Weekly Writers Round-Up: Dog Walker Licensing, Flood Insurance, and Endangered Animals

Each week, we’ll be featuring the work of the alumni and current participants of AF’s Writing Fellows Program. A few highlights from the past week are below. For more information on the program, see here. Applications for the spring are now open!

Rover.com Was a Win for Dogs, Walkers, and Owners — Until the Kennel Lobbyists Came Barking by Jared Meyer (Spring 2015) in The Washington Examiner
Lisa Jacobson, a single mother from Colorado Springs, Colo., wanted to earn money and support her family while transitioning to a new career. Rover.com, an online platform that connects pet owners with walkers and sitters, was the perfect solution. Lisa loves animals and, due to her experience working with animals with health problems and troubled pasts, many people trusted their pets with her. She earned enough money through her work to pay her mortgage and her son’s college education. Then, things took a turn for the worse…

Flood Insurance Reform Is Long Overdue by Krisztina Pusok (Fall 2017) in Morning Consult
Hurricane Florence displaced thousands of homeowners and destroyed entire cities along the Atlantic Coast. But because of outdated policies, most consumers who were forced to flee their homes will be unable to use flood insurance to recover and rebuild their property. In the absence of a major flood reform bill, this exact scenario will play out after the next storm, and the one after that…

New Incentives Can Help Protect Endangered Animals by Josh T. Smith (Summer 2015) in Real Clear Policy
On September 12, a group of Democrats announced that they plan to prevent Republican reforms to the Endangered Species Act (ESA) through Democratic electoral victories in 2019. Republicans view these reforms as necessary for the ESA to be more effective, pointing out that although 90 percent of voters approve of the ESA, only 1.5 percent of listed species have actually been recovered. Democrats respond that although species haven’t recovered, they also haven’t gone extinct. Regardless of which side is ultimately more compelling, everyone interested in saving species should consider how to engage more people in conservation efforts. Currently, the law actually deters people from helping protect species…

What Everyone’s Missing About That Court Ruling On Defrauded College Students by Preston Cooper (Fall 2015) in Forbes
Having recently ruled that the Department of Education acted illegally in delaying a 2016 regulation aimed at making it easier for students defrauded by their colleges to receive loan forgiveness, District Court Judge Randolph Moss on Tuesday ordered the regulation to take effect immediately. Activists on the left hailed the ruling as a massive victory for student borrowers, and much of the news coverage echoed this sentiment. But in reality, the implications of the judge’s order are much narrower than they appear…