Policy Area

States have recently been taking a closer look at noncompete agreements and their impacts on the workforce. This year, the Idaho Legislature strengthened its noncompete laws while the South Dakota Supreme Court issued an opinion only partially enforcing a noncompete. According to Peter Steinmeyer, a member of the law firm Epstein Becker Green, these actions are part of the national trend of...

By Tom Dowling and Leslie Haymon

On June 28, 2018, the Senate passed the Agricultural Improvement Act, its version of the Farm Bill, in a 86-to-11 vote with strong bipartisan support. Its passage paves the way for a conference committee to reconcile differences with the House’s version of the...

By Jud Adams

The House considered H.R.50, the Unfunded Mandates Information and Transparency Act of 2017, or UMITA, on July 13. Reforming the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act, or UMRA, has long been a ...

Recent months have seen numerous examples of transit systems taking advantage of federal, state and local funding opportunities and turning to new partners and new technologies to enhance mobility options for their riders. Here’s a roundup of recent activities, articles and reports.

The trade war with China shows no sign of abating. The Trump administration has signaled its intention to impose tariffs on an additional $200 billion of Chinese products. This comes after the two countries imposed tit-for-tat tariffs of $34 billion on each other’s goods.

While many U.S. states and their industries...

Single-use plastic straws have recently come under fire, much like single-use plastic shopping bags and plastic microbeads. This year, Seattle became the largest U.S. city to ban the use of plastic straws and...

While a number of states have deployed public-private partnerships (P3s) to tackle infrastructure projects over the last decade, many believe the P3 industry in this country still has yet to take off in the way it has elsewhere in the world. That’s despite demonstrated success of P3s in traditional areas like managed lane projects and promising developments in a variety of new asset classes including airports, broadband projects and high-tech applications. And while the Trump administration looks to encourage more P3s and institutionalize their practices in federal programs, there are many factors that could limit growth in the industry and prevent any kind of a much-needed infrastructure push from ever getting off the ground in the years ahead.