Common Resources

Update on Ending the Export Ban: What It Means for US Gasoline Prices

Data aficionados among our readers will appreciate that it is best to analyze price movements using as disaggregated data as possible, both temporally and spatially. In the original version of our recent issue brief, we used annual data. But with more time to acquire data, we found monthly data series. Importantly, these new data include […]

Ending the Export Ban: What It Means for US Gasoline Prices

Last week, top Democrats on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee requested a comprehensive review of what would happen—in terms of energy prices, consumer prices, and more—if the US were to lift its ban on oil exports. In a new RFF issue brief, together with Stephen Brown, Charles Mason, and Jan Mares, we tackle […]

Market Shares and Technology Driving Up Fuel Economy in New Vehicles

From the late 1980s to about 2004, the average fuel economy of new passenger vehicles in the United States declined gradually. Then, over the past 10 years, fuel economy jumped suddenly, up almost 20 percent by 2012. In a recent paper, my colleague Shefali Khanna and I ask which end of the production line explains […]

Recycling Debates on Energy Independence and Energy Security

As illustrated by the Presidential candidates’ perhaps unexpected diversion into discussion of energy independence during their first debate, energy remains a contentious political issue - as it has been for the last few decades. We seem to be making little progress, however - either on the pursuit of energy independence (as if that were even […]

The Economist, Shale Gas, and Mideast Oil

In this week’s leader on violent protests in the Arab world, The Economist gets it wrong on shale gas again: With [American] troops mercifully out of Iraq, their efforts to push the Israeli-Palestinian peace process going nowhere, and shale gas reducing their dependence on Arab oil, surely it is time for them to leave the […]

The EISA Cellulosic Ethanol Mandate: Meeting Energy Security and Emissions Reductions Goals

According to RFF visiting scholar Arthur Fraas and economist Robert Johansson, the push for American-made biofuels may conflict under certain conditions with strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. While policymakers may treat increasing energy security and lowering greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as complementary goals, in fact there are cases where they may conflict. One important […]