It’s official: the next Congress will be a divided one. While Democrats held their Senate majority, Republicans narrowly took control of the House of Representatives Some Republicans have already made clear they will investigate the Biden administration, even as Senate Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has signaled there could be room for centrist policymaking “between the 40 yard lines.”

But Democrats still have control for another month, and there is critical business to get done in this lame duck Congress. The New Center identified four areas in particular that demand action now. 

Prevent Another January 6th 

Why it matters: Donald Trump’s baseless objections to the 2020 election, and the January 6th riots, demonstrated that current law is not clear enough to ensure a peaceful transfer of presidential power. The 135-year-old Electoral Count Act (ECA), which is supposed to govern the post-election period, has ambiguous language that then-President Trump used to claim (wrongly) that the Vice President and Congress could reject electoral vote slates from the states. It’s not clear that these schemes would have held up in court, but the mere threat was alarming enough to warrant reform. 

State of play: Republican Senator Susan Collins proposed the Electoral Count Reform Act (ECRA) in July 2022. The bill has 15 other Republican co-sponsors including Mitch McConnell, and it has even more support among Democratic senators. The ECRA has not yet been voted on. In September, the House passed a similar bill— the Presidential Election Reform Act (PERA) — with the help of only nine Republicans.  

Key provisions of the ECRA include: 

The House’s PERA has some differences with the ECRA. For example, PERA would require one third of both chambers (instead of one fifth) to support an objection in order for the objection to be heard. PERA is also more specific about what qualifies as a “failed election,” in which a severe emergency prevents the election from fully occurring, and how states should respond by extending the voting period. The differences are not insignificant, but the House and Senate should be able to reach compromise.

Why now: The Senate’s ECRA already enjoys the support of a filibuster proof majority, and the House has passed its own bill. But with Republicans assuming control of the House in January, an Electoral Count reform likely wouldn’t even be able to come up for a vote before the 2024 presidential election. The time is now. 

Stand Up To Russia and Stand With Ukraine

Why it matters: Ukrainian officials have made it clear that to sustain their war effort against Russia’s unlawful invasion, Ukraine requires economic aid in addition to military aid. Since the war broke out, the U.S. has been the largest supplier of weapons and financial aid to Ukraine, offering upwards of $65 billion in overall assistance this year. But Ukraine is still estimated to need $38 billion just in direct economic support in 2023. If the U.S. suspends or scales down its aid, European nations concerned with the regional energy crisis could follow suit. According to Taras Kachka, Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Economic Development, “Without this financial support, our public finances would collapse. And it means that this is immediate victory for Russia.”

Beyond the moral imperative to support Ukrainians, Congress should also consider the global implications of a potential Ukrainian economic collapse. The Washington Post’s Josh Rogin explains it would “exacerbate the energy crisis, the food crisis, the refugee crisis and the global economic slowdown.” Extensive U.S. aid also signals to authoritarian leaders our high resolve on issues of democracy and territorial integrity. If it appears the U.S. is abandoning these principles, it risks emboldening dangerous leaders like Chinese President Xi Jinping and North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un. 

State of play: Providing aid to Ukraine previously elicited significant bipartisan support, but recent polling, midterm campaign messages, and statements by some Republican members and leaders have signaled a growing partisan divide. In May, Congress approved a $40 billion military and humanitarian aid package, with just 57 House and 11 Senate Republicans in opposition. But now reports are surfacing that a growing number of Republicans are seeking to cut economic assistance. Others are also calling for increased federal oversight of funding and demanding more support from large NATO allies.

A November poll by the Wall Street Journal captured this shift among Republicans. While 81% of Democrats and 45% of Independents support sending additional financial aid to Ukraine, just 35% of Republicans agreed.

The Biden administration and Democratic leaders have sought to reassure Ukraine of their commitment amid a series of mixed messages in the media. With a Republican House next Congress, the White House is seeking to secure funding during the current lame duck session. On November 15, the White House requested $37.7 billion for Ukraine from Congress including $21.7 billion in military support and $14.5 billion in direct economic assistance and humanitarian aid. If this doesn’t get approved, Speaker Pelosi has indicated Democrats may try to include an aid package in the must-pass government funding bill.

Why now: Ongoing support for Ukraine funding isn’t guaranteed from House progressives either. In October, 30 House progressives signed a letter to President Biden urging him to “pair the military and economic support the United States has provided to Ukraine with a proactive diplomatic push” for a negotiated end to the conflict. While they later retracted the letter after backlash, if aid isn’t approved during the lame duck, House Republicans could band together with these progressives to block, delay, or add harmful contingencies to funding. 

Raise the Debt Ceiling

Why it matters: The federal debt ceiling is a statutory cap on how much the U.S. Treasury is authorized to borrow to fund government operations. This may sound like it has something to do with enforcing fiscal responsibility, but extending the debt limit simply authorizes the Treasury to finance the deficit that Congress has already incurred — it does not represent new debt. In practice, the debt ceiling has become a partisan football that either party can use to shut down the federal government and/or ruin the country’s financial reputation. Threatening to not extend the debt ceiling is a tactic that both parties have used to force political concessions from the president, putting the country’s well-being at risk. 

State of play: The debt ceiling was raised to $31.3 trillion in December 2021. As of this month, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates that the ceiling will be reached around July 2023. Republican leaders have already indicated that they would be seeking reforms to Social Security and Medicare along with broader spending cuts during debt ceiling negotiations. 

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen recently urged Congress to raise the debt ceiling to a point where it wouldn’t be met until after the 2024 presidential election. In the past, Yellen has also supported ending the debt ceiling altogether — which would put the U.S. on par with most other developed nations. White House officials don’t believe they can convince the 10 Republican senators needed to support a bill to raise the ceiling during the lame duck. They will attempt to bypass Republicans and raise the ceiling through the budget reconciliation process, but only if they can convince Democratic holdout Joe Manchin. 

Why now: By the time the debt ceiling needs to be raised again, Republicans will control the House. In 2011, a House Republican threat to not extend the ceiling caused Standard & Poor to downgrade the U.S. government’s credit rating for the first time, from a perfect AAA to AA+. It also sparked the stock market’s most volatile week since the 2008 recession. Today, with record inflation and an economy struggling to recover from the pandemic, Congress cannot keep playing games with America’s credit.

Follow Through on Energy Permitting Promises

Why it matters: America’s federal energy permitting process is highly inefficient, time consuming, and expensive. Processes for public input mandated by the 1970 National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) and the lengthy litigation that often results means it is not unusual in the U.S. for a project’s permitting to take significantly longer than the time it takes to actually build the infrastructure. Today, the average environmental review process takes 4.5 years. Delays drive up a project’s financing costs, create prolonged inefficiencies, and signal a failure of government to provide necessary public goods.

If the Biden administration wants the renewable energy projects funded in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) to come to fruition sooner rather than later, Congress will have to agree on suitable energy permitting reforms. They are also needed to bolster U.S. energy and natural resource security at a time of immense global uncertainty.

State of play: This summer, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer promised West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin a vote on permitting reform in exchange for Manchin’s vote on President Biden’s IRA. But when Manchin tried to include his Energy Independence and Security Act in October’s must-pass continuing resolution, bipartisan opposition that threatened a government shutdown forced him to back down and remove the provisions before the vote.

Republicans were resentful of the IRA’s passage and Democrats’ political maneuvering, but their subsequent support for West Virginia Republican Senator Shelley Moore Capito’s permitting reform bill (which hasn’t been voted on) indicates they want reforms. Progressive Democrats were wary of upsetting their environmentalist constituents and refused to greenlight the Mountain Valley Pipeline. But others from both sides of the aisle recognize the need for reform, particularly for advancing clean energy goals, and the potential for compromise.

Why now: Updating America’s aging infrastructure, ensuring the availability of reliable and affordable energy, and advancing our transition to cleaner fuel sources is far too important to be sidelined by political revenge tactics and optics concerns. If Democrats want to ensure clean energy is prioritized in permitting reforms and that NEPA’s core tenants are preserved, they should get this done before the next Congress.

Some of these issues, like permitting reforms, have a chance of passing in the next Congress, but likely with less bipartisan support than they could receive now. Others, like ECA reform, have almost no chance of passing a Republican House. Either way, time is running out in Washington. The 117th Congress should use the lame duck period as an opportunity to showcase bipartisanship at this time of high political tension.

Earlier this year, The New Center published the following primer on affirmative action in advance of the two landmark Students For Fair Admissions cases. On October 31st, the Supreme Court heard arguments for the cases, and they will make rulings in the spring of 2023. We are now re-publishing the primer— updated with the most recent public opinion data— to provide important context for the cases.

During her confirmation hearings, Supreme Court nominee Kentanji Brown Jackson pledged to recuse herself from an upcoming case on affirmative action if she is confirmed as a new justice. Students for Fair Admissions alleges that the University of North Carolina and Harvard University—where Judge Jackson serves on the Board of Overseers—are violating the Civil Rights Act with their race-conscious admissions policies. These cases have reignited a discourse on affirmative action that has existed in the U.S. for more than half a century. 

In the majority opinion of the 2003 Grutter v. Bollinger decision, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote: “We expect that, 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary” for universities to achieve diversity. Race relations in the U.S.—and the composition of the Supreme Court—have shifted dramatically since that case. Now, as the 25-year mark approaches and a potentially momentous decision is in sight, The New Center takes a look at affirmative action and the American people’s perception of it. 


Affirmative Action in Perspective

When American universities first implemented affirmative action in the 1960s, they did so in response to a pressing problem. Black students made up just 4.3 percent of college enrollment despite Black people representing 10.5 percent of the U.S. population. Black students represented 9.8 percent of college enrollment by 1975 but 11.7 percent of the U.S. population in 1980. But by 2019, the gap had narrowed to within a percentage point. Black people represented 12.6 percent of enrollment and 13.4 percent of the general population. 

As diversity in higher education grows, affirmative action programs have evolved with it. Eight states have banned the consideration of race in college admissions, while another 11 states have no public universities that consider race. Only 19 percent of all public universities report considering race in admissions, yet 59 of the 100 largest private universities did so in 2015. 

“The Public Craves A Middle Path”

In February of 2019, Gallup and Pew—two of America’s most respected polling institutions—each released similar affirmative action polls that came to virtually opposite conclusions. In the Pew poll, 73 percent of respondents believed that universities should not consider “race or ethnicity in college admissions decisions.” This included majorities of each race and each political party surveyed. By contrast, Gallup reported that 61 percent of respondents favored “affirmative action programs for minorities.” Gallup notes this was the first time their poll found a majority of white respondents in favor of affirmative action. 

Nate Cohn, a public opinion expert at The New York Times, wrote about this issue, “The polls don’t tell a clear story. Some polls show that affirmative action is very popular. Others show that it’s not popular at all. How pollsters pose the question is a critical factor.” Cohn expands, “My best guess is that affirmative action is fairly unpopular. But… it’s not clear that even a well-worded question would give us much insight…” 

Update: In October 2022, the Washington Post and George Mason University found that 63% of Americans supported “the Supreme Court banning colleges and universities from considering a student’s race and ethnicity when making decisions about student admissions.” This includes 47% of Black respondents, 60% of Hispanic respondents, 65% of Asian and Pacific Islander respondents, and 66% of White respondents. But 64% of Americans also supported programs to boost diversity at universities. According to the Washington Post, this suggests “the public craves a middle path” between overt racial preferences and abolishing affirmative action.

But while polls have presented a mixed picture on affirmative action, the American people, in recent years, have spoken much more clearly at the ballot box on the issue. 

Affirmative Action at the Ballot Box

Over the decades, voters have both created and abolished affirmative action policies through state ballot measures. But in the three most recent votes, Americans rejected affirmative action. The table below illustrates how many voters opposed affirmative action, either by voting to ban it (Oklahoma, Colorado) or rejecting an amendment to allow it (California, Washington). 2008 was the last time affirmative action “won” such a vote. 

The biggest variable determining who does or does not support affirmative action—perhaps surprisingly—might not be race. According to one analysis of California’s vote, a voter’s level of education was the most significant demographic factor. Counties with more college-educated residents supported affirmative action at much higher rates than other counties. 

The Court Protects Affirmative Action

The upcoming Students for Fair Admissions decision is just the latest installment of a long-running legal issue. The Supreme Court has heard nearly 30 affirmative action cases since the 1970s. Some of the landmark decisions include: 

Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, 1978 

Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger, 2003

Fisher v. University of Texas, 2016

While voters have had conflicting opinions on affirmative action, the Supreme Court has been relatively stable. The Court has consistently asserted the constitutionality of race-conscious admissions policies while striking down those that establish quotas, make race a primary admissions factor, or are otherwise not narrowly tailored. As a result, opponents of affirmative action have had to work through state legislatures and popular ballot measures.

But as the 25-year window after the Grutter case closes, the Supreme Court could break precedent and dramatically restrict or re-imagine affirmative action in the United States.

Earlier this month, the first national standardized test results since the onset of the Covid pandemic were released. They were troubling. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) — commonly known as the Nation’s Report Card — confirmed that students fell behind during the pandemic, with the lowest scores in two decades. 

This was the first time in NAEP’s history that math scores declined compared to the previous test, and it was the largest decline in reading scores in over 30 years. While scores were down across the board, they were particularly poor for students of color. The gap between white and Black students was 33 points, the largest disparity since the 1978 assessment. This was a significant step backwards in closing the racial achievement gap, which had been steadily shrinking for the last 15 years. Though unfortunate, these results were foreseeable as urban schools —which have higher rates of low-income and minority students — stayed remote longer than other schools, exacerbating learning loss. 

Even before the pandemic, American schools were struggling. In the 2018 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) exam, which tests high school students in developed nations, the U.S. scored below average in math, ranking 31st of 78 countries. Failing to even make the top ten, the U.S. ranked 13th in reading and 18th in science. Further, China ranked first place in all three PISA subjects. 

It’s no surprise, then, that Americans believe schools are failing to educate students. Just two percent of respondents gave public schools an “A” grading in an August 2022 Education Next poll, and only 20% gave them a “B”, whereas 27% gave them a “D” or an “F.”  Likewise, a Gallup poll from earlier this year found that 69% of Americans were somewhat or very dissatisfied with the education system, the highest level since Gallup started asking in 2001.

A spate of recent polls – and elections – reveal that voters have some clear preferences for how they’d like government and school leaders to fix our education problems. 

Voters are hardly in universal agreement about what needs to be done to fix our schools. Unsurprisingly, many disagree as to what it actually means to “get politics out of schools.” The Education Next poll found 35% of the public wanted more emphasis on the teaching of “slavery, racism, and other challenges faced by Black people in the United States,” whereas 25% wanted less emphasis. A plurality of respondents (39%) wanted to keep it the same. The AFT survey found similar results on the teaching of race, and that 43% wanted less emphasis on teaching gender and sexuality, while 21% wanted more emphasis and 36% wanted the same or were unsure. These are polarizing issues, but Americans of all stripes agree: students must master the basics before they can wade into more complex subjects like race. 

Voters also seem to agree that many schools have lost sight of their core missions: teaching children how to learn, maximize their individual talents, and prepare them for a meaningful career. As students head back to school this month, the message is clear: voters want elected officials, education administrators, and teachers to get back to teaching the basics, instead of fighting over politics.

After a two-year long shortage of semiconductor chips, which are integral to almost every facet of our economy, congressional leaders from both sides of the aisle recently united to pass the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022. The almost $280 billion bill includes significant new funding for cutting edge research and new incentives to build semiconductor manufacturing plants in the U.S. Lawmakers hope the bill will strengthen our supply chain and prevent the kind of shortages that hit consumers with higher prices.

But they also hope it will counter a rising threat from China and reduce the fallout of a possible future invasion of Taiwan. It is this threat, perhaps more than any other, that explains how Congress managed to come to the center to pass this landmark bill in a hyper-polarized election year.

China and Taiwan have been feuding since the two separated in 1949, but Taiwan’s Minister of National Defense, Chiu Kuo-cheng, recently said that military tensions with China are the worst they have been in over 40 years. China, which claims sovereignty over Taiwan, has increasingly used its military near the island to project strength. In 2021, nearly 1,000 Chinese military jets and warships illegally entered Taiwan’s territory; 2022 might be even worse as over 800 ships and jets had done so by the end of June. Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in August 2022 further heightened hostility, with China sending 27 aircraft into the territory upon her arrival and carrying out a slew of military drills, including missile tests, in the days following.

Conflict in the Taiwan Strait would threaten American economic security. Although the U.S. is the clear leader in semiconductor design (U.S. companies design 85% of the world’s electronic design automation tools, which are necessary for designing advanced semiconductors), none of the most advanced semiconductors are actually manufactured in America. China and Taiwan are the two largest producers of semiconductors, with China accounting for 24% and Taiwan accounting for 21% of the world’s supply. The U.S. has already taken steps to limit China’s dominance and advancement in the sector, recently pressuring the Dutch government to ban the Netherlands-based, Advanced Semiconductor Materials Lithography, which produces a critical component needed for producing semiconductors, from selling its equipment to China.

Although conflict with Taiwan does not appear imminent, U.S. military planners believe China could be planning to invade by the end of this decade. If the unlikely conflict were to commence, the U.S. would be in trouble. Semiconductors make up only 0.3% of U.S. GDP, but they are required to produce 12% of all U.S. economic output. A 2021 Goldman Sachs analysis found that 169 industries have been affected by the chip shortage of the last two years—including the automobile industry, which produced nearly 4 million fewer cars across the U.S., Europe, and Japan than they did in 2020. 

America’s reliance on foreign semiconductors also poses a threat to national security. The Taiwanese Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) produces most of the semiconductors used in America’s F-35 fighter jets, anti-aircraft and missile defense systems, and a wide array of military-grade devices. The extent to which the U.S. relies on Taiwanese chips is unknown to the public for security purposes, but the government is apparently worried enough that it is now partnering with TSMC to build a $12 billion factory in Arizona to localize manufacturing. The project is nearing completion, and subsidies from the CHIPS act are expected to help construction remain on schedule.

The CHIPS Act ultimately passed with the support of nearly all House and Senate Democrats and 24 House and 16 Senate Republicans. A coalition of far left and right members tried to kill the bill. Senator Bernie Sanders argued chip companies do not need the money because they are “making tens of billions of dollars in profits and paying their CEOs exorbitant compensation packages,” and Senator Ted Cruz said the Act “invites cronyism and corruption.” 

But ultimately, the bill passed because enough Democrats and Republicans found their way to the center to counter the threat from China. And by doing so, they are reflecting where the center of public opinion lies as a growing share of Americans see China as one of the preeminent security threats America faces today.

During the last two years, some of America’s largest school districts have implemented seismic changes in the name of advancing racial equity. Under pressure from activists and some elected officials, schools have changed the criteria for how students are admitted, what classes they take, and how they are graded.

The equity movement, broadly speaking, is trying to close the achievement gap between white and Asian students and their Black and Latino peers. Black and Latino students are underrepresented in not only advanced education programs, but in the lifetime of income and opportunity that follows. 

But Americans agree more with the equity movement’s goals than its tactics. Over 80% of people said it was important that local public schools have ethnic and economic diversity, according to a 2021 poll from The Century Foundation. But a 2022 poll from Pew Research Center found 74% thought race and ethnicity should not be considered in admissions decisions.

Contradictory poll results indicate these issues are not so cut-and-dried to the public. People support offering advanced education to students based on ability or merit, but they still value racial diversity. Since the onset of Covid, local governments and school officials have shifted policy toward equity and away from merit in multiple aspects of schooling. But early evidence suggests the public believes many schools have gone too far.

The New Center dug into some of the most ambitious—and contentious—racial equity reforms, the debate around them, and their future. 

Admissions to Selective Public Schools and Gifted and Talented Programs

Selective public schools and gifted and talented programs essentially serve the same function: putting high-achieving students in classes with similar students. Selective schools, also known as exam schools, are public schools that require an application to attend. Students are typically evaluated based on grades, standardized test scores, and other merit-based metrics. Gifted and talented programs operate within traditional public schools, offering specialized courses to that school’s students who meet merit-based criteria. 

The idea is that by filling a classroom with only high achievers, these students can receive a more rigorous education that may be too advanced for their peers. The evidence is mixed as to whether this idea is accurate. While exam schools do see impressively high standardized test scores and admissions to elite colleges, the data are not clear that the schools actually cause that outcome or if they simply admit students who would have done well anywhere. But a 2014 study of gifted and talented programs by Nobel prize-winning economist David Card concluded that a separate classroom for high-achieving students can be beneficial, especially for minority and low-income students. 

Regardless of what the data says, parents, education reformers, and school officials care a lot about which students participate in those programs. Specifically, equity-minded reformers have raised concerns about the metrics considered, and the racial disparities that result from them. They claim that Black and Latino students are often underrepresented compared to their Asian and white peers, and they often advocate changing admissions policies to create a more proportional student body. 

Selective Schools

Take Lowell High School, a high-performing selective school in San Francisco. In 2020, 51% of Lowell students were Asian and another 18% were white, while 12% were Latino and only 2% were Black. Lowell had a much higher proportion of Asian and white students than the school district as a whole. So, in the name of equity, the San Francisco Board of Education changed Lowell’s admissions process in 2020. No longer would applicants be evaluated by merit; instead, all incoming freshmen who wanted to attend would be placed in a lottery and selected at random. While the move was initially sold as a temporary change to combat logistical challenges posed by Covid-19, the school board voted to make it permanent in 2021. 

Equity activists achieved their goal for Lowell: the first class admitted under the lottery had higher shares of Black and Latino students than previous classes. But students in the lottery class earned three times as many Ds and Fs (24%) as the class before them (8%), suggesting that many of the new students weren’t adequately prepared for Lowell’s more rigorous curriculum. 

Parents, especially in Asian communities, were outraged by the school board’s reforms. Just 13% of San Francisco voters supported Lowell’s lottery admissions. Many local parents felt that their child had earned a seat at Lowell with exceptional grades and test scores, but were denied because they did not meet the school’s racial preferences. Three of San Francisco’s seven school board members were recalled by wide margins in early 2022; by June, their replacements overturned the lottery and restored merit admissions at Lowell High School. 

New York City also recently implemented what is essentially a lottery system for 160 of its selective high schools— known as “screened” high schools—in the name of equity. The selection process is not as purely random as Lowell’s, but it still involves a complicated system in which students are sorted into four (quite broad) academic tiers; students in higher tiers get priority in admissions, but the inevitable surplus of applicants results in a lottery by tier. When school admissions were announced in June 2022, enraged parents and students protested the decision at the city’s Department of Education headquarters. Nearly 30,000 students have left New York City’s public schools this year, some due at least in part to the new lottery. The pushback was so intense that David Banks, Chancellor of New York City schools, already considered scrapping the changes earlier this year and has created a task force to identify changes and alternatives for next year.

In Fairfax, Virginia, the board of the elite Thomas Jefferson High School voted to change its selective admissions policies in December 2021. Rather than evaluating students on grades and essays, the school would also consider a student’s “experience factors,” namely socioeconomic status. While the policy is nominally race-blind, it has resulted in a significant increase in admissions offers to Black and Hispanic students, and a significant decrease in Asian students admitted (the percentage of white students admitted has not changed). The backlash, which included the formation of advocacy groups, protests on campus, and heated online debates, was so intense the courts had to get involved. A federal judge described the changes as motivated by “racial balancing,” which is illegal, but the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed, allowing the “experience factors” to stay. An advocacy group opposing the new admissions policy filed a petition to temporarily reverse the appeals court’s decision, but it was denied by the U.S. Supreme Court, leaving the new policy in place.

A group of parents is currently suing the school district in Montgomery County, Maryland over its changes to lottery admissions. Several schools in Philadelphia and Boston announced in early 2022 that they would be moving away from merit-based admissions. The specific reforms may differ from city to city, but the results are always the same: more Black and Latino and fewer Asian and white students in elite public schools.

Equity reformers argue that the status quo for these schools is not merit-based. They say the criteria used in admissions, especially standardized tests, tend to favor students from privileged families. These students often attend better schools (both public and private) and their families can afford tutoring, test preparation, and other outside help. As a result, equity supporters say some students of color with potential are overlooked while other students are only accepted because they were boosted by privilege. This is luck, not merit. 

Merit advocates often agree that the system has led to some unfair outcomes. But, as The Wall Street Journal’s Jason Riley argues, “the cure is clearly more meritocracy, not moving back in the direction of what it replaced.” Riley and others argue the solution would be finding ways to make the tests or other admissions criteria more accurate at identifying talent regardless of income or race, rather than abandoning elite schools altogether. 

But when it comes to gifted and talented programs, the goal for many racial equity activists appears to be abolition rather than reform.

Gifted and Talented Programs

Like selective schools, gifted and talented programs enroll white and Asian students at disproportionately high rates. And like selective schools, parents and merit advocates support the exceptional outcomes they’ve proven to provide, even though the programs could be tweaked to more fairly distribute those outcomes. Many equity advocates have disavowed gifted and talented altogether, such as Seattle NAACP leader Rita Green who called it “fundamentally flawed” and “inherently racist,” and called for it to be “just abolished. Period.”

Officials across the country started acting on these calls in 2021. The Seattle school board removed testing requirements to enter their gifted program, and were just one vote short of abolishing it altogether. Boston announced a “temporary suspension” of their program after Covid. And New York City began to phase out gifted and talented entirely, only to back down as a result of protests and uproar. Over two-thirds of New Yorkers supported gifted and talented programs according to a June 2022 poll. And now, Mayor Eric Adams has actually expanded the program, adding more seats and ensuring it is offered in every district in the city.

The Road Ahead

So far, the public debate between merit and equity has taken place mostly at the local level. Equity reforms have come from local school boards or mayors, and the pushback has come from their constituents. But two forthcoming Supreme Court cases could reshape the entire debate. 

This October, the Supreme Court will hear challenges to the use of race in admissions at Harvard and the University of North Carolina. While the Court has long defended racial diversity as a legitimate interest for public universities, observers expect the Court’s strong conservative majority to roll back “affirmative action” this time around. How far the ruling will go is unknown, but some legal experts predict the decisions will affect public K-12 education. Some K-12 groups have even filed briefs in the Supreme Court cases, including the National School Boards Association in favor of using race in admissions and Parents Defending Education (a conservative education advocacy organization) against it. 

Ideally, a judicial review of the merit and equity debate will reveal what is too often neglected in the political arena: both sides have a portion of the truth. The public may agree that specific changes go too far in the name of equity, such as abolishing gifted and talented or implementing pure lottery admissions; but they still value diversity in education and opportunity for all students. Recall elections and protests that result in a return to the status quo miss the nuances of such a societally important question: what is the purpose of education, and how do we achieve it? 

Two Supreme Court decisions about higher education likely won’t solve the merit and equity debate on their own. Subsequent cases will likely be necessary, and local political processes will continue to implement or reject different approaches to equity and merit as public attitudes develop. While Americans will never be in complete agreement about these issues, we have to find a broadly acceptable consensus—one that does not sink trust in the school system or cause electoral turmoil. 

Prices in May were 8.6% higher than they were this time last year, the largest year-over-year increase since December 1981. 

Gas, food, and housing costs are rising, and voters are taking note. A May Pew Research poll found inflation was the top concern for Americans by a wide margin. Seven in ten respondents called it a “very big problem,” more so than healthcare affordability (55%) and violent crime (54%). Inflation was the only issue that a majority of both Republicans (84%) and Democrats (57%) rated a “very big problem.”

The primary responsibility for curbing inflation lies with the Federal Reserve. The Fed has already sprung into action, raising its benchmark lending rate by 0.75%, the most since 1994. In a report to Congress the Fed said, “[Our] commitment to restoring price stability — which is necessary for sustaining a strong labor market — is unconditional,”

Although the Fed is the prime mover on inflation, the White House and Congress could take important additional steps. Unfortunately, it is becoming clear that all the talk from Capitol Hill will amount to little action.

Democrats are by and large proposing messaging bills—with no chance of becoming law—that they can tout to voters before the midterms. Republicans, for their part, seem content to just blame Democrats, while offering few ideas of their own

As for the White House, President Biden just yesterday proposed a three-month gas tax holiday that already appears doomed in Congress, with many members dismissing the move as a “gimmick.”

The New Center decided to review anti-inflation proposals and found that most of Washington is playing games. Here are just a few examples:

Congressional Democrats are proposing partisan bills, many of which are stuffed with long-time Democratic priorities. Rather than working on compromises that could actually pass, Democrats are focused on looking good to their supporters. 

Congressional Republicans have been mostly silent on inflation, speaking up only to blame Democrats. The few bills by Congressional Republicans are toothless, and only one has Democratic co-sponsors (but still not enough to pass a Democratic Congress). The Republican bills include:

This past week, Congress did manage to overwhelmingly pass the bipartisan Ocean Shipping Reform Act to strengthen supply chains by investigating unfair practices and prices in the shipping industry. This is a constructive step, but more action is required.

The New Democrat Coalition—98 moderate House Democrats—recently released a 24-page inflation plan that includes curbing the national deficit, cutting tariffs and other trade barriers, and investing in workforce development to boost productivity. Senator Mike Lee, a Republican, has made several proposals to boost the supply of houses and reduce shipping congestion through deregulation of zoning and trade, many of which overlap with the New Democrats’ plan.

But these proposals likely aren’t going anywhere either. As Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell put it: “Republicans have not offered concrete proposals because they’d rather the midterms serve as a referendum on the Democrats.”

It all adds up to Congress likely doing little, if anything, to address inflation before the November elections.

Part Two of The New Center’s Two-Part Nuclear Energy Series

It might surprise you to learn that the federal government’s Nuclear Regulatory Commission has no incentive to actually expand the use of nuclear power in the U.S. But it’s true.

On its website, the NRC describes its mission as “to ensure the safe use of radioactive materials for beneficial civilian purposes while protecting people and the environment.” The NRC lacks a mandate to actually grow the nuclear technologies it oversees. NASA’s mission, for comparison, is to “explore the unknown in air and space, innovate for the benefit of humanity, and inspire the world through discovery.” Safety is listed as the first of NASA’s Core Values, but it is not the sole objective as it appears to be for the NRC. 

And based on the goals in their strategic plan for 2018-2022, today’s NRC is fixated entirely on dangerous but rare accidents with no focus on the public health and environmental benefits of nuclear energy. Because the Commission is concerned with safety and safety alone, it seemingly concludes the best approach is no new nuclear capacity in the U.S. 

“No new nuclear” may not be the official position of the NRC, but it might as well be. Since its inception in 1975, the Commission has never approved a new nuclear plant that made it to operation. It has approved new reactors at existing plants; and there were some plants that opened under the NRC, but they were approved by the NRC’s predecessor before 1975. In total, nuclear growth has plummeted under the NRC. The last time the U.S. saw a net increase in nuclear reactors was 1993. 

Source: Bloomberg

The alternatives to nuclear power are sources that are worse for the environment and cause even more deaths from accidents and pollution. Nuclear—a baseload power source—would be replaced by other baseload sources such as coal, not only by intermittent renewable sources like wind and solar. Just look at Japan: after essentially dismantling their nuclear energy sector in response to the Fukushima accident, coal and natural gas consumption has mostly filled in the gaps.   

Source: Energy Information Administration

Only one person died of radiation exposure at Fukushima. And Three Mile Island, America’s worst nuclear accident, caused zero deaths or injuries. These events were tragic and should never have happened, but regulators must consider them in context: nuclear’s fossil-fuel competitors kill millions of people worldwide each year through air pollution and accidents. 

It is time for Congress to give the NRC a new mandate; one that, inspired by NASA’s, instructs the Commission to expand the use of nuclear energy and expedite innovation in the sector. 

Safety should still be a top priority, but not the sole priority as it is now. Further, the NRC’s understanding of “safety” should reflect the Biden administration’s May 2022 rule changes which require infrastructure regulators (including the NRC) to consider the “direct, indirect, and cumulative effects” of new projects on the environment. Considering that it is far better for the environment and public health than its fossil fuel alternatives, nuclear energy is the safe path forward. 

The new mandate should be coupled with a comprehensive reform of the NRC’s licensing structure, as regulatory burdens have plagued the nuclear sector for decades.

Nuclear energy has historically been held back by cost concerns, and that’s only gotten worse over time. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported that inflation-adjusted construction costs grew from $1,500 per kilowatt of capacity in the 1960s to $4,000 per kilowatt in the 1970s. Today, the EIA estimates a new plant would cost $6,000 per kilowatt, or $6 billion in total for an average-sized nuclear plant, which has one million kilowatts (or one gigawatt) of capacity.

A 2020 study by MIT researchers found that one-third of the increase in nuclear construction cost can be attributed to regulation. The author emphasizes that regulation is not the sole cause: a decline in labor productivity—seen across the construction industry—as well as increased material costs and technical restraints are also major causes. But the conservative American Action Forum (AAF) calculated in 2017 that, even after construction, ongoing regulatory compliance (paperwork) alone cost the average nuclear plant $10 million annually.

Regulation is not fully to blame for the cost of nuclear energy, and it is certainly not dispensable. Safety regulations are necessary to prevent both major and minor accidents, especially for technologies as potent as nuclear power. But does the NRC really need 16,368 individual restrictions of nuclear energy, as AAF found in an analysis of the 2014 Code of Federal Regulations? For context, AAF points out that the EPA imposed only 3,484 regulations pertaining to air pollution—which is significantly more deadly than nuclear power. And should it take five years and millions of dollars just to earn approval for new reactors at existing plants, as AAF found to be the case? 

Can America’s once-great nuclear power industry be restored? Some lawmakers are working on it. In late April, President Biden allocated $6 billion for nuclear plants that are struggling financially. The move is expected to save at least two plants from imminent closure. Earlier that month, Senators Joe Manchin and Jim Risch introduced the bipartisan International Nuclear Energy Act that would address financing, licensing, and innovation barriers to the domestic and global nuclear energy markets. 

Congress could also help ease nuclear permitting time and costs by permanently extending FAST-41, a 2015 bipartisan reform to ease the regulatory burden on large infrastructure projects including nuclear reactors. The program has reduced the time (and money) necessary to earn approval without altering the rigor of safety and environmental reviews, saving projects years of waiting and millions of dollars. FAST-41 is set to expire this year; Congress could streamline the development of nuclear and other clean energy plants by making this successful program permanent. 

In a world of imperfect energy options, nuclear energy has long provided the U.S. with a critical base of safe and reliable energy. America needs more of it, now more than ever.

Part One of The New Center’s Two-Part Nuclear Energy Series

A March 2022 Gallup poll found that Americans are split on whether it is more important to protect the environment or produce more energy. Half of respondents prioritized the environment while 46% prioritized energy production. The responses generally followed party lines, but even independents were divided with 49% for the environment and 47% for more energy. 

As with most issues in American politics these days, energy and climate have been presented as binary, either/or issues. But there is a neglected alternative that addresses both priorities: nuclear power. Nuclear is a clean, reliable source that can produce massive amounts of energy at scale with no carbon emissions. 

Although 69% of Americans want the country to become carbon neutral, many are still agnostic on nuclear energy. A March 2022 Pew Research survey found that 35% of respondents wanted the federal government to encourage nuclear production, while 25% wanted to discourage it, and 37% favored neither. 

For its part, Washington has not done nearly enough to educate the public on the benefits of nuclear as a clean energy source. And rapidly expanding it in America will require addressing the cost and regulatory hurdles that have had nuclear stuck in neutral for decades.

“Clean energy” is a rather broad term that may mean different things to different people. But nuclear power should qualify as a clean source under any sensible criteria. 

First and foremost: nuclear energy emits zero carbon during operation, and its total lifecycle carbon emissions—including from constructing the plant, mining the fuel (uranium), transporting the waste, and anything in between—are relatively low. Nuclear has among the lowest lifecycle emissions per kilowatt-hour of energy produced, roughly equal to wind and three times lower than solar. 

Source: World Nuclear Association

Nuclear is also not as land-intensive as other forms of energy, and it produces manageable amounts of waste.

A 2017 Strata Policy analysis found that nuclear energy requires 12.7 acres of land per 1,000 kilowatts produced annually, the third lowest among all power sources. Solar uses 43.5 acres and wind needs 70.6 acres to produce the same amount of power. The analysis measures total land use and includes things like waste storage, a common point of concern for nuclear energy.

Source: Strata Policy

Nuclear waste is manageable; not much is produced and we can handle it safely. According to the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), the largest trade association for the nuclear industry, most waste is used fuel: metal rods with solid uranium pellets inside. Nuclear fuel is about one million times more dense than other fuels. A one-inch tall uranium pellet produces as much electricity as one ton of coal. Because nuclear waste is so dense, there is very little of it: all of the waste ever produced by America’s nuclear industry would fit on a football field in a ten-yard-tall stack.

The used nuclear fuel rods are stored in “dry casks,” massive structures of concrete and steel that prevent radiation leakage. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) believes these casks “provide adequate protection for public health and safety and the environment.” The NRC also notes that there have been thousands of shipments of nuclear waste across the country over the last 40 years “without causing any radiological releases to the environment or harm to the public.”

To be clear: nuclear waste is radioactive and highly dangerous. Improper handling can threaten public health and the environment. In April 2021, the Washington State Department of Ecology confirmed a waste storage tank at a decommissioned nuclear weapons manufacturing site was leaking radioactive material into the ground. Officials have warned there could be a “long-term environmental threat” if the spill is not cleaned correctly. Luckily, America’s careful regulation of nuclear energy waste disposal has prevented such leaks from becoming common occurrences. 

Despite the general success in nuclear waste management so far, all of the existing storage sites are designed to be temporary. Stakeholders and leaders in Washington have long wanted a permanent disposal option, but politics have gotten in the way. 

A decades-long attempt to create a permanent site at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, was terminated by the Obama administration for what the U.S. Government Accountability Office described as “social and political opposition” and “not technical or safety reasons.” A 2020 New York Times article asserts that President Trump also opposed Yucca Mountain for political reasons; he saw Nevada as a swing-state whose voters did not want to house nuclear waste. But incidents like the Washington State leak demonstrate why it’s necessary to put politics aside and find a permanent solution for nuclear waste. 

Future generations of nuclear reactors might have even smaller land and waste footprints. In 2020, the U.S. approved its first small-modular reactor (SMR) design, which the company NuScale plans to construct by 2029. NuScale’s SMR is only a third of the size of a standard nuclear reactor, and is even safer than existing nuclear power designs due to a passive cooling system that does not require human input during an emergency. As a result, much less land is required for the plant itself and the surrounding safety buffer. Other SMRs in development are looking at alternative or recycled fuels, which should shrink nuclear’s mining and waste footprints even further. 

Even without advancements in SMRs, nuclear is the clean energy that delivers. Nuclear power has by far the highest capacity factor, the measure of how often an energy source is producing its full maximum potential output. Nuclear reactors operate at peak performance 93.5% of the time, while wind and solar have capacity factors of 35% and 25%, respectively, because they only produce when the wind blows or the sun shines. 

Source: U.S. Office of Nuclear Energy

Because of its consistency, nuclear is often used as a baseload power source, according to the U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA). “Baseload” is the minimum level of power that must be available to the electric grid at all times. The counterpart is peak load or intermediate power: additional electricity from oil and natural gas needed for the days and times of day when demand is at its highest, such as to operate the heater on a particularly cold night.

The EIA classifies wind and solar as “intermittent renewable” sources that contribute to the grid when conditions are right. They tend to displace oil and gas, since baseload sources like nuclear do not adjust output to match supply and demand. In this regard, wind and solar are not competitors with nuclear power, but complements to it.

While nuclear energy is incredibly reliable once in operation, the fuel it takes currently comes from unreliable suppliers. American nuclear plants import more than 85% of the uranium they use, almost half of which comes from Russia (16%) and its allies Kazakhstan (22%) and Uzbekistan (8%). Much like oil, the uranium market is heavily influenced if not controlled by hostile regimes. 

As President Biden said, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent energy crisis is a “stark reminder” that the U.S. must be energy independent. As it stands, America’s nuclear power industry is not independent—but things can change.  

Domestic mining of uranium has all but vanished in recent years. After reaching a high of 43.7 million pounds in 1980, domestic uranium production fell sharply throughout the 1980s and 90s and has only continued to dwindle. In 2019, only 170,000 pounds of uranium were produced in America. As a result, a 2020 Department of Energy report concluded that the domestic uranium mining industry was “facing imminent collapse.”

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration

The early success of domestic uranium mining was mostly due to government protection. Generous subsidies and strict trade barriers created a thriving industry, but the industry tumbled a few years after the protections were lifted in 1975 and the Three Mile Island accident stained nuclear’s image in 1979. Domestic nuclear operators began looking elsewhere for fuel. And now, American uranium miners are failing to compete with those in countries like Kazakhstan which have significantly weaker environmental protections. 

Perhaps a 1960s system of heavy subsidies and blanket import bans would be unnecessary and unhelpful for the current moment. But the government could take small steps to boost domestic uranium demand; like filling the Strategic Uranium Reserve that Congress funded in 2021 but has still not been started, and suspending uranium imports from Russia and its allies proportionate to the war in Ukraine as we did with Russian oil, natural gas, and coal. 

The U.S. government could also spark demand for uranium by growing the nuclear power industry as a whole. In part two of The New Center’s nuclear energy series, we explore what it will take to finally unleash such a nuclear renaissance in the United States.

In response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the European Union (EU) has started trying to wean itself off of Russian energy. This is no easy feat, considering Russia provides about 35 percent of the EU’s natural gas supply. 

The EU doubled down on May 4th, announcing its intent to completely ban imports of Russian oil and refined petroleum products within the next six months. To achieve this ambitious goal, the EU will need significant help from international allies.

In late March, the White House announced a joint task force with the EU focused on reducing dependence on Russian energy with an immediate emphasis on securing energy (read: heat) for the upcoming winter, but it also addresses deals and measures that could affect European energy for a decade. 

The task force announcement identified two crucial goals it will be working toward:

1. Diversifying natural gas supplies to the EU, which means securing gas from countries other than Russia (such as the U.S.)
2. Reducing demand for natural gas in the U.S., by displacing it with other forms of energy, thus increasing the supply of gas available for Europe

There were some specific policy actions mentioned in the announcement. For example, the EU has announced plans to replace inefficient home heating systems in Europe with smart thermostats and heat pumps, saving about as much natural gas as the U.S. is pledging to send. President Biden has also allocated $6 billion to keep America’s nuclear plants from shutting down, a key step in replacing domestic natural gas consumption with reliable, carbon-free energy. 

But there are still plenty of details to be filled in, which is what The New Center aims to do below. Although the most consequential steps the United States can take revolve around making it easier to produce and transport American natural gas, several more steps to boost other energy sources are essential too. Here is what it will take to significantly reduce the EU’s reliance on Russian energy. 

Increasing natural gas storage and supply

1. Fill EU natural gas reserves. 

Context: The EU directed its members to fill their natural gas storage to 80 percent capacity by November 2022, but the International Energy Agency recommends filling them to 90 percent. Stockpiling would increase the supply of natural gas available in the upcoming winter when demand peaks (for heating). It would also increase demand for natural gas right now, which should incentivize more producers to sell to Europe. 

Action Item: Members of the EU should fill their natural gas strategic reserves as much and as quickly as possible. 

Timeline: Members have until November 2022 to complete this and the benefits of increased supply would be felt throughout the winter and early spring of 2023.

2. Federally guarantee loans for natural gas export terminals.

Context: There are roughly a dozen liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facilities in the U.S. that have earned regulatory approval but still lacked funding as of March 25th. Building more terminals would reduce shipping bottlenecks and ultimately deliver more energy to Europe, but some private lenders are worried about the uncertain regulatory future of natural gas and are hesitant to invest. 

Action item: The federal government should guarantee loans made to LNG export terminals. This would encourage private funding by reducing risks for investors and acknowledge that the U.S. and the world will need significant quantities of natural gas for years to come, even as we continue to deploy renewable energy sources.

Timeline: There are seven proposed LNG terminals whose developers are expected to make a Final Investment Decision and begin construction in 2022. By comparing these projects to existing terminals, we can make rough estimates of when and how big their impacts will be. If all seven proposals are completed at similar rates as the existing terminals, America’s export capacity would increase by around 42 percent by the end of 2025, from 76.5 million to 109 million tonnes per year. Once the larger projects are completed around 2027, the new export capacity could be over 160 million tonnes, more than doubling what we export today. 

  Existing US Natural Gas Export Facilities

 Proposed US Natural Gas Export Terminals, 2022

3. Abolish the Jones Act. 

Context: The Jones Act is a century-old law passed by Congress requiring that cargo ships be fully manufactured in the U.S. to sail from one American port to another. As of 2019, there were zero American-made ships able to transport large amounts of natural gas. As a result, moving natural gas around the U.S.—including to liquefaction and export facilities to be shipped to Europe—requires pipelines, trains, and trucks, which are all more costly and time consuming. 

Action Item: Congress should repeal the Jones Act, or at the very least the Departments of Defense or Homeland Security should issue Jones Act waivers for natural gas tankers.

Timeline: Colin Grabow, a trade policy scholar at the libertarian Cato Institute, predicted to The New Center that energy markets would react quickly to Jones Act reform. He acknowledged that many industrial tankers are signed to multi-year contracts, so it could be another two to three years before the full extent of the benefits are realized. But even before then, he suggests oil and gas producers could quickly begin lowering costs, maintaining production, and operating more efficiently without Jones Act barriers.

4. Promote drilling on federal land.

Context: The Department of the Interior recently announced it would resume selling leases for oil and gas production on federal lands, but at higher royalty rates than previously charged and with 80 percent less land available for drilling. This will discourage domestic oil and gas production and raise prices for consumers. And making federal land off limits to energy exploration will not meaningfully advance the fight against climate change. Demand for oil and gas would inevitably be met by other countries, many of which have weak or no environmental standards compared to the U.S.

Action item: The administration should delay increases in royalty rates and changes to drilling policies at least until after the European energy crisis subsides.

Timeline: New drilling operations would take six months to a year to noticeably affect America’s energy supply.  

5. Streamline regulatory approval for new drilling operations.

Context: The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is a 1970 law requiring strict climate-focused reviews for any projects seeking approval. The “Environmental Impact Statements” required by NEPA average over 500 pages in length and take five years to produce. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) takes 120 days to respond to drilling applications, while comparable state agencies take just ten days as they are not bound by the same NEPA red tape. Further, President Biden is reinstating certain NEPA rules (loosened by the Trump administration in 2020) that give regulators more leeway to reject proposals by calculating the project’s “indirect effects” on the climate. 

Action Item: Congress should limit environmental impact statements to 250 pages and ensure that FAST-41—a bipartisan reform that established a two-year timeline for NEPA approval and created a taskforce to guide projects through the application process—is appropriately enforced. In the meantime, the Biden administration should maintain the 2020 reforms to NEPA.

Timeline: Even if NEPA were reformed today and FAST-41 were properly enforced, it would still take up to two years to earn approval for new drilling operations and another year after approval before new drilling would affect America’s supply. This is a long-term reform with long-lasting benefits.

Displacing natural gas use in the U.S. 

1. Expand PACE to encourage private adoption of clean energy.

Context: The Property Assessed Clean Energy Program provides upfront financing for clean energy systems on private property that owners pay back over time. Only 28 states and Washington, D.C. have active PACE programs, and only three apply to residential property.

Action Item: The Department of Energy should tie State Energy Program grants to requirements that recipients implement or expand PACE laws to all consumers. 

Timeline: A 2020 study from the University of Southern California found that PACE programs in California saw modest increases in solar installations within two months of the programs starting, with larger gains starting around ten months and increasing until at least 24 months (when the study was concluded). 

2. Expand net-metering options to incentivize clean energy.

Context: Net-metering is a practice in which people who generate their own electricity via solar power can sell their excess energy back to the grid. These customers are typically compensated in credits on their monthly utility bills. Currently, only ten states allow net-metering.

Action Item: The Department of Energy should tie State Energy Program grants to requirements that recipients implement or expand net-metering laws. The requirements should preference net-metering programs that assess direct energy costs and overhead business costs separately, so as to not unfairly increase prices for those who cannot or will not switch to solar.

Timeline: A 2021 report to the California Public Utilities Commission revealed that the state’s revamped net-metering program implemented in June 2016 modestly increased adoption by the end of 2016, with larger effects in 2017 that continued over time. The data is not broken down into months, but this roughly tracks with the data on PACE adoption in California.

3. End solar panel tariffs.

Context: In February 2022, President Biden extended tariffs the previous administration placed on imported solar power equipment through at least 2026. These tariffs have increased solar panel costs by an average of $600 per installation. 

Action Item: President Biden should rescind these tariffs, making cheaper solar panels available to Americans and thus encouraging solar power adoption. 

Timeline: It is hard to predict how long it would take for cutting tariffs to influence consumer behavior. Presumably it would take several months to a couple of years to show effects, as PACE and net-metering did. Once a consumer is convinced by lower prices, the average duration of the home solar installation process is three months.

4. Ease solar installation licensing requirements.

Context: 45 states require licenses to install solar panels. Most require a general electrician license, but some have specialized licenses a solar installer must obtain. 17 of these states plus D.C. do not allow other states’ licensed professionals to practice within their borders. Licenses can cost hundreds of dollars and require thousands of hours of training, reducing the supply of contractors and raising costs for consumers.

Action Item: The Department of Energy should tie State Energy Program grants to requirements that recipients reduce fees for obtaining licenses and recognize licenses issued by other states. The Department should also provide model licensing legislation that upholds public safety without discouraging future contractors. 

Timeline: Most states require around four years of experience to earn an electrician license. Assuming they do not reduce these requirements, it would presumably take more than four years before the contractor supply is noticeably affected. The benefits from allowing professionals to work across state lines could be seen much sooner although the impact would presumably not be as large.

5. End anti-solar zoning laws.

Context: Non-hardware costs (those associated with zoning and permitting) make up two-thirds of residential solar costs. In far too many states and localities, it is too expensive and time-consuming to deal with convoluted processes to get permission for home solar panels. Some municipalities and HomeOwners Associations (HOAs) can further restrict or forbid rooftop solar panels. 

Action Item: States’ Departments of Energy should provide straightforward information to the public on solar zoning and permitting rules as well as guides to complying with them to reduce hassle for contractors. States should also pass Solar Access Laws that protect peoples’ right to collect the sunlight that falls on their property. 

Timeline: It would presumably take a few weeks or months to produce these guides and enact the necessary policy changes, plus another three months to install solar panels for early adopters. The impact would likely continue to grow over time as price reductions convince more consumers to switch to solar.

Ultimately, there is no single policy step that will enable the European Union to end its reliance on Russian energy. But together, these policies—to expand U.S. natural gas exports and accelerate the adoption of cleaner energy sources—can help cut off the most important source of funding (and power) for Vladimir Putin and the Russian government. 

The Department of Education has proposed changes to the federal Charter Schools Program (CSP) that many school reform advocates find alarming. The rules will make it harder for certain charter schools to receive federal funding, threatening to chill the charter movement. Specifically, officials want to require CSP beneficiaries to provide evidence of “unmet demand” for charters in their area, such as “over-enrollment at existing public schools” in order to receive funding. 

13 Republican senators signed a letter to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona criticizing this proposal, saying it would likely defund charter schools in big cities. They also note that the administration is not accepting charter school waitlists as evidence of demand, but rather focusing on the raw numbers of available schools. “Demand for charter schools is not just about the availability for any seat, but the demand for a high-quality seat,” they explain. 

Earlier this year, the New Center published a proposal for 10,000 new charter schools in America over the next ten years. In it, we address charter school demand as well as the particular advantages of charter schools in urban environments. These excerpts can be useful in the newest charter school conversation: 

——

About 3.5 million students attend charter schools (out of 48.1 million total public school students), with another million on waiting lists (although this number could be somewhat inflated because one student can be on multiple waiting lists, or enrolled in one charter but on a waiting list for another). The National Association for Public Charter Schools estimates that demand for charter schools is almost three times higher than the current supply. This means five million more students would attend charter schools if one were more available to them.

Charter school supply is not meeting demand. According to the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, the average number of charter school deserts per state is 10.8. They define a charter school desert as “three or more contiguous census tracts that have poverty rates greater than 20 percent but that have no charter schools.” (Census tracts are regions defined for the purpose of taking a census, and they often coincide with city or town boundaries.)

This is a problem because it means students are missing out on the benefits charter schools have proven to offer. There have been several different studies in recent years attempting to measure the gains that students can make in charter schools versus traditional public schools, and most show charters consistently performing better, particularly in urban areas.

——

The benefits of urban charter schools are concentrated among low-income and minority students. The proposed changes to CSP threaten to deny opportunity to children who would not have it otherwise. 

The full version of our 10,000 Charters policy paper can be found here.