Tank Quickies (#292)

  • DARPA recruiting from academia (and think tanks?) in bid for fresh thinking.
  • Kevin Warsh of Hoover was on short-list to take over Janet Yellen's position at the Fed.
  • Is the Chinese government recruiting US think tankers to spy on the US?
  • Bradley Smith in Washington Examiner: The Left (Center for Political Accountability and UPenn) again tries to prohibit corporate giving to think tanks.
  • Meet Cato's Andrei Illarionov, former chief economic adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin before resigning in protest.  [Cato calls Putin's government an aggressive authoritarian regime destroying rule of law, violating human rights, and attacking neighbor countries.]
  • Remi Quirion: 10 tips for making think tank voices heard by politicians.
  • PIIE head Adam Posen on what think tanks can do in a post-truth era. 
  • Facing poverty, academics (and think tankers?) turn to sex work and sleeping in cars. 
  • Politico celebrates birthday of R Street Institute President Eli Lehrer.
  • CNAS and 21st Century Fox launch national security film and television series.

Wednesday, November 22, 2017

The Think Tank Working to Unravel More Environmental Rules

Here is more from The Washington Post:

The activists gathered behind closed doors in a Houston hotel meeting room last week had long existed on the political fringe. They’d dismissed the science behind climate change, preached the virtues of fossil fuels and seethed about the Environmental Protection Agency’s power and reach.
They also had been largely ignored by many top federal officials. Until the election of President Trump.
But now, at the private meeting sponsored by a free-market think tank, the Heartland Institute, the activists were both giddy and grumpy. So much of what the Trump administration had done to roll back Obama-era environmental regulations was positive, they agreed, as were the White House’s efforts to promote the oil and gas industry and halt federal action to combat climate change.
And yet, they said, it wasn’t nearly enough.
Heartland officials handed out a three-page “Energy Freedom Scorecard” that evaluated the extent to which Trump and his deputies had delivered on their top policy priorities. As much as they welcome the administration’s efforts, the scorecard made clear that they think the president could do more, much more.

As the article notes, US EPA Administrator Scott Priutt gave a video message to the think tank.  After Priutt was nominated to that position in December, the Heartland Institute issued a press release praising the announcement.

Earlier in the year, the EPA had asked the Heartland Institute to help identify scientists to join the agency's "red team-blue team" effort to debate the science of climate change.

Here is a piece from E&E News about the think tank's close connection to the Trump Administration's EPA.

Tuesday, November 21, 2017

Think Tank Quickies (#291)

  • Is there bias against female think tankers?
  • Professors (and think tankers?) behaving badly.
  • Quote of the week: Think tanks go to Washington to die.
  • Turkish influence at think tanks.
  • President Trump had dinner with acting president of Heritage Foundation.
  • South Korean President Moon Jae-in receives Atlantic Council's 2017 Global Citizen Award.
  • Fred Burton's think tank problems: The plastic badges scrape my Brooks Brothers ties.
  • CSIS map tracks Iran's missile launches since 1998.
  • Richard Rubin of WSJ: I seem to be accidentally moonlighting as a think tank assignment editor.
  • R Street Institute launching a "think tank drink tank."
  • Simple investing for think tanks.