Ben Lieberman of the Competitive Enterprise Institute writes about federal regulations that are about to make furnaces more expensive:

The Department of Energy (DOE) has proposed stringent new energy-efficiency standards for these furnaces — so stringent that conventional non-condensing furnaces would effectively be outlawed in favor of condensing versions. The big difference between the two is that a condensing furnace has a second heat exchanger that takes some of the heat that otherwise would have gone out with the exhaust and utilizes it, making for a more efficient system. Sounds great — except that doing so can make it harder to vent the exhaust. Depending on a home’s configuration, the switch to a condensing furnace may entail thousands of dollars in additional installation costs on top of a purchase price that is hundreds of dollars higher than a comparable non-condensing model. Older and space-constrained homes would be the hardest hit, thus the proposed rule may disproportionately burden low-income homeowners.
For some homes, the switch to a condensing furnace may be impractical or even impossible at any cost. Note that there’s little room for error, as any failure to properly vent the exhaust raises health and safety issues.

Matt Weidinger of the American Enterprise Institute writes about what could be the next loan-forgiveness effort by Democrats:

One of the many criticisms of the Biden administration’s proposal to waive college debt is that it creates the moral hazard of encouraging increased student borrowing in anticipation of future debt relief. But such moral risk isn’t exclusive to students. Some of the nation’s largest — and bluest — states now appear to be holding out for similar relief from tens of billions of dollars in federal unemployment loans that they accepted during the pandemic. If granted, this would only encourage greater state dependence on federal loans — and ultimately on federal taxpayers.