The Heritage Foundation unveils our redesigned website this morning with a modern look and feel, better organization of our policy research, greater integration of our multimedia products and our blog, The Foundry.
The redesigned website is a significant step forward for Heritage. It presents an innovative new platform for a varied tapestry of people — from Capitol Hill legislators to our more than 600,000 members — to have greater access to our best-in-class conservative policy research.
More than a year of planning and development went into the creation of the new Heritage.org. We interviewed key constituents on Capitol Hill, members of the media, coalition partners, and most importantly, Heritage supporters like you. The feedback we received drove the new design and direction of the new Heritage.org.
While the look and feel of the site is dramatically different from the previous website, we will continue to carry out our traditional mission of offering sound solutions to contemporary problems.
Heritage staff worked with professional experts in visual design, user experience and content management to build the new site. Some cornerstone pieces include:
1. Simplified navigation that allows users to quickly access the content they are seeking. We now have tabs for both Issues and Research in the navigation, giving you the option to browse by public policy issues or, for the more familiar Heritage.org user, by the type of content.
2. The visual design showcases the strength, credibility and stature of The Heritage Foundation, our people and our work, while also encouraging users to explore our site. This is reflected in the multi-tonal Heritage blue color palette, uniform bands of content throughout the site and the introduction of visual icons that work in tandem with the new navigation.
3. An improved search function and new way of organizing our research should make finding content faster and easier. We’ve taken these two major steps to in response to feedback from our users. The new search engine is more robust and allows visitors to filter content by issue, paper type, author and more. In addition, we’ve introduced a comprehensive structure for organizing all of this information, allowing us to expand the number of issue areas from about 100 on the old website to nearly 1,000 and growing.
4. Our multimedia section features Heritage videos, info graphics and audio in one place. Whether you’re looking for one of our original productions such as “Let Me Rise” or a recent TV appearance of a Heritage analyst, you can now find it easily by clicking on the links above the search on each page.
5. We’ve introduced customized audience pages for the conservative community, government staff, press and media, job seekers and young leaders. By tailoring our content to these groups, we hope to better serve their needs. You can access these pages in the footer of every page.
6. The new footer gives Heritage an opportunity to showcase some of our signature research papers and communications products on the bottom of every page. Given the large amount of traffic Heritage.org received from search engines, we realize that not everyone entering the site is coming through the homepage.
These improvements are similar to ones we recently made on The Foundry, where we made navigation easier, added features, connected with social media and improved content to make the online experience more enjoyable for all who visit. With nearly 150,000 subscribers to the Morning Bell, it is evident that our daily dose of conservative analysis is an important part of your day. We trust that the new Heritage.org will provide you even more opportunities to engage with our team.
Please navigate and explore the new Heritage.org. This site is built for you, our readers, members and researchers. Its launch marks an exciting moment for The Heritage Foundation as we continue to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense.
If you have questions or comments, please send us a note at redesign@heritage.org.
Quick Hits:
- Minutes before midnight on Sunday, House Democrats released a 2,309 “reconciliation” bill that the Budget Committee will pass early this week. The bill is a replica of the bill reported to Ways and Means last year, except with a government takeover of the student lending industry tacked on. This entire shell of a bill will be scrapped and replaced with the real reconciliation bill Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is writing behind closed doors.
- Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) outlines “what real health reform should look like” in today’s Washington Post.
- Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) is expected to introduce his financial legislation bill today.
- At least 10 House members are spending more than $1,000 a month in taxpayer money to lease cars.
- Despite President Barack Obama’s self-professed commitment to openness and transparency, a National Security Archive report released Sunday finds “progress slow and erratic” while the Government Accountability Office found information released “missing or unreliable.”
The debate over nuclear power in recent months has revolved around taxpayer backed loan guarantees for new nuclear projects. Not only has the President announced $8.3 billion in federal loan guarantees for a two-reactor project in Burke County, Georgia, his budget proposal includes tripling the nuclear loan guarantee program from $18.5 billion to over $54 billion.
Unfortunately, some groups have used this debate to disguise their anti-nuclear agenda in anti-loan guarantee rhetoric. The basic construct of their argument is that nuclear energy is so risky and so expensive that using government backed financing subjects the taxpayer to unreasonable risk. The problem is that they often not only misrepresent facts about loan guarantees and what risks they pose, but also about nuclear energy broadly to make their case. Misrepresenting the facts not only undermines the legitimacy of their argument but takes away from a very important debate over whether or not loan guarantees are an appropriate tool for financing new nuclear (or any other energy source) projects.
While The Heritage Foundation is opposed to expanding the nuclear loan guarantee program, we believe that it is critical that the debate be informed by facts. The Nuclear Energy Institute’s 13-page report in response to some of the misleading rhetoric helps do exactly that. By answering in detail many of the unfounded criticisms used to advance the anti-nuclear agenda, NEI sets the stage nicely for where the debate should be: on the efficacy of loan guarantees.
The Heritage Foundation Position on Loan Guarantees
The Heritage Foundation has not opposed limited loan guarantees (those already authorized under the Energy Policy Act of 2005). If limited, the subsidy can provide a mechanism to establish predictability after years of erratic regulatory hurdles and government-imposed risk. Expanding government intervention into capital markets beyond current authorizations would simply distort long-term market integrity. At a minimum, they create taxpayer liabilities, give recipients preferential treatment, and distort capital markets. Further, depending on how they are structured, they can remove incentives to decrease costs, stifle innovation, suppress private-sector financing solutions, perpetuate regulatory inefficiency, and encourage government dependence.
If the loan guarantee program is to be expanded, it should be conditioned on: ending further loan guarantees, ensuring that recipients pay the full cost of the subsidy, making recipients privately refinance within five years of project completion, limiting guarantees to no more than two plants of any reactor design and limiting two thirds of the loan money to supporting a single technology.
The loan guarantee debate should not be a rehash of old arguments over nuclear power. That is largely over. The real debate should be whether or not the loan guarantee program ought to be expanded. We strongly believe the answer to that is no. However, we also believe that it is a debate worth having and one that should be based on facts.