There are new twists to in the ever-entertaining faux debate over the dangers of shale gas. The New York Times, which turned obscure Cornell University marine ecologist Robert Howarth into an anti-fracking rock star in its questionable spring series on shale gas, and got hammered for it by its own public editor—I‘ll take some of the credit—is finally getting on the science bandwagon.

Richard Burkhauser of Cornell and Mary Daly of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, coauthors of The Declining Work and Welfare of People with Disabilities (AEI Press, September 2011), offer a "work first" approach that has the potential to shrink caseloads, curb costs, and improve the economic outlook for people with disabilities.

At this event, AEI visiting scholar R. Richard Geddes, who urged for postal reform in his 2003 AEI Press book "Saving the Mail," will present an updated policy paper that assesses the USPS’s current situation and argues for long-term, concrete reform.

This bookoffers a rational choice theory of democratic consolidation in a survey of the breakdowns of and transitions to democratic institutions.

In mid-September 2011, as part of AEI’s Program on American Citizenship, we celebrated Constitution Day. In conjunction with that remembrance, we thought it appropriate to honor our longtime colleague and friend Walter Berns with a panel dedicated to discussing his scholarship on the Constitution and the American regime it supports.

Twenty-five top college students will travel to the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) in Washington, D.C. this June to participate in the 2012 American Enterprise Summer Institute. 

Howarth doesn’t have to convince anyone he’s right to devastate New York’s budding shale industry and put tens of thousands of jobs into question. He wins if he muddies the waters enough to give cautious Albany bureaucrats reason to stall.

R. Richard Geddes is available for comment on "The Road to Renewal: Private Investment in US Transportation Infrastructure".