The Pew Charitable Trusts

New federal rules for power plants and natural gas drillers stirred heated debate in statehouses this year. more

A U.S. Congressional subcommittee on Thursday (June 7) addressed a question states have long hoped the federal government would answer: Where will nuclear power plants permanently store their growing stockpiles of spent fuel and other hazardous waste? It’s a problem that has gone unresolved for decades, as the fede

While states slowly recover in the wake of the Great Recession, local governments have been hit with a one-two punch: State aid and property taxes, which together account for more than half of local revenues, are dropping simultaneously for the first time since 1980.

Hawaii has become the first state where plastic bans at the checkout aisle are banned statewide, following the passage of laws in each of its four counties. more

Economic Mobility of the States is a new interactive tool that captures the findings of the first analysis of Americans’ economic mobility—their movement up and down the earnings ladder—at the state level, including data from all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Users can click the map to see where in the country Americans are most likely to move up rather than down, and where they are most likely to move down rather than up. more