Full-time

R Street’s major accomplishments to date include spearheading the SmarterSafer.org coalition, whose proposals were incorporated into the 2012 Biggert-Waters flood insurance reform bill signed by President Obama; launching the Legislative Branch Capacity Working Group, which seeks to assess Congress’ capacity to perform its constitutional duties and to collaborate on bipartisan ideas to improve the legislative branch’s performance in our separation of powers system; promoting the use of the Congressional Review Act which, after years of dormancy, began to be used aggressively during 2017; building a conservative movement-wide coalition to oppose misguided Internet sales tax legislation; developing a proposal to forbid subsidized development in environmentally sensitive coastal areas that was incorporated into Florida law; leading the charge to make crop insurance subsidies more accountable, a proposal that was included in the 2014 farm bill; and publishing research that led to the proliferation of dozens of state-level laws that offer commonsense minimum standards for liability insurance in the ridesharing market.

Some ongoing R Street projects include bringing free-market principles to state alcohol rules; participating in broad conversations on regulatory, budget and tax reform; promoting the potential for competitive wholesale electricity markets as a mechanism to phase out subsidies, better serve energy consumers and more accurately reflect all of the costs and benefits of generation; a public-education campaign on how harm-reduction strategies can be incorporated into messaging on such press public health topics as smoking, sexually transmitted diseases and drug addiction; a criminal justice project that has examined reforms to the juvenile justice system, pretrial detention policies and better ways to reintegrate ex-offenders into society; a project to promote a balanced approach to intellectual property; and coalitions to promote more open and transparent congressional data and to ensure law enforcement and intelligence agencies do not trample digital privacy. R Street also is an active member of a number of other standing coalitions (see the list here).