Research Reports: 2006

Dr. Thomas Wigley from the U.S. National Center for Scientific Research has calculated that if the Kyoto Protocol were implemented with 100% compliance it would reduce the increase in global temperatures by between 0.18º F and 0.37º F in 100 years. This amount would be undetectable by standard measuring devices. It is unreasonable therefore to expect that North Carolina, acting along or in consort with other states, could do anything to mitigate future global warming.

In November, the State Board of Education released the final report of the High Priority Schools Initiative, a four-year, $23 million class-size reduction program targeting low-performing and low-income elementary schools. The report offered no statistical evidence that smaller class sizes raised student achievement. Between the first and final year of the program, fewer schools met their state ABC growth targets and even fewer made Adequate Yearly Progress under the federal No Child Left Behind law. Reduced class sizes failed to significantly increase student performance on state reading assessments. In the future, legislators and policymakers should not fund class-size initiatives because of their expediency or popularity but because they produce measurable gains in student achievement.

North Carolina needs a constitutional amendment to protect property rights that will contain very specific language. This approach will ensure that courts are unable to undermine the rights that the amendment is designed to protect. The amendment should define key terms such as “public use” and expressly prohibit all takings for private use, including those for economic development purposes.

State leaders claim that capping the gas tax at 27.1 cents per gallon would cost the state up to $135 million a year in road construction. They are wrong. The state will be just $5.3 million behind projections planned for in this year’s budget if it freezes the gas tax. Furthermore, nearly $400 million in gas tax revenues goes toward spending that has nothing to do with road construction. The General Fund, public transportation, railroads, and airlines all receive gas-tax revenues. There is no need to take money from road construction so long as gas-tax revenues are diverted to unrelated programs.