Research Library

Is President Trump's April 2017 executive order calling for a review of the H-1B visa program bad news for foreign workers?

OPEC may opt to continue or deepen its oil production cuts at its upcoming May meeting, as a growing number of highly efficient U.S. shale operators now appears able to maintain oil production — and even expand it — at prices that likely are unsustainably low for many major exporters’ national budgets, writes energy fellow Gabriel Collins.

With the Texas Legislature now considering several bills that would decrease penalties for marijuana possession and legalize the use of medical marijuana to treat a variety of conditions, authors William Martin and Katharine A. Neill present updated findings in this new issue brief that support the case for reforming marijuana policy in Texas.

The author analyzes the major claims and implications of the Surgeon General's report "Facing Addiction in America," and proposes additional drug policy considerations for addressing substance use disorders.

The oil production targets agreed to at the November 30, 2016, OPEC meeting have created the firmest prospect in the past two years of a meaningful oil price recovery. If WTI prices rise and stabilize in the $60/bbl range, how fast can U.S. shale producers respond? This brief addresses the question and highlights the challenges U.S. unconventional liquids producers will likely face during a scale-up. It also points out price and timing inflection points likely to broadly influence industry decision-making.

This policy brief analyzes the impact of the increasing number of parents who opt their children out of school-entry vaccinations for nonmedical reasons in Texas and argues that the state should make obtaining nonmedical exemptions more rigorous in order to reduce the public health risks and costs associated with vaccine-preventable diseases.

The percentage of young adults ages 18 to 34 in Texas without health insurance has dropped by 35 percent since the Affordable Care Act (ACA) went into effect.

Using charts, figures and graphs of this survey data originally created by former career intelligence analyst Brian C. Bennett and updated by the Drug Policy Program, this issue brief offers an overview of drug use trends in America over the last four decades. The brief is part of a larger online project chronicling the pattern of the use and abuse of individual drugs over (in most cases) more than 40 years.

The percentage of Hispanics in Texas without health insurance has dropped by 30 percent since the Affordable Care Act (ACA) went into effect, but almost one-third of Hispanic Texans ages 18 to 64 remain uninsured.

The percentage of Texans without health insurance has dropped by 30 percent since the Affordable Care Act (ACA) went into effect, cutting the state’s uninsured rate below 1999 levels.