Common Resources

Identifying “Known Unknowns” in the Natural Gas Revolution

Last week, my colleagues and I released a new RFF report, The Natural Gas Revolution: Critical Questions for a Sustainable Energy Future. At one point, I began referring to this document as the “Known Unknowns” report, in reference to a widely quoted Donald Rumsfeld speech. As the former secretary of defense noted, there are certain […]

Fixing Emissions Trading Imbalances with a Price Floor

The centerpiece of Europe Union’s climate policy, the cap-and-trade Emissions Trading System (ETS), is being hobbled by a large oversupply of emissions allowances in the market. Since 2008, the ETS has rapidly accumulated a two gigaton surplus of allowances. The oversupply of allowances and low level of emissions is the result of a number of […]

Ounce of Prevention, Pound of Cure, Ton of Bricks

Speaking in drought-devastated California last month, President Obama announced that his 2015 budget would include a new $1 billion Climate Resilience Fund to better understand and prepare for the impacts of climate change. Having made limited progress so far in the fight to avoid climate change, we are now heading into the fight to gird […]

Misplaced Obsessions

The environmental movement has long been and will remain a crucial engine behind environmental policy, but I believe it really needs to reorient itself toward policies that matter, and in the process give up on its misplaced obsessions. First, environmentalists’ obsession with reducing carbon emissions is NOT misplaced. I am not just worried, but scared […]

Giving Too Much Away?

The Supreme Court heard arguments this morning in Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA, a suit challenging the agency’s authority to address greenhouse gas emissions using the Clean Air Act’s PSD permitting program. I have not followed the case closely, and hesitate to make any predictions based on comments at oral arguments anyway. However, one comment […]

Who Benefits from Flexible GHG Rules?

US climate policy is unfolding under the Clean Air Act. Mobile source and construction permitting regulations are in place. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has developed draft final rules for the performance of new power plants. Most important, EPA and the states will soon determine the form and stringency of the regulations for existing […]

What to Expect From EPA Climate Rules

I have a new piece in the Milken Institute Review that looks at EPA’s current and near-future carbon emissions rules. It starts at the beginning of the story and is aimed at a more-or-less general audience, so if you haven’t been following the issue it’s a good place to start. Among other things I point […]

How Have Recent Fuel Economy and GHG Standards for New Passenger Vehicles Affected the US and European Markets?

In the second post of a two-part series, RFF Fellow Joshua Linn examines how recent standards have affected the type and rate of technology adoption in new vehicles. Click to read the first installment. Concerns about global warming and energy security have caused many countries to tighten passenger vehicle standards for greenhouse gases and fuel […]

Climate Benefits from the Production Tax Credit?

A year ago, we wrote about the potential expiration of the wind power production tax credit (PTC), which has helped support the US wind industry for most of the last 22 years. The PTC provides a subsidy of about $23 per megawatt hour (or roughly 30 percent above wholesale electricity prices). It was set to […]

Understanding the Tradeoffs of CAFE Standards

In the first of a two-part series, RFF Fellow Joshua Linn explains how vehicle manufacturers respond to tightening fuel economy standards. Click to read the second installment. Though the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards have been regulating the fuel economy of US vehicles since 1978, the levels of the standards were pretty much flat […]