• Americans have commuted less in 2020 due to the COVID pandemic. But even absent this trend, U.S. emissions have decreased dramatically down to around their 1980 levels thanks to a combination of renewable energy and cleaner traditional energy sources.
  
• This is the largest absolute decline among all countries since 2000.
• The United States has also worked to “clean up” more traditional power sources with the result that power plants have much reduced emissions of mercury, sulfur dioxide and nitrous oxide.
  

By: Charlotte Whelan

• Prior to the pandemic, there were many rules in place that made health care more bureaucratic, slow and expensive.
• States and the federal government acted swiftly to get rid of unnecessary red tape (e.g., the recognition of medical licenses across state lines, the expansion of telehealth) with no impact on patient care.
• This suggests that many regulations in health care were never needed in the first place. One solution is to make COVID-19 deregulatory changes permanent to foster flexibility and lower costs.

By: Hadley Heath Manning

• More than 62 percent of eligible voters in 2020 were not born or were too young to vote when Congress sent the ERA to the states in 1972.
• These voters have ot had a chance to consider the consequences of the proposed ERA or to weigh in, through their elected representatives, on whether it should be adopted.
• Adding an amendment proposed in 1972 to the Constitution now would now undermine the right of today’s voters to participate in the amendment process as required by Article V.

By: Jennifer C. Braceras

• We can expand access to paid leave without harming working families.
• Employers are increasingly voluntarily offering paid leave benefits.
• Policies such as creating a voluntary family and medical leave insurance program, advancing Social Security benefits or Child Tax Credits to new parents, permitting employees to accrue paid leave in lieu of overtime pay, and modernizing tax-preferred savings accounts could also support paid leave without burdening employers or increasing taxes on workers.

By: Kristin Shapiro

• China’s regime regards such basic rights as free speech, or freedom of assembly, as threats to its power, and punishes those who try to exercise them.  
• China’s recent experiments in repression include the establishment of brain-washing concentration camps for Uyghur Muslims in the western part of the country, along with the more traditional prisons and labor camps to which dissidents can be consigned. 
• The government uses ubiquitous surveillance, censorship, and a system of “social credit” to help keep people in line. Dissidents sometimes simply disappear.

By: Claudia Rosett

Policymakers should:

• Eliminate unnecessary licenses or scale back onerous licensing requirements.
• Consider alternatives to licensing such as public or private certification, registration, and inspections that can address quality or public health concerns.
• Consider interstate compacts, such as reciprocity agreements, universal licensing recognition, or multi-state licenses with a common set of qualifications, that allow workers to practice across state lines.

By: Patrice Onwuka