Niskanen Center

The Niskanen Center is a Washington, D.C.-based think tank that advocates for environmentalism, immigration reform, civil liberties, and a national defense policy based on libertarian principles.^[1][2][3] The center is named after the late William A. Niskanen, a former economic adviser to president Ronald Reagan. The Niskanen Center states that its "main audience is Washington insiders."^[4]

History

The Niskanen Center was founded in early 2015 by Jerry Taylor.^[5] At its launch, the center was composed primarily of former staffers of the Cato Institute who departed in the wake of a 2012 leadership struggle pitting Ed Crane against the Koch Brothers for control of the libertarian think tank.^[6] Niskanen Center founder Taylor^[7] and vice president Joe Coon^[8] publicly aligned themselves with Crane during the dispute. Both departed shortly after Crane was replaced by John Allison as president of Cato as part of the settlement with the Kochs.

Funding for the center includes donors who seek to counter conservative hostility to anti-global warming measures. North Carolina businessman Jay Faison, a Republican donor, is a funder to the Niskanen Center and views it, along with the R Street Institute, as a route for climate action to gain a foothold within the GOP.^[9] Some supporters of the Niskanen Center are more traditionally aligned with liberal causes. They include the Open Philanthropies Project, which supports the Center's work to expand legal immigration,^[10] as well as the Lawrence Linden Trust for Conservation, which provided the Niskanen Center with a grant "to develop and analyze a potential economy-wide carbon tax",^[11] and the Nature Conservancy.^[12]

Goals and guidelines

The Niskanen Center focuses on producing concrete deliverables, namely, libertarian-friendly legislation and regulation, working within the existing political framework. Their target audience is currently influential Washington insiders, rather than the general public, and includes: policy-oriented legislators, presidential appointees, career civil servants in planning, evaluation and budget offices, congressional committee staff, engaged academics, and interest group analysts.^[1] The focus is guided by their reading of the research on the determinants of public opinion.^[13] They use two guidelines:

• Embracing relative policy improvements: This includes putting forth second best or even third best or fourth best solutions.
• Willingness to compromise: This includes tailoring their reform proposals to be compatible with the preferences of potential allies who do not share their beliefs.

Policy areas

The Niskanen Center focuses on public policy in the areas of climate change, foreign policy and defense, immigration, political science, political theory, and technology and civil liberties. Its policy recommendations and efforts at political and policy change are focused on the United States.^[1]

Climate change

The Niskanen Center has departed from the position on climate change espoused by many of the bigger libertarian think tanks such as the Cato Institute. Specifically, the Niskanen Center has argued not only that anthropogenic global warming can have potentially significant negative effects, but has also endorsed the policy of a revenue-neutral carbon tax supported through a global tariff scheme.^[14] The Center has also rejected the idea that libertarianism entails disbelief in climate change or blanket opposition to government action against it.^[15]

The Niskanen Center's support for carbon taxation represents a nearly complete reversal of Taylor's previous advocacy at the Cato Institute, where he was a vocal climate change skeptic. Taylor was the featured guest on an hour-long episode of the John Stossel show in 2009 in which he advanced arguments against anthropogenic global warming and opposed government action to address climate change.^[16] Taylor explained his shift in a 2015 interview with Vox.com, indicating that he had "fundamentally switched" his previous beliefs on the issue.^[17]

In November 2015 the Niskanen Center announced the founding of a new Center for Climate Science under the direction of Dr. Joseph Majkut, a climatologist who previously served on the staff of Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI).^[18]

The Niskanen Center's position on climate change has attracted negative feedback from some libertarians,^[19] but has been appreciated by others across the political spectrum.^[17][20]

Immigration

The Niskanen Center argues for expanding immigration to the United States. In particular, they have argued for protecting the Diversity Immigrant Visa program in the United States, increasing low-skilled immigration, and getting the United States to increase its refugee intake.^[21][22]

Good Ventures, a private foundation run by Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and his wife Cari Tuna, made a $360,000 grant to the Niskanen Center in October 2015 to support its work on immigration policy, specifically the hiring of an Immigration Policy Counsel.^[23] The grant was made as part of the Open Philanthropy Project, a spinoff of a collaboration between Good Ventures and charity evaluator GiveWell.^[24][25]

Technology and Civil Liberties

The Niskanen Center is one of the few libertarian organizations with a specific focus on technology, innovation, and civil liberties. Some of their issue areas include robotics and automation (in particular commercial drones and autonomous vehicles), encryption and cybersecurity, and issues relating to the Internet of Things.^[26][27]

In particular, the technology and civil liberties department focuses on reforming government surveillance.^[28] As discussed in the department's blog:

As technology has advanced, the idea of total surveillance has leaped from the pages of fiction into reality. Americans are now confronted with a near-Orwellian surveillance system that threatens to abscond with the basic civil liberties guaranteed to every American under the auspices of the U.S. Constitution. Where once courts produced warrants in the public forum, the process has now become opaque as secret courts ordering secret warrants under secret interpretations of law have become a way of life. Under such a system, there can never be a presumption of innocence, or the guarantee of a free and open exchange of ideas.^[29]

Ryan Hagemann leads the department and had previously authored works on commercial drones and autonomous vehicles with the Mercatus Center's Technology Policy Program.^[30][31] He maintains an adjunct fellowship with TechFreedom, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank.^[32]

Foreign Policy and Defense

The Center's Foreign Policy and Defense department is led by Matt Fay and focuses on reforming the spending and appropriations practices of the Department of Defense and U.S. armed forces. Fay, in his blog Dollars and Defense, notes that

The Pentagon often makes ill-advised choices about future needs, and Congress pushes programs that create jobs in individual districts but do little to improve America’s security. Moreover, the Department of Defense is a bureaucracy. It is subject to any number of pathologies from which all bureaucracies suffer. In fact, given its size, it is even more likely to fall prey to dysfunction. Scarcity can provide discipline. It can force useful tradeoffs.^[33]

People

The Niskanen Center was founded and is led by Jerry Taylor, who formerly worked at the Cato Institute, where he served as director of natural resource studies, assistant editor of Regulation magazine, senior fellow, and then vice president. Before that, Taylor was the staff director for the energy and environment task force at the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).^[1][2] Will Wilkinson, who also previously worked at the Cato Institute, is the Niskanen Center's Vice President of Policy.

Advisory Board members include Yoram Bauman, Tom G. Palmer, John H. Cochrane, Tyler Cowen, Grover Norquist, and Reihan Salam.^[1]

References

External links

• Official website