The Issue Spotter

(Source)   On Jan 11, 20024, the EPA proposed a new rule with a more stringent air pollution standard for large waste plants that burn municipal solid waste. The newly proposed standard by the EPA would apply to the 57 facilities across the nation that can burn more than 250 tons of waste per day. The new standards aims to reduce emissions of nine pollutants, including smog- and soot-forming sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides by around 14,000 tons per year which will in turn improve air quality for communities living near these facilities.   Why Should We Care About The “Burning” Issue? Although landfills have long dominated the scene of U.S. waste disposal landscape, waste to energy incineration (WTE) is a growing trend.   WTE plants are a form of waste incineration thatuses household garbage as fuel for power generation, similar other power stations using coal, oil, or natural gas. Combustible waste generates heat, which is used to boil water and produce steam. This steam then drives a turbine to generate electricity (for specifics see diagram above). However, waste incineration is a key source of toxic agent emissions. According to EPA’s estimation, incinerators in the United States emitted nearly 50,000 tons [read more]

(Source)   The current state of public education has been a hotly debated topic since the COVID shutdown in 2020. Reading and math scores have dropped in the United States, further widening the gap between high-income and low-income students. This change has added fuel to the school choice movement. During her tenure in the Trump administration, former Secretary of Education Betsy Devos unsuccessfully pushed for passage of “school choice” bills, but that hasn’t stopped changes from occurring at the state level. Several states are passing Education Savings Account bills that provide funds for parents to send their children to private schools.   (Source) What are education savings accounts? K-12 education savings accounts (ESAs) are funds provided by the government to pay for educational expenses. The public funds are deposited into private savings accounts that parents can use on private school tuition, tutoring, or school supplies (approved uses vary from state to state). 15 states currently have ESA programs; 7 states have universal or almost-universally available programs, and 8 states restrict the programs to families of students with special needs or low-income families. The table below contains an overview of states that enacted or modified ESA programs in 2023 and approximate [read more]

(Source)   In the United States, there is generally a broad freedom to contract. By default, the courts will hold two parties that have entered into a contract accountable for the conditions of the contract and will enforce the terms of the deal above the objections of either party. However, there are some exceptions to this principle. As a matter of public policy, the courts have decided that there are some groups of people who cannot be bound to a contract, such as the intoxicated or the mentally unfit. When these groups enter into a contract, the courts will often allow them to escape the terms by relying on the assumption that these groups of people are not fully competent to make decisions for themselves. The most common group of people that cannot be bound by contracts are minors, as it is assumed that a minor is not fully competent to make decisions that they will be later bound by. Because of this, most states have laws where a minor can choose to “disaffirm” (declare that they will not be bound by) a contract. As an illustrative example of disaffirmation, let us assume that a car dealership decided to enter [read more]

(Source)   In the United States, over 100,000 people are currently in need of a lifesaving organ transplant. Unfortunately, 17 people die every day in the United States waiting for an organ. The United States currently has a patchwork of laws on organ donation, though there is a model legislation called the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act that has been adopted by many states. Under this model, the “opt-in” system is used, wherein individuals can choose during their lives to become organ donors after death, or the next-of-kin of deceased individuals may choose to have the deceased individuals’ organs donated. While about 54% of the population are registered organ donors, only a small percentage of people who die will die under circumstances that allow for organ donation, approximately just 3 in every 1,000 deaths. In 2021, for example, only about 14,000 deceased individuals donated organs. Under the “Spanish Model” of organ donation, organs may be harvested from deceased individuals unless they affirmatively indicated during their lives that they did not wish to be organ donors after passing away. Even though in practice organs in Spain are usually not donated without family permission, studies show Spaniards’ confidence in the organ donation system [read more]

(Source)   Macaulay Culkin, Drew Barrymore, the Olsen twins – these are just a few of the myriad of child actors who have starred in iconic films and shows. The most successful actors have gained international fame and millions of dollars through television shows, movie deals, and advertising contracts. Their legal rights are well-established and upheld, but this wasn’t always the case – child actors in the early 1900s paved the way for actors now. Jackie Coogan, regarded as one of the first child actors, starred in some of the highest-grossing films of the 1920s but didn’t see a dime of his earnings by the time he was 20 years old. After Coogan sued his parents for spending nearly all of his money, California and other states passed the Coogan Law. These state laws require that employers deposit 15% of a minor’s wages into a blocked trust account. Federal law offers little protection for child actors because they are exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act. Today, social media poses a new threat to children that has yet to be fully addressed by the law. There are a myriad of “family influencers” on TikTok, posting daily videos of their children [read more]

(Source)   Patent exclusivity provides lucrative market incentives for companies in the biopharma space to innovate. Companies that receive a patent for their drug from the U.S. Patent and Trade Office (USPTO) have a limited monopoly for 20 years from the date of filing the patent. The economic incentives are so lucrative that Amgen built a patent portfolio that resulted in a thirty-seven-year patent term through patent thickets (multiple patents that cover a single drug) for its most profitable drug, Enbrel. Beyond the standard twenty-year patent exclusivity for each patent relating to the drug, companies may receive a patent extension of 6 months through pediatric exclusivity granted by the FDA. Pediatric exclusivity under the Best Pharmaceuticals for Children Act (BPCA) uses strong market incentives to encourage pharmaceutical companies to provide rigorous clinical data to improve drug label instructions for the pediatric population. Currently, many drugs are used off-label in pediatric patients due to the lack of pediatric data available in medicine. Currently, roughly 50% of medication labels lack guidance for medical providers on a drug’s use in children. Pediatric data is sparse because drugs must go through multiple trial stages in testing drugs and pediatric trials may occur only after [read more]

(Source)   President Biden’s Executive Order 14110 President Biden signed an executive order on October 30, 2023 about the safe development of AI. However, this is not the first AI-related guidance this administration has published. They previously issued a Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights and an AI Risk Management Framework. But both the blueprint and framework suffer from the same fatal flaw: they were voluntary recommendations to follow, and thus unenforceable. The question is then, is this executive order any better? The executive order begins by promising that the federal government will take many actions to protect against AI. One of the first promises is that the federal government will create a labeling mechanism so people know when content is generated. While that seems nice in theory, there is no practical way for the government to fulfill this promise. Many AI-generated content detectors already exist, such as GPTZero, Undetectable AI, and Sapling, however none of them are 100% accurate. I even tested this by putting this article in multiple detectors, and half of them detected AI content. A recent study by the University of Maryland also mathematically proved that as AI improves, it will become impossible to differentiate [read more]

(Source)   College athletics are often seen as an asset to both universities and students. For universities, athletics programs generate revenue and influence student enrollment. For student-athletes, participating in athletics can provide financial assistance through scholarships and may be a pathway towards continuing to professional sports. Additionally, even if students-athletes don’t aspire to continue on to the next level, they still often develop lifelong bonds with their teammates. However, in many instances, the college athletics experience can turn toxic, especially the relationship between coaches and players. There have been increasingly more reports of coaching abuse across both men’s and women’s sports. Coaching abuse takes many forms: physical, verbal, and/or sexual and has long lasting implications on the physical and mental health of athletes. To deal with this issue players can report the behavior to the school and/or litigate their complaints.  However, this process is often stymied by power imbalances between students and universities who prioritize winning records.  To combat this problem, there should be increased oversight from the NCAA,  players should push for employee status at their universities, and states should make legislative changes to protect student-athletes’ rights.   A Tale of Abuse At Colgate University, 20 players left the [read more]