Citing concern for the health of asthmatic children, President Clinton on June 25 endorsed stringent clean air standards for particulate matter (soot) and ground-level ozone (smog), first proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in November 1996.
United States negotiators seem intent on signing a treaty this December in Kyoto, Japan, that would drastically curtail energy use in an effort to restrict emissions of greenhouse gases. These gases, including carbon dioxide and methane, trap solar radiation in the atmosphere and warm the earth, making it habitable. If the Clinton administration signs the treaty and the Senate approves it, American consumers will suffer.
Timothy Wirth, U.S. Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs, informed a 1996 United Nations conference on climate change in Geneva that the Clinton administration is committed to imposing limits on greenhouse gas emissions as a way to minimize the effects of global warming. Unfortunately, the administration and its supporters do not think it is necessary to impose the same restrictions on developing countries.
There is an old saying: be careful what you wish for, you might get it. I have a feeling that many conservatives are going to be saying this about the balanced budget that now seems likely to finally be achieved in 2002. Rather than having found the Holy Grail, conservatives may quickly come to miss the very deficit they railed against for so many years.
What kind of characteristics do you look for in a city if you want a good place to live? I'll tell you what I look for – a place where families and businesses and jobs are welcome, but criminals aren't.
For more than 30 years, state legislatures have passed laws driving the cost of health insurance higher. Known as mandated health insurance benefit laws, they force insurers, employers and managed care companies to cover – or at least offer – specific providers or procedures not usually included in basic health care plans.
While it's common knowledge that virtually all mandates increase the cost of health insurance, the magnitude of their effects has been the subject of debate and discussion.
Each Labor Day we celebrate the material progress of the American worker, and impressive it has been. Most jobs previously done by muscle and sweat are now done by machine. The work week averages 35 hours instead of 65. Four-week vacations are commonplace. Retirement in good health at age 62 has replaced death in harness at age 52. Since 1900, hourly pay has gone up sevenfold in real, inflation-adjusted terms. It's gone up threefold since 1947 alone.
For a child in foster care, the best states in which to enter foster care would be New Mexico, Utah and New Hampshire and the worst state would be Hawaii.
You would think that an organization that thrives on providing consumers with information to help them make good choices would apply that same thinking to health care.
For 17 years, states have failed to comply with the Federal Government's requirement to record and report on the status of children in state-managed foster care.
This study is the result of a two-year undertaking by the Institute for Children to gather accurate data on three of the most pressing questions in child welfare: (1) How many children are in foster care? (2) How many of these children are legally free to be adopted? (3) How well are the states doing at finding adoptive homes for children?