Day 12: How your trust in R Street made an impact in 2023
By Eli Lehrer and Erica Schoder
Thank you everyone who followed us along for the 12 Days of Policy! We appreciate your continuous, all year round support. For our final day we are focusing on some impactful policy wins we had in 2023. While our holiday campaign is coming to a close, our policy work here at R Street never ends. Keep an eye out for some exciting policy work we have planned for 2024!
Our impact by the numbers:
Competition Policy
R Street continues to stand at the forefront of efforts to improve alcohol policies in America. We published the first comprehensive empirical research analyzing whether to-go and delivery alcohol during the COVID-19 pandemic correlated with alcohol consumption levels and underage drinking rates. (Spoiler alert: it didn’t) Our piece about the War on Restaurants in The Wall Street Journal discussed the progressive crackdown on gas stoves, tipped wages, and attempts to import European sectoral bargaining concepts into the food industry. We also traveled to a number of states to discuss concerns over contraception policies and scope-of-practice laws. As a result, we produced a policy study on what an over-the-counter market for birth control would look like, as well as an explainer on the similarities and differences of seeing a pharmacist for birth control versus a doctor. We also wrote in The Tennessean that clear birth control laws must be included as part of the state's “medical freedom” push.?
Criminal Justice and Civil Liberties
Working at both the federal and state levels, R Street’s criminal justice and civil liberties team established itself as a go-to resource for officials across the country. We engaged directly with Congress, executive branch officials, and state legislatures. For example, Colorado sought our assistance in rewriting their entire statewide police training curriculum. In addition, the Mayor of Tacoma, Washington, asked us to analyze their current crime statistics, speak with local stakeholders, and make policy recommendations to address juvenile crime for inclusion in their 2024 public safety plan. Our scholars also appeared in the news across the country, ranging from stories in Bloomberg Law, Chicago Sun-Times, CNN, Governing, and MSNBC, as well as on local TV and podcasts, among others.
Cybersecurity and Emerging Threats
R Street continues to be a leader in the pursuit of comprehensive federal data privacy policy, which we showcased through federal testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Innovation, Data, and Commerce and a number of events. We also launched the Cybersecurity Score Project, which highlights the cybersecurity implications of other legislative proposals. In addition, we were the first right-of-center organization to launch an Artificial Intelligence Working Group dedicated to the intersection of cybersecurity and AI.
Energy and Environment
Our energy work helped set the agenda for many on the right. Important permitting reforms passed in the Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA) of 2023 with our fingerprints on them. In particular, R Street’s research and subsequent Hill outreach shaped the Building United States Infrastructure through Limited Delays and Efficient Reviews Act of 2021, which was folded into Republicans’ Lower Energy Costs Act (H.R. 1) legislation that passed the House this spring. The team’s research updates and collaboration with progressive groups helped secure a bipartisan foundation for FRA negotiations. Our state work also bore fruit this year, including overwhelming Texas legislative victories to align market incentives to reduce gas flaring and unleash geothermal energy via better-defined property rights. We also helped prevent anti-competitive electric legislation through an analysis series on Texas SB 6, SB 7, and SB 2012.
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Finance, Insurance, and Trade
The team testified three times before the U.S. House and Senate, helping cement our credibility as an organization that can be trusted to explain the relationship between the insurance industry, economy, public policy, and outside factors like climate change. By using policy papers and hosting events on and off Capitol Hill, we established ourselves as a trusted voice on federal crop insurance reform—a nearly $8-billion-a-year program covered by taxpayers that is ripe for reform.?
Governance
R Street and the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University partnered to travel around the country and bring together more than 100 election officials, election administrators, business leaders, advocates, scholars, and others to help bolster American elections and develop a Conservative Agenda for Democracy. We held closed-door gatherings in multiple states, ultimately culminating in a public-facing event in Washington, D.C. where we released a set of Conservative Principles for Building Trust in Elections. (Those principles were echoed by five Republican Secretaries of State in National Review.)
Integrated Harm Reduction
Our Safer from Harm coalition grew its membership as we added the ACLU, End it for Good, the Center for Black Equity, and Faith in Harm Reduction, among others. We hosted a standing-room-only expert panel on Capitol Hill to discuss nicotine and tobacco control that received rave reviews from key stakeholders, staff, policymakers, and allies. We continued to expand the discussion of harm reduction to new, more mainstream audiences, appearing for the first time in STAT News (twice)—an outlet read mostly by those in healthcare, pharmaceuticals, and academia. Similarly, the Mercatus Center twice asked our scholars to write about substance use for Discourse Magazine.
Technology and Innovation
We established ourselves as a leading voice on AI policy. After making the case for “permissionless innovation” and providing a thoughtful, balanced perspective on questions around cybersecurity, our expertise was requested by legislative committees, congressional caucuses, and individual members of Congress seeking to understand and grapple with this important issue. We also led the national free-market movement in efforts to deeply and consistently educate lawmakers and staff on how to improve kids’ online safety while holding fast to first-amendment principles.?
We hope you enjoy a holiday season filled with cheer!
See you in 2024,
Eli and Erica