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 […]

Russia and Ukraine: The Energy Dimension

Russian incursion into Crimea, potential counter-measures by the United States and other Western countries, and retaliatory Russian responses to such counter-measures have, unsurprisingly, spotlighted the role of energy in the conflict. In the case of oil, Russia, it is accurately noted, is the world’s largest producer and second ranking exporter (behind Saudi Arabia). In the case […]

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 […]

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 […]

Best of the Above

It looked like a reverse make-me-do-it – President Obama in his State of the Union address saying don’t-do-that-again to some of his most committed supporters. An array of groups had written to him just two weeks earlier about the failings of an “all of the above” energy policy, and the first words in his speech […]

Forty Years Later, an Oil Crisis Retrospective

Though the 1973 Yom Kippur War lasted only 20 days, the outbreak of Arab-Israeli hostilities was followed by two major events, with implications that are still debated today. The first was a politically motivated and largely symbolic initiative by a group of Arab oil producers (the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries) to form a […]

Unconventional Fuel Production and Water Resources

Crude oil and natural gas production from unconventional reservoirs is experiencing accelerated growth in North America, much of which is expected to continue for the foreseeable future. This shift in the energy industry has been accompanied by rising concerns over its potential impact on water resources. Developing these fuels is thought to require more water […]

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 […]

The UK, Fracking, and Mineral Rights

In an editorial, the Economist this week argues that “if Britain wants an American-style energy boom, it should import American-style local taxation.” In short, they argue that differences in public opinion toward fracking are driven by differences in how the benefits of development are distributed. In the UK (and most other European countries), subsurface mineral […]

Fracking on Federal Lands: What Role Should Federal Rules Play?

While state governments are the primary regulators of oil and gas development, landowners have the first and arguably greatest opportunity to shape drilling firms’ conduct. This is most obvious in the case of the largest landowner of all: the federal government, which controls 700 million acres of subsurface rights (plus 56 million subsurface acres of […]