Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology
CSPI Podcast
Policy Reform for Progress | Andrew Kenneson, Maxwell Tabarrok, Brent Skorup & Richard Hanania
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Policy Reform for Progress | Andrew Kenneson, Maxwell Tabarrok, Brent Skorup & Richard Hanania

Winners of the CSPI Essay Contest on how to unlock geothermal energy, reform science funding, and auction drone airspace

On this week’s CSPI Podcast, Richard interviews the top three winners of the CSPI Essay Contest: Policy Reform For Progress.

The first interview is with contest winner Andrew Kenneson, a program navigator at a public housing authority in Kodiak, Alaska and former reporter. In “Gathering Steam: Unlocking Geothermal Potential in the United States,” Andrew explains why exempting geothermal exploration on federally owned lands from NEPA requirements could set off a cascade of energy innovation.

The second interview (starting at 29:12) is with Maxwell Tabarrok, an Econ and Math student at the University of Virginia whose essay on science funding reform “Mo’ Money Mo’ Problems” won second prize. Maxwell proposes a system of research guided funding in which the ~$120 billion spent by the federal government on science each year is distributed equally to the ~250,000 full-time STEM faculty at high research activity universities.

The third interview (starting at 57:03) is with Brent Skorup, a senior research fellow at George Mason University's Mercatus Center and a visiting faculty fellow at the Nebraska Governance and Technology Center at the Nebraska College of Law. Brent’s 3rd place essay, “Drone Airspace: A New Global Asset Class,” outlines how public auctions for drone airspace would be an improvement on the FAA’s current plan to ration airspace to a few lucky companies.

Listen in podcast form or watch on YouTube.

Winning Essays:

Honorable Mentions:

Discussion about this podcast