Institute Index

February 4, 2014 - A stormwater pipe at a shuttered Duke Energy coal plant in North Carolina has sent thousands of tons of coal ash into the Dan River, which provides drinking water for downstream communities. Five years after another coal ash disaster in Tennessee led to promises for federal regulations, when will we finally see them enacted?

January 31, 2014 - The push is on to open up the Atlantic -- coastal Virginia and the Carolinas in particular -- to offshore oil and gas drilling. The first step involves seismic air gun testing to measure potential reserves, but it's meeting grassroots resistance.

January 24, 2014 - A January 2010 Supreme Court decision further opened the floodgates to money in politics -- and inspired a growing grassroots push for reform.

January 17, 2014 - A new report by United for a Fair Economy examines the racial economic implications of one of the most important human rights issues and public policy debates of the day: health care.

January 8, 2014 - Fifty years after President Lyndon Johnson declared the War on Poverty, the United States finds itself in the midst of an ongoing poverty crisis, with its epicenter in the South. Americans say they would like to see the fight stepped up again.

January 3, 2014 - A by-the-numbers look at the political battle underway in North Carolina, where a a right-wing legislature and administration backed by monied special interests is being challenged by a grassroots protest movement that's now spreading to other states.

December 20, 2013 - A new report from the NAACP makes the case for why energy policy is a racial and economic justice issue and the many benefits of moving to clean energy.