policy

Cooling towers at a Georgia coal-fired power plant.

In the Southeast, where big utilities rule, calls for a real power market persist

BY: - May 8, 2023

A report prepared for the South Carolina legislature and released April 28 determined that a range of electric market and transmission reforms — including creating a new independent organization to run the electric grid or joining an existing one — would bring  “substantial benefits” for customers, potentially as much as $362 million a year.  The […]

Rural hospitals gird for unwinding of pandemic Medicaid coverage

BY: - February 20, 2023

Donald Lloyd, CEO and president of St. Claire HealthCare in Morehead, Kentucky, has spent more than a year dealing with higher costs for food and medical supplies for his regional hospital. Now he’s trying to prepare for another financial hit — the loss of Medicaid reimbursements for treating people in rural Appalachia. “We are all […]

A nurse gives a woman a booster shot to protect against COVID-19.

FDA experts are still puzzled over who should get which covid shots and when

BY: - January 27, 2023

At a meeting to simplify the nation’s covid vaccination policy, the FDA’s panel of experts could agree on only one thing: Information is woefully lacking about how often different groups of Americans need to be vaccinated. That data gap has contributed to widespread skepticism, undervaccination, and ultimately unnecessary deaths from covid-19. The committee voted unanimously […]

A federal judge in Washington, D.C., blocked the Biden administration Tuesday from using Title 42, a controversial rule to send asylum seekers back to Mexico to await a decision on their status. Here an asylum (right) waits outside the San Ysidro Port of Entry in March 2022 in Tijuana, Mexico. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

U.S. district court strikes down use of Title 42 to expel migrants

BY: - November 15, 2022

WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Tuesday blocked the government from continuing Title 42,  a controversial pandemic-era health policy used by both the Trump and Biden administrations to expel nearly 2 million migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border. The request to halt the use of Title 42 had been filed by immigrant advocacy groups and the […]

Black farmer with digital tablet in crop field

Climate funding in the farm bill a target if GOP controls Congress

BY: - November 7, 2022

WASHINGTON — Republicans who may be taking control of Congress in next week’s midterm elections have not been very specific about many policy goals—but the farm bill is an exception. Members of the GOP in the U.S. House and Senate are sending strong signals they want to strip climate funding from the legislation in 2023 […]