Foundations
Here's a look at documents from U.S. foundations
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Foundation for Economic Education Issues Commentary: How Much Wood?
DETROIT, Michigan, Sept. 13 -- The Foundation for Economic Education issued the following commentary on Sept. 12, 2025:
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How Much Wood?
Lumber and the American economy.
By Katrina Gulliver
The lumber market in recent years has been a roller-coaster. For those operating logging businesses, or lumber yards and mills, or contractors and homeowners looking to replace a few planks on the deck, not knowing which way the market will shift has been stressful.
According to a report in the Wall Street Journal:
* Wood markets have been whipsawed of late by trade uncertainty and a deteriorating
... Show Full Article
DETROIT, Michigan, Sept. 13 -- The Foundation for Economic Education issued the following commentary on Sept. 12, 2025:
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How Much Wood?
Lumber and the American economy.
By Katrina Gulliver
The lumber market in recent years has been a roller-coaster. For those operating logging businesses, or lumber yards and mills, or contractors and homeowners looking to replace a few planks on the deck, not knowing which way the market will shift has been stressful.
According to a report in the Wall Street Journal:
* Wood markets have been whipsawed of late by trade uncertainty and a deterioratinghousing market. Futures have dropped roughly 25% since hitting a three-year high at the beginning of August and are trading Monday at about $522 per thousand board feet.
* The price drop might have been greater--but two of North America's biggest sawyers said last week that they would curtail output, slowing the decline.
* Crashing wood prices are troubling because they have been a reliable leading indicator on the direction of the housing market as well as broader economic activity.
Quite why they are such an indicator is a reflection of the US construction industry.
Historically, in most of the US, wood has been a local and affordable material for building houses. From the first European settlers, the hardwood forests that covered much of the continent were a bounty of material for houses, ships, furniture, and anything else--as well as a key export commodity.
But its continuing ubiquity as a building material makes lumber prices a good bellwether for the construction economy. Housing in America is overwhelmingly wood-framed. An estimated 90%+ of new residential construction in the US is wood-framed, compared to Europe where houses tend to be brick-built, but with many regional variations (Norway, with ample trees, favors wood for housing).
In other parts of Europe, prefabricated homes are also a much larger share of the market, from an estimated 25% in Germany to a whopping 80% in Sweden (although it is perhaps not surprising in the home of IKEA).
Yet according to the National Association of Home-builders, factory-built homes were just 3% of the US market in 2023. This is a tiny base, but it is growing. The fad for "tiny houses" and alternative and sustainable options have led more would-be homeowners to consider modular options.
A hundred years ago, kit homes were more common in the US. Sold by Sears, Montgomery Ward, and other local firms, buyers received the plans and the pieces for a house and put it together themselves. Economies of scale made these a viable option for someone looking to build a house in the expanding suburbs.
The 1914 Sears Modern Homes catalog shows three homes that could each be bought for $656 (in the small print, they admit your outlay would be more like $1,250 all-in, including brick, cement, plaster--which they don't supply--and labor). Your kit house would be delivered by rail; it was generally assumed householders would be handy enough (or know whom to hire) to put it all together from the supplied plans.
According to a 1930 report by the National Bureau of Economic Research, National Income and Its Purchasing Power, in 1914, the average clerk could be making $1,000, and a factory manager earning $2,300. That means these houses were within reach of lots of people--especially bearing in mind that land costs in many cities were also relatively low. In Chicago, lots within 5 miles of downtown were available for less than 50cents/square foot in 1914.
Those kit homes included wood, metal, and glass, and reflected both the tastes of consumers and the economies of bulk production. The various styles in the catalog over the years included craftsman, Dutch colonial, Federal, and cottage--styles that have continued to be popular in residential architecture of the US.
The Sears catalog of 1936 states: "This is the age of modern efficiency. No longer can human hands compete with machine precision and production. 'Speed with accuracy' is the watchword in any department of our great factories."
(For those curious about such houses, fans of Sears kit homes put together lists of examples still standing.)
Today's prefab homes include different products--in European kit homes around half the materials used being concrete, glass, metal and synthetics--with the same economies of mass production. But wood-and-stick-framed homes continue to dominate the US market.
If the housing market softens, which it looks to be doing, demand for wood will slow and prices drop. Per the WSJ, "Residential building permits dropped in July to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of about 1.4 million units, the fewest since June 2020."
That doesn't bode well for timber sellers, but prospective builders could be looking at alternative materials, too.
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Katrina Gulliver
Katrina Gulliver is Editorial Director at FEE. She holds a PhD from Cambridge University, and has held faculty positions at universities in Germany, Britain and Australia. She has written for Wall St Journal, Reason, The American Conservative, National Review and the New Criterion, among others.
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Original text here: https://fee.org/articles/how-much-wood/
WLF Urges Supreme Court to Block State Climate-Change Tort Suits
WASHINGTON, Sept. 12 -- The Washington Legal Foundation issued the following news release on Sept. 11, 2025:
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WLF Urges Supreme Court to Block State Climate-Change Tort Suits
"Allowing state courts to regulate global climate change through tort suits threatens national economic stability and federal authority."
--Cory L. Andrews, WLF General Counsel & Vice President of Litigation
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Washington Legal Foundation (WLF) today urged the U.S. Supreme Court to review a decision of the Colorado Supreme Court in a climate-change suit by Boulder County against major energy companies. WLF contends
... Show Full Article
WASHINGTON, Sept. 12 -- The Washington Legal Foundation issued the following news release on Sept. 11, 2025:
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WLF Urges Supreme Court to Block State Climate-Change Tort Suits
"Allowing state courts to regulate global climate change through tort suits threatens national economic stability and federal authority."
--Cory L. Andrews, WLF General Counsel & Vice President of Litigation
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Washington Legal Foundation (WLF) today urged the U.S. Supreme Court to review a decision of the Colorado Supreme Court in a climate-change suit by Boulder County against major energy companies. WLF contendsthat the suit, pursued under state law, usurps federal authority and risks economic chaos by assigning liability for a global phenomenon. WLF joined the Atlantic Legal Foundation and the Federation of Defense & Corporate Counsel on the amicus brief.
The case stems from a 2018 lawsuit by Boulder County against Exxon Mobil and Suncor Energy, alleging that their fossil fuel activities exacerbated climate change and caused local harm under state tort laws. Despite the suit's global implications, the Colorado Supreme Court, in a 5-2 decision, rejected the companies' federal preemption defense and allowed the case to proceed in state court.
The amicus brief argues that climate-change tort claims implicate uniquely federal interests, requiring a uniform federal rule of decision rather than a patchwork of state rulings. The proliferation of such suits could impose crippling liabilities on the energy sector, disrupt interstate federalism, and undermine national economic and security interests, necessitating Supreme Court intervention to halt this disastrous trend.
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Click here (https://www.wlf.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Suncor_25-170-Amicus-Brief.pdf) for WLF's brief.
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Original text here: https://www.wlf.org/2025/09/11/communicating/wlf-urges-supreme-court-to-block-state-climate-change-tort-suits/
[Category: Law/Legal]
NY Starbucks Barista Asks Federal Labor Board to Restore Employees' Right to Vote Out SBWU Union Officials
SPRINGFIELD, Virginia, Sept. 12 -- The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation posted the following news release:
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NY Starbucks Barista Asks Federal Labor Board to Restore Employees' Right to Vote Out SBWU Union Officials
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SBWU union bosses prevented worker-requested union removal vote by filing unverified charges, never demonstrated link to worker effort
Niskayuna, NY (September 12, 2025) - Starbucks barista Nadia Kuban is asking the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in Washington, DC, to overturn federal policies that are preventing her colleagues from having a vote to
... Show Full Article
SPRINGFIELD, Virginia, Sept. 12 -- The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation posted the following news release:
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NY Starbucks Barista Asks Federal Labor Board to Restore Employees' Right to Vote Out SBWU Union Officials
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SBWU union bosses prevented worker-requested union removal vote by filing unverified charges, never demonstrated link to worker effort
Niskayuna, NY (September 12, 2025) - Starbucks barista Nadia Kuban is asking the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in Washington, DC, to overturn federal policies that are preventing her colleagues from having a vote toremove unwanted Starbucks Workers United (SBWU) union officials from their workplace. Kuban is receiving free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.
The NLRB is the federal agency responsible for enforcing federal labor law, a task that includes administering elections to install (or "certify") and remove (or "decertify") unions. Kuban's effort to remove SBWU from the Niskayuna Starbucks began in February, when she submitted a petition backed by her colleagues asking the NLRB to hold a decertification vote at their store. Despite Kuban's petition containing enough employee signatures to trigger a vote under NLRB rules, regional NLRB officials dismissed her petition and denied her colleagues their right to vote on the union's continued control.
Kuban's latest NLRB filing challenges the dismissal of her decertification petition. Regional NLRB officials issued the dismissal due to alleged unfair labor practice charges that SBWU bosses filed against the Starbucks Corporation at the national level. Her Request for Review argues that the NLRB violated employees' due process rights by tossing her petition without a hearing into whether the allegations had anything to do with workers' desire to oust the union at her location. It also contends that the NLRB's Rieth-Riley precedent - which lets union bosses manipulate such allegations (also known as "blocking charges") to derail worker-requested decertification votes entirely - is inconsistent with federal law.
Starbucks Employee Challenges NLRB Policy That Lets Union Bosses Block Votes
The NLRB's Rieth-Riley decision in 2022 permits the agency to make so-called "merit-determination" dismissals of decertification petitions. Such dismissals let NLRB officials stop union decertification elections entirely - and invalidate already-cast ballots - based on union boss-filed "blocking charges" that haven't even been litigated yet. Kuban's brief explains that the ruling is at odds with federal labor law, which mandates that the NLRB conduct an election if employees submit a valid decertification petition.
"This is inconsistent with the plain language of [National Labor Relations Act] Section 9(c), which states what the NLRB 'shall' do, a nondiscretionary term," the brief says. "The Board...should overturn Rieth-Riley's merit-determination [ruling]...."
The Request for Review also explains that even under existing NLRB cases - including Rieth-Riley - the dismissal of Kuban's decertification petition is not justified. NLRB case law doesn't allow the dismissal of employees' decertification petitions unless there is an outright refusal by an employer to negotiate with union officials, the brief says, which is not the case in Kuban's situation. Furthermore, the NLRB's Saint Gobain decision, won by Foundation staff attorneys, holds that "an evidentiary hearing is required when a union alleges that an employer's unfair labor practice caused disaffection with the union." Kuban never got such a hearing in her case, meaning she "has been significantly disadvantaged in defending her petition, to the point of being denied due process of law," the brief says.
Trump NLRB Can Use Case to Defend Workers' Freedom
Earlier this year, Rayalan Kent, a Foundation-backed asphalt worker in Michigan whose union decertification effort was stifled in the Rieth-Riley case, submitted a brief to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. This brief defended his employer (Rieth-Riley Construction Company) in a case over its refusal to negotiate with International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE) officials. IUOE bosses had dredged up years-old unfair labor practice charges to cancel the counting of Kent and his coworkers' already-cast election ballots in 2022. Kent is now urging the Sixth Circuit to use the current case against his employer to undo the disastrous "merit-determination" doctrine, and order the NLRB to finally count his colleagues' ballots.
"The NLRB's so-called 'merit-determination' dismissal policy serves no purpose other than letting union officials block workers' right to make a free decision on whether they want union monopoly 'representation' in their workplace," commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. "Ms. Kuban speaks for countless independent-minded workers across the country in seeking to eliminate this unfair policy. Upon confirmation, President Trump's new appointees to the NLRB should prioritize cases like hers, and defend workers' freedoms from union bosses' attempts to gain more control over their working lives and pocketbooks."
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The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation is a nonprofit, charitable organization providing free legal aid to employees whose human or civil rights have been violated by compulsory unionism abuses. The Foundation, which can be contacted toll-free at 1-800-336-3600, assists thousands of employees in about 200 cases nationwide per year.
Posted on Sep 12, 2025 in News Releases
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Original text here: https://www.nrtw.org/news/kuban-rfr-starbucks-09122025/
House Committee Bill Could Derail Work to Restore Bay Oyster Reefs and Habitat
ANNAPOLIS, Maryland, Sept. 12 -- The Chesapeake Bay Foundation posted the following news release on Sept. 11, 2025:
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House Committee Bill Could Derail Work to Restore Bay Oyster Reefs and Habitat
Funding for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) work to restore the Bay and its waterways, fisheries, and wildlife would take a serious hit in the fiscal year 2026 funding bill the House Appropriations Committee adopted yesterday by a vote of 34-28.
Troubling provisions (https://docs.house.gov/meetings/AP/AP00/20250910/118544/BILLS-119-FC-AP-FY2026-AP00-FY26CJSFullCommitteeMark.pdf)
... Show Full Article
ANNAPOLIS, Maryland, Sept. 12 -- The Chesapeake Bay Foundation posted the following news release on Sept. 11, 2025:
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House Committee Bill Could Derail Work to Restore Bay Oyster Reefs and Habitat
Funding for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) work to restore the Bay and its waterways, fisheries, and wildlife would take a serious hit in the fiscal year 2026 funding bill the House Appropriations Committee adopted yesterday by a vote of 34-28.
Troubling provisions (https://docs.house.gov/meetings/AP/AP00/20250910/118544/BILLS-119-FC-AP-FY2026-AP00-FY26CJSFullCommitteeMark.pdf)in the bill also would open restored oyster sanctuaries to commercial fishing and cut off restoration funds for sanctuaries where oyster numbers have been struggling to rebound.
The first provision would only allow oyster restoration funds to be used "if oysters planted using such funds are made eligible for managed commercial harvest by licensed watermen after a period of three years from the date of planting."
The second would prevent funds to be spent "at any site that has been designated as under-performing for five or more years following initial federal investment, unless the Secretary of Commerce certifies in writing that the site has a new, independently conducted and peer-reviewed restoration plan that demonstrates a high likelihood of meeting significant ecological or economic outcomes within 2 years of enactment of this legislation."
The bill sets fiscal 2026 funding levels for the Department of Commerce and several federal science agencies. NOAA is part of the Commerce Department.
The House Appropriations Committee bill would allocate $15 million for NOAA's oyster restoration nationwide. It does not specify how much would fund work in the Bay region. In contrast, the Senate Appropriations Committee's version (https://www.cbf.org/news-media/newsroom/2025/federal/senate-committee-shields-noaa-bay-restoration-work-from-white-house-budget-cuts.html) would increase funding to restore oysters in the Bay to $4.5 million next year from the current level of $3 million.
The House committee's bill also calls for slashing spending on NOAA Fisheries' habitat conservation and restoration work nationwide to $35 million in fiscal 2026, cutting $21.2 million from the current level of $56.2 million. The majority of the NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office's work is funded by the NOAA Fisheries habitat restoration and conservation budget.
The Chesapeake Bay Office leads conservation and restoration work and conducts research that helps protect native species like oysters, blue crabs, and striped bass; improves climate resilience in the region; and funds hands-on environmental education of the next generation of Bay stewards.
The Senate Appropriations Committee bill, approved in July, would bump funding for NOAA Fisheries habitat conservation and restoration funding up $1.5 million to $57.7 million next year. That's $22.7 million, or nearly 40 percent, more than what the House Appropriations Committee would provide.
The Trump administration fiscal 2026 budget (https://www.commerce.gov/sites/default/files/2025-06/NOAA-FY2026-Congressional-Budget-Submission.pdf) would eliminate the NOAA Fisheries habitat conservation and restoration budget altogether.
NOAA also funds the Bay Watershed Education and Training (B-WET) environmental education grant program. B-WET operates in seven regions of the country, including the Chesapeake Bay. Chesapeake B-WET grants (https://www.cbf.org/blogs/save-the-bay/2025/05/theres-no-place-like-home-for-environmental-learning.html) provide financial support for elementary and secondary school students in the Bay region to study environmental issues facing their communities and how they affect the Bay and its local rivers and streams.
Like its Senate counterpart, the House Appropriations Committee would hold funding for all regional B-WET grant programs, including Chesapeake B-WET, constant at $8.7 million in fiscal 2026. The committee also joined its Senate counterpart in rejecting the White House proposal to zero out funding for all NOAA education programs, including Chesapeake B-WET.
Chesapeake Bay Foundation Senior Policy Director Keisha Sedlacek issued the following statement:
"This bill could be a disaster for the Chesapeake Bay and its world renown fisheries.
"The massive cut to NOAA's habitat research and restoration work could devastate efforts to protect economically important species like oysters, blue crabs, and striped bass. Provisions to open restored oyster sanctuaries to commercial fishing and choke off funding for those struggling to recover would undermine one of the cleanup's greatest successes so far--the large-scale restoration of oyster reefs in 10 Bay tributaries.
"At least the bill rejects the Trump administration's senseless proposal to end funding environmental education. But that's not enough to salvage it.
"We urge House members to reject this bill and call on congressional leaders to adopt the Senate Appropriations Committee's more responsible funding numbers in the final NOAA budget instead."
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Original text here: https://www.cbf.org/news-media/newsroom/2025/federal/house-committee-bill-could-derail-work-to-restore-bay-oyster-reefs-and-habitat.html
Foundation for Economic Education Issues Commentary: Tribute to Charlie Kirk, 1993-2025
DETROIT, Michigan, Sept. 12 -- The Foundation for Economic Education posted the following commentary on Sept. 11, 2025:
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A Tribute to Charlie Kirk (1993-2025)
Freedom of speech is all.
By Allen Mendenhall
Charlie Kirk is dead.
That is not a sentence I ever imagined writing, certainly not in 2025. He leaves behind a devoted wife as well as two young children, who will grow up in a world without their father.
Charlie Kirk was the founder of Turning Point USA, a conservative student activist group, and host of The Charlie Kirk Show, a nationally-syndicated daily radio show. The focus of
... Show Full Article
DETROIT, Michigan, Sept. 12 -- The Foundation for Economic Education posted the following commentary on Sept. 11, 2025:
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A Tribute to Charlie Kirk (1993-2025)
Freedom of speech is all.
By Allen Mendenhall
Charlie Kirk is dead.
That is not a sentence I ever imagined writing, certainly not in 2025. He leaves behind a devoted wife as well as two young children, who will grow up in a world without their father.
Charlie Kirk was the founder of Turning Point USA, a conservative student activist group, and host of The Charlie Kirk Show, a nationally-syndicated daily radio show. The focus ofTurning Point was empowering young people to speak out for free markets and limited government. Much of Charlie's work involved speaking and debating on college campuses. He was willing to debate anyone, to hold out his views and be challenged. It was during such an event on the campus of Utah Valley University that he was shot and killed Wednesday afternoon, at the age of 31.
I wish I could say I knew Charlie, but I didn't. Neither did most of the people celebrating his death on the Internet. Some are calling it justice; others, karma.
The cheering was the worst part--not simply that it happened, but the ease of it, the unthinking certainty that justice had been served, that a man's death was the proper price for defending his convictions.
Though I cannot mourn Charlie as a close friend, I can mourn what his death represents: the collapse of the great American experiment in self-government, the return to that Hobbesian state of nature where might makes right and the strong devour the weak.
My son, age 13, knew Charlie better than I did, if it can be called knowing to watch a man through a screen. Thirteen is an age suspended between innocence and experience: old enough to see that ideas have consequences, young enough to hope those consequences need not include death.
He would watch Charlie debate, and what he learned was not any particular doctrine but something more fundamental: that it is possible to believe strongly enough to defend those beliefs in public, to submit one's convictions to the test of argument and counterargument.
When he got out of school yesterday, I had to tell him that the man whose clarity of thought he admired had been murdered for, it seems, the crime of thinking aloud. This is the world we are making for the next generation: a place where ideas are so dangerous that men must die for having them, where the ultimate answer to every disagreement is the gun.
Because I associate Charlie with my son, and my son with Charlie, I worry about inheritance--not of money or property, but of the vast structure of beliefs and customs that makes civilized life possible. We inherit the assumption that we can disagree without killing, that ideas can be met with ideas, that the proper response to speech we dislike is more speech, not violence.
This inheritance was not given to us whole. It was built slowly, painfully, across centuries of human struggle, each generation adding its small contribution to the great work of learning to live together despite our differences.
And in a single moment, it seems gone.
Charlie's death is a mirror in which we can see ourselves as we truly are: a people who have lost faith in our own founding bet that free people can govern themselves through reason rather than force. If we cannot reclaim the inheritance of reason over violence, of speech over silence, then his death will not be the end of one man's story. It will be the beginning of our own undoing.
Those who did know Charlie, even those who disagreed with his politics, speak of a man who was warm and gracious. This is what we should remember. If there is any redemption in this tragedy, it lies in whether we choose to see in Charlie's death not only what we have lost, but what we must recover.
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Allen Mendenhall
Allen Mendenhall is a Senior Advisor for the Capital Markets Initiative at the Heritage Foundation. A lawyer with a Ph.D. in English from Auburn University, he has taught at multiple colleges and universities and is the author or editor of nine books.
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Original text here: https://fee.org/articles/freedom-of-speech-is-all/
Easier GP Access Continues to Be Public's Top Priority for the NHS
LONDON, England, Sept. 12 -- The Health Foundation posted the following news release:
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Easier GP access continues to be public's top priority for the NHS
New polling (https://www.health.org.uk/press-office/press-releases/easier-gp-access-continues-to-be-publics-top-priority-for-the-nhs) from the Health Foundation and Ipsos has highlighted that the public's top priority for the NHS is making it easier to get GP appointments.
The survey, conducted in May 2025, found that GP access (39%) sits above improving A&E waiting times (34%) and reducing the number of staff leaving the NHS by improving
... Show Full Article
LONDON, England, Sept. 12 -- The Health Foundation posted the following news release:
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Easier GP access continues to be public's top priority for the NHS
New polling (https://www.health.org.uk/press-office/press-releases/easier-gp-access-continues-to-be-publics-top-priority-for-the-nhs) from the Health Foundation and Ipsos has highlighted that the public's top priority for the NHS is making it easier to get GP appointments.
The survey, conducted in May 2025, found that GP access (39%) sits above improving A&E waiting times (34%) and reducing the number of staff leaving the NHS by improvingworking conditions (29%) among the public's biggest priorities. Despite it being the government's flagship health commitment, cutting waiting times for routine hospital services ranks only fifth for the public.
Access to GP services has consistently topped the public's priorities over the last year of the survey. And there is increasing public concern about the pressures GPs are under - 82% of the public (the highest recorded) are concerned about the level of pressure that GP practices are facing (up from 78% in May 2024 and 73% in May 2022). The biggest challenges people believe their GP practice is facing are to there not being enough doctors (41%), followed by the pressures from an ageing population (29%) and due to a lack of funding (27%).
The poll also shows that public confidence in the government's handling of the NHS remains stubbornly low, even as some key performance indicators begin to improve. Just 16% of people agree that the government has the right policies in place for the NHS, which is unchanged since November 2024. However, the poll took place before publication of the 10 year health plan. It also remains more positive than immediately before the election, when just 8% supported the government's plans for the NHS.
While public views of the standard of care in the health service remain negative overall, there are some signs that perceptions of NHS care are slowly improving. 13% think that the general standard of care got better in the last 12 months (slightly up from 9% in May 2024), which is the highest recorded since 2020. Views of local services are more positive, with 46% of the public agreeing that their local NHS is providing them with a good service and 28% disagreeing, which is down from 32% in November 2024.
The government has made recovering the 18-week standard for routine care its top priority for the NHS in England by the end of the parliament. There are signs that progress is being made with the waiting list falling to its lowest in over two years, from 7.6 million to 7.4 million. Despite this, more people in England believe the waiting list has increased in the 12 months since the election (37%) than decreased (24%) - highlighting that people are yet to feel that things are going in the right direction.
Consistently low levels of public satisfaction in the NHS have not, however, resulted in a loss of faith in the NHS model - a universal, tax-funded health service freely available to all. While there have been some recent high-profile calls to consider alternative funding models, this view is not shared by voters across the political spectrum in the UK. 86% think the NHS should be free at the point of delivery, 85% think the NHS should provide a comprehensive service available to everyone, and 83% think it should be primarily funded through taxation.
For social care, levels of public confidence remain negative overall. Only 8% agree that the government has the right policies for social care, with 51% disagreeing (compared with 43% in November 2024). However, this marks an improvement in the public's perception of the previous government's approach to social care, with 63% disagreeing that the government had the right policies in May 2024, prior to the general election.
People in England generally think the state should have bigger role in funding care than it does now, but low public awareness and understanding of social care - including uncertainty about who should pay for it - remain significant barriers to reform.
Tim Gardner, Assistant Director of Policy at the Health Foundation, said,
'Overall, the public mood on health and care remains largely downbeat but there are signs that perceptions are slowly improving. Views of local health services are more positive than perceptions of how the NHS is performing overall, especially among people with recent experience of accessing care.
'The challenge for government will be convincing the public that their plans will deliver tangible improvements in the areas they care most about. While the government has made improving NHS waiting times its headline pledge, the public's top priority remains easier access to GP services with tackling elective waiting times only fifth among their biggest concerns. Tackling unacceptably long waits for routine hospital treatment is essential, but resources are constrained and trade-offs are inevitable, so the risk is that slower progress is made on delivering the priorities that matter most to the public.'
Survey Methodology
This study was conducted on Ipsos' KnowledgePanel between 8-14 May 2025.
The KnowledgePanel is a random probability survey panel. Therefore, the KnowledgePanel does not use a quota approach when conducting surveys. Instead invited samples are stratified when conducting waves to account for any profile skews within the panel. The sample was stratified by country and level of education. Any panellists that were invited in Tracker 7 (November 2024) have been excluded from the sample.
A total of 4,173 panellists in the United Kingdom (aged 16+) were selected and invited to take part in the survey.
Of these, 2,286 respondents completed the survey - a response rate of 55%. This includes 1,804 respondents in England.
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Original text here: https://www.health.org.uk/press-office/press-releases/easier-gp-access-continues-to-be-publics-top-priority-for-the-nhs
Administration's Repeal of Public Lands Rule Threatens Balanced Land Management, Ignores Public Input
WASHINGTON, Sept. 12 -- The Conservation Lands Foundation issued the following news release on Sept. 11, 2025:
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Administration's Repeal of Public Lands Rule Threatens Balanced Land Management, Ignores Public Input
The Trump administration today published a notice of proposed rule-making to rescind the common-sense and widely-supported Conservation and Landscape Health Rule ("Public Lands Rule") that ensures balanced management and public access to national public lands throughout the western U.S. The announcement indicated a 60-day public comment period, which is legally required of such
... Show Full Article
WASHINGTON, Sept. 12 -- The Conservation Lands Foundation issued the following news release on Sept. 11, 2025:
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Administration's Repeal of Public Lands Rule Threatens Balanced Land Management, Ignores Public Input
The Trump administration today published a notice of proposed rule-making to rescind the common-sense and widely-supported Conservation and Landscape Health Rule ("Public Lands Rule") that ensures balanced management and public access to national public lands throughout the western U.S. The announcement indicated a 60-day public comment period, which is legally required of suchchanges.
Below is a statement from Jocelyn Torres, Chief Conservation Officer of the Conservation Lands Foundation, which represents a national network of community advocates who are solely focused on the public lands overseen by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), including the National Conservation Lands:
"The repeal of the Public Lands Rule is a betrayal of the public trust and a reckless step backwards for land stewardship in America. Americans have already raised their voices--loudly and clearly--in support of this rule. During the original rule-making, which was finalized last year, 92% of public comments supported it. This action is a slap in the face to every American who is proud of the natural beauty we have on offer, free of charge, to everyone.
"The Public Lands Rule provides land managers with clear, commonsense tools to protect what Americans cherish most about public lands--clean water, abundant wildlife, cultural resources, recreation, and natural beauty. Its repeal dismisses science-based management and undermines the values of millions who depend on these lands for more than just extraction.
"Perhaps most troubling is the claim that conservation is not a valid multiple use under BLM's guiding laws. That is blatantly false. The law explicitly requires that public lands be managed for a range of uses, including watersheds, wildlife habitat, fisheries, and scenic and recreational values--not just for development. Conservation is not a fringe idea; it's a legal obligation.
"America has no shortage of energy resources. What we need is leadership committed to balanced, future-focused land management that serves public access and wildlife--not policy reversals that favor short-term exploitation over long-term stewardship. The Public Lands Rule should remain on the books as a fair, lawful and widely supported guide for managing public lands for generations to come.
Background on the Public Lands Rule:
The Public Lands Rule, which took effect on June 10, 2024, establishes a "framework to ensure healthy landscapes, abundant wildlife habitat, clean water, and balanced decision-making on our nation's public lands." BLM's webpage on the Public Lands Rule. The BLM's 90-day public process that shaped the final rule was transparent, inclusive, and accessible.
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Original text here: https://www.conservationlands.org/administrations_repeal_of_public_lands_rule_threatens_balanced_land_management
