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US Shale Gas Development: What Led to the Boom?

Resources Magazine: Ensuring Competitiveness under a US Carbon Tax

Tax exemptions, industry rebates, and border tax adjustments can help protect the competitiveness of industries affected by a carbon tax, but they are not equally efficient at achieving economic and environmental goals. In the latest issue of Resources, RFF scholars Carolyn Fischer, Richard Morgenstern, and Nathan Richardson examine the issues.

How Do Environmental Regulations Affect the Economy? Experts Describe a Nuanced Picture

The Effect of Stochastic Oscillations in Property Rights Regimes on Forest Output in China

Comparing the Clean Air Act and a Carbon Price

The Effect of Voluntary Brownfields Programs on Nearby Property Values: Evidence from Illinois

Renewable Electricity Policy, Intermittency, and Cost-Effectiveness

Fuel Prices and New Vehicle Fuel Economy?Comparing the United States and Western Europe

Deposit-Refund Systems in Practice and Theory

Land Use Policies in the United States for Protecting Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services

The New CAFE Standards: Are They Enough on Their Own?

Reply to Letter by Fann, Lamson, Anenberg, and Hubbell, Regarding Fraas & Lutter Article: ?Uncertain Benefits Estimates for Reductions in Fine Particle Concentrations?

Resources Magazine: The Limits to Ingenuity

When is ingenuity likely to help solve ecological problems? Is humanity?s ability to innovate its way around environmental problems relevant to how we think about conservation? RFF Senior Fellow and Center for the Management of Ecological Wealth Co-Director Jim Boyd tackles these questions and contemplates the limits to ingenuity in a piece for the latest issue of Resources.

Policy Options for Addressing Carbon Tax Impacts to Households

Carbon pricing remains the strongest option for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and mitigating climate change. But such a policy still faces serious political hurdles in part because of the perception that a carbon tax would most negatively impact the poor. Clayton Munnings and Daniel Morris address the potential of a carbon tax to actually be progressive in a new RFF issue brief.

Cheaper Power Bills? You May Have NatGas to Thank

Case closed: Many Sandy claims not eligible for insurance payment

Comparative Life Cycle Assessments: Carbon Neutrality and Wood Biomass Energy

Resources Magazine: How a Clean Energy Standard Works

A clean energy standard, a policy that imposes a minimum level of electricity generation that comes from clean energy, has been proposed in various forms since 2010. In an interview for Resources magazine, Center Fellow Anthony Paul and Resident Scholar Nathan Richardson discuss the details and viability of such a policy.

US Shale Gas Development in Review

The United States has seen rapid recent development of shale gas. What are the factors behind the notable growth in the past decade? And what does it mean for shale gas development elsewhere in the world? RFF scholars Alan Krupnick and Zhongmin Wang examine the history of the US shale gas boom in a new RFF discussion paper.

A Retrospective Review of Shale Gas Development in the United States: What Led to the Boom?

Mercury and Air Toxics Standards Analysis Deconstructed: Changing Assumptions, Changing Results

EPA regulations on mercury and other air pollutants currently under review are the subject of much debate for their potential costs and impacts on the electricity industry. In a new discussion paper, a team of RFF experts examines the assumptions behind several studies that have analyzed the potential effects of the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, finding that the impacts may be less rigid and less uncertain than suggested by some models.

Resources Magazine: Population and Sustainability

Pennsylvania State University professor Warren C. Robinson explains how changes in the demographic processes ? fertility, mortality, and migration ? affect the prospect of sustainable global economic development in the latest Resources magazine.

Progressing to a Fair Carbon Tax: Policy Design Options and Impacts to Households

Mixing It Up: Power Sector Energy and Regional and Regulatory Climate Policies in the Presence of a Carbon Tax

Route Change Forces Keystone Foes to Shift Aim to Climate Change

Give Information, Accompanied by a ?Nudge?

Should the Federal Government Regulate Fracking?

Model uncertainty in economic impacts of climate change: Bernoulli versus Lotka Volterra dynamics

Uncertainty Analysis Comes to Integrated Assessment Models for Climate Change...and Conversely

The Limits of Securitization: Micro-correlations, Fat Tails and Tail Dependence

Forest Carbon Economics: What We Know, What We Do Not, and Whether it Matters

Mercury and Air Toxics Standards Analysis Deconstructed: Changing Assumptions, Changing Results

Linking by Degrees: Incremental Alignment of Cap-and-Trade Markets

Aligning Carbon Markets: The Case of California and the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative

Incrementally aligning policies in distinct carbon markets?linking by degrees?can allow programs to experience immediate benefits of sharing best practices in program design. A team of experts from RFF and Yale have examined the details and prospects for the cap-and-trade programs in California and the Northeast in this new feature.

Strategically Placing Green Infrastructure: Cost-Effective Land Conservation in the Floodplain

Does oil and gas drilling cause earthquakes?

Invitation to a Dialogue: Action on the Climate

A Carbon Tax Is the Best Approach

Shale gas development impacts on surface water quality in Pennsylvania

First, Let?s Shift Incentives by Pricing Carbon

Looking Ahead to Inform Policy

Shale Gas: Twelve Pathways to Dialogue

Goings On

Population and Sustainability

How a Clean Energy Standard Works

Will Biotech Help Bring Back the American Chestnut?

Options for US Climate Policy

Ensuring Competitiveness under a US Carbon Tax

Taxing Carbon: Potential Deficit and Emissions Reductions

The Institutional Blind Spot in Environmental Economics

Inequality and Environmental Policy

The Limits to Ingenuity: Innovation as a Response to Ecological Loss

Inside RFF

Resources Magazine: 182

What Changes Energy Consumption, and for How Long? New Evidence from the 2001 Brazilian Electricity Crisis

Community Controlled Forests, Carbon Sequestration and REDD+: Some Evidence from Ethiopia

Thinking Like an Economist Within the Complex Climate Policy Regime

Building on recent work that highlights the need to account for institutions in crafting economic solutions to environmental problems, RFF scholars Matt Woerman and Dallas Burtraw look specifically to the implementation of climate policy?and how incentive-based thinking can help.

Pipe Dreams: Can China Extract it?s Shale Gas Reserves?

It?s Lose-Lose vs. Win-Win-Win-Win-Win

Experimental Departures from Self-Interest When Competing Partnerships Share Output

Size Matters (in Output-Sharing Groups): Voting to End the Tragedy ofthe Commons

The Controversy over US Coal and Natural Gas Exports

Press Release: Impacts of Shale Gas Development on Rivers and Streams

In a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team of RFF researchers analyzed more than 20,000 surface water quality observations to estimate the effects of shale gas development on downstream water quality.

Implementing REDD through Community-Based Forest Management: Lessons from Tanzania

Terrestrial Fluxes of Sediments and Nutrients to Pacific Coastal Waters and Their Effects on Coastal Carbon Storage Rates

New study on Pa. gas drilling and waterways finds modest impacts from erosion, some chemicals

Analytical hydrologic models and the design of policy instruments for groundwater-quality management

Assessing the energy-efficiency information gap: results from a survey of home energy auditors

Economic Ideas for a Complex Climate Policy Regime

Mapping Adaptation Opportunities and Activities in an Interactive Atlas

Cost-effectiveness and Economic Incidence of a Clean Energy Standard

Water Resources Planning under Climate Change: A ?Real Options? Application to Investment Planning in the Blue Nile

Agricultural Biotechnology and the Environment

Video is now available for RFF?s recent seminar ?Agricultural Biotechnology and the Environment: Perspectives on the Next 10 Years,? part of the Resources 2020 series. Hear panelists discuss the widespread use of genetically modified (GM) crops and the regulatory debate over the labeling of GM foods.

New Research Paper Calls for Elimination of Fossil Fuel Subsidies

Obama settles on EPA, Energy Department nominees: source

Regulating Greenhouse Gases from Coal Power Plants under the Clean Air Act

Giant Pandas at Risk from New Chinese Forestry Policies

Policy Insights for Narrowing the Energy Efficiency Gap

A new RFF discussion paper explores the ?energy efficiency gap? and what it means for policy by bringing in the latest insights from behavioral economics.

RFF: Experts generally agree on shale gas development risks

What the Experts Say about the Environmental Risks of Shale Gas Development

A new RFF report highlights a high degree of consensus among experts from government, industry, academia, and nongovernmental organizations about the key risks associated with shale gas production and development.

?Bobby Jindal wants to swap Louisiana?s income tax with a sales tax. Good luck with that.

US carbon emissions fall to lowest levels since 1994

Valuing Climate Amenities in the United States

The value of climate amenities to households may have significant implications for estimates of the costs of climate change. A new RFF discussion paper examines the possibilities in the United States.

Evaluating Approaches for Financing State Parks

In new research, RFF?s Margaret Walls finds that financially struggling state park systems are in need of a fresh approach?but that there is no ?one size fits all.?

The Past, Present, and Future of Carbon Markets

New research explores lessons learned to date from carbon markets around the world and presents new issues to be examined in the future, such as the linking of existing markets.

Answering Questions about a Carbon Tax: How New Natural Gas Supplies Impact the Electricity Sector

Resources magazine: This infographic illustrates the potential revenue of a carbon tax and looks at the role natural gas plays in electricity generation.

Too much, or not enough?

Costs and Carbon Dioxide

A sweltering planet?s agenda

Will Natural Gas Vehicles Be in Our Future?

Resources magazine: RFF Senior Fellow Alan Krupnick considers whether natural gas in the transportation sector will extend beyond heavy-duty vehicles in the United States.

Should We Tax People For Being Annoying?

Policy Options for Encouraging Home Energy Efficiency Improvements

New research by RFF?s Margaret Walls identifies the tradeoffs associated with choosing among loans, subsidies, and standards as policies to encourage energy efficiency improvements in homes.

Managing Water through Innovative Collaboration

Resources magazine: RFF Visiting Scholar Lynn Scarlett explains how network governance can address cross-jurisdictional water management issues in the United States.

Utilities benefit in state carbon market

Using Transferable Development Rights to Control Land Use

RFF?s Margaret Walls describes the virtues, and the pitfalls, of market-based programs for land conservation and discusses the lessons learned from three decades of a Maryland program.

High-Speed Rail Passions

Resources magazine: Will California?s proposed train system linking San Francisco and Los Angeles set the course for high-speed rail development across the country? RFF Senior Fellow Joel Darmstadter investigates.

Resources 2020 with Thomas C. Schelling

Video now available for "Geoengineering: Time for Some Gentle Experimentation" with Thomas C. Schelling, 2005 Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences.

How Do California's Fracking Regulations Compare to Other States'?

Clean Air Regulations and the Electricity Sector

Resources magazine: RFF experts weigh the potential effects of historic air pollution regulations compared to those of cheap natural gas and falling demand on electricity prices and the generation mix.

How much can the EPA cut carbon? It depends on the courts.

The Coming US Carbon Market: Planning for Ex Post Analysis

RFF experts have developed several background memos on cap-and-trade and carbon tax systems to provide informative overviews and highlight current work, available data, and potential research limitations.

US envoy's cutting remark on C02 emissions fails to add up

Updated: NPCA Names Former Bush Administration Interior Official To Board Of Trustees

Does Speculation Drive Oil Prices?

Resources magazine: Research on the forces behind the 2004?2008 dramatic spike in oil price challenges the common perception that excessive speculation in the futures market is to blame.

US Energy Policy: A Changing Landscape

As Congress gears up to overhaul the tax code, RFF President Phil Sharp examines developments reshaping today?s energy markets and assesses whether federal incentives are cost-effectively achieving the intended results.

Protecting Coastal Environments to Cut Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Preventing the release of ?blue carbon? stored in mangroves, sea grasses, and salt marshes may be an effective way to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the air. A new RFF report details the possibilities.

Carbon tax could be part of eventual tax reform package

Bipartisan steps urged on climate change policy

Have Questions About a Carbon Tax?

You can find answers at RFF's carbon tax FAQs, developed by the Center for Climate and Electricity Policy.

Resources 2020 with Kenneth J. Arrow

1972 Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences Kenneth J. Arrow delivered the second in a series of lectures celebrating RFF's 60th anniversary. Archived video of the event is now available.

Viewpoints: State?s well-designed cap-and-trade plan will defy cynics

With ?fiscal cliff? looming, carbon tax getting closer look

The carbon tax

Does Eco-Certification Pay? Costa Rica?s Blue Flag Program

RFF Senior Fellow Allen Blackman and his colleagues present some of the first evidence that eco-certification programs in developing countries can have positive impacts for both the economy and environment.

Fracking can hurt property values of nearby homes with wells, study suggests

Using gas to generate electricity will mitigate emissions

Putting the 'Sustainable' in Sustainable Energy Future

Should the federal government subsidize natural gas 18-wheelers?

The Hidden Costs of Power: Health Effects of Coal Electricity Generation in India

Resources magazine: Emissions of particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen oxides from coal-fired power plants are costing Indians their lives. How stringently should these pollutants be regulated, and what form should regulations take?

Bloomberg endorses Obama over climate change. Does Obama deserve it?

Forest Tenure Reform in China

Resources magazine: To boost domestic forest production and correct rural?urban income disparity, China is putting forest management rights into the hands of its citizens.

Beyond CO2: The Other Agents of Influence

Resources magazine: Cutting emissions of soot and methane?two short-term contributors to climate change?would slow warming while improving human health and food security.

How would a Romney EPA shape shale's future?

US Status on Climate Change Mitigation

The United States is on course to achieve greenhouse gas emissions reductions of 16.3 percent from 2005 levels in 2020?despite a lack of comprehensive climate legislation. RFF Senior Fellow Dallas Burtraw and coauthor Matthew Woerman examine the factors contributing to this outcome.

Cap-and-Trade Failure Aided U.S. to Cut Carbon Emissions

Is U.S. climate policy better off without cap-and-trade?

Managing Rural Water Systems: Keys to Success

Resources magzine: A study of village drinking water associations in Costa Rica reveals why some communities are effective at providing safe drinking water, while others fail.

U.S. May Come Close to 2020 Greenhouse Gas Emission Target

Carbon dioxide emissions are falling in the U.S.

Want a more substantive Obama-Romney debate on energy and climate? Read this.

Connecting Environmental Economics and Policy in Developing Countries

Resources magazine: Environment for Development (EfD) initiative Director Gunnar K?hlin talks about EfD?s achievements as it marks its fifth year and its goals for more policy-relevant environmental economics research in developing countries.

Eco-certification in Developing Countries: Truth in Advertising?

Resources magazine: RFF Senior Fellow Allen Blackman documents the surprising lack of hard evidence that eco-certification benefits the environment and describes some of the first rigorous studies showing that it can.

Tax Incentives for Developing Sewage Treatment Capacity in China

RFF?s Anthony Liu and coauthor Junjie Zhang examine the uneven development of sewage treatment plants throughout China and explore the relationship between tax incentives and investments in such infrastructure.

Resources 2020 with Joseph E. Stiglitz

2001 Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences Joseph E. Stiglitz delivered the first in a series of lectures celebrating RFF's 60th anniversary. Archived video of the event is now available.

Obama, Romney reps debate energy and climate policy

The other side of the fracking fight

China may soon stop handing out cheap solar panels for everyone

Safety of shale gas wells up to states ? and ?the cement job?

Why Environmental Policy Rarely Follows Economic Advice

RFF?s Dallas Burtraw explains that economic approaches to environmental policy need to consider the complex interactions of federal, state, and local governance institutions to be fully effective.

Drillers in Ohio face tight regulations, relaxed taxes

An Interview with Sheila Olmstead on Hydraulic Fracturing With YCELP Fellow Bruce Ho

Voluntary Brownfields Certification Programs and Property Values

Many studies of brownfields highlight the benefits of cleanup to the site itself. RFF Fellow Joshua Linn looks at the effects of voluntary certification programs on neighboring property values.

US Energy Subsidies: Effects on Energy Markets and Carbon Dioxide Emissions

RFF researchers look at how federal energy-related spending programs and tax provisions impacted US emissions of carbon dioxide between 2005 and 2009, finding a change toward reductions in emissions over that time period.

Modeling ?Leapfrog? Development in American Exurbia

Two RFF discussion papers examine residential development in exurban areas of the United States, highlighting the uncertain outcomes of zoning codes.

Blue Carbon: A Potentially Winning Climate Strategy

Protecting coastal mangrove forests may be a highly competitive, cost-effective approach for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, according to a recent study by experts from RFF and the University of California, Davis.

The True Cost of Electric Power

In a new RFF report, Senior Fellows Dallas Burtraw and Alan Krupnick take a close look at the options for fully measuring the cost of electric power, including costs to society from pollution and the associated health and environmental impacts.

RFF Releases Review of Shale Gas Regulations by State

A team of RFF experts examined regulations and surveyed regulators in 31 states with current or near-future shale gas development. More than 20 types of regulation are presented in a series of maps, showing regulatory patterns nationwide.

Climate Change & Developing Countries Considerations for Rio+20

Resources magazine: Can an international solution to climate change respect the economic aspirations of developing countries? RFF University Fellow Thomas Sterner argues that it must.

Tax Reform: Impact on U.S. Energy Policy

RFF President Phil Sharp recently appeared before the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance. The full written testimony is now available online.

The Challenge for Rio+20: Funding

Resources magazine: Edward Barbier argues that without new financing mechanisms, little progress can be made toward combating global warming, environmental degradation, and poverty at Rio+20.