In July the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, chaired by Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), will discuss a carbon tax bill that would impose a fee on fossil fuel producers at the source, rather than on emissions from power plants. The bill, sponsored by Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), “would return 60 percent of those revenues to residents to help offset costlier energy.”

RFF’s Rob Williams, Richard Morgenstern, Jared Carbone, and Dallas Burtraw have developed a new model to examine the implications of such a bill, exploring how the economy, the environment, and consumers will be affected by a carbon tax under a variety of scenarios, such as providing consumer rebates from the revenue. On Wednesday, June 26, they will explain the results from the model, which is the only model of its kind to look at distributional impacts across current and future generations of people. Register here to attend in the seminar in person or watch online at www.rff.org/live.

via common-resources.org

I'll post a screen shot next week to prove that I'm "working" during the summer. 

*From one of the best all time economic movies: Being there.

The National Park Service closed Ramp 43 in Buxton this morning to protect a nest of piping plover chicks that has started hatching.

As of late this afternoon, three chicks in the four-egg nest had hatched, according to Randy Swilling, the Park Service’s natural resource program manager.

Ramps 44 and 45 are already closed to ORVs, so effectively now there is no ORV access from Ramp 38 south of Avon to Ramp 49 in south Frisco. ...

Some business owners in Buxton are especially unhappy with the latest ramp closure, since all of Buxton is now inaccessible to ORVs at a time when fishing at Ramp 43 has been good.

“It is no longer a national seashore but a gated, closed beach being patrolled by armed guards…,” Bob Eakes, owner of the Red Drum tackle shop in Buxton, said in an e-mail today.

via www.islandfreepress.org

Here is a previous post with an estimate of the cost of closing the point at Cape Hatteras. Buxton is north of Cape Hatteras and is a less popular fishing spot so the cost would be lower, unless its closure is in addition to closing the point. 

*Are piping plover chicks called a clutch?

Photo Credit: John Whitehead

Photo Credit: Lynne Lewis

• Larry Goulder
• John Loomis
• Robert Pindyck

Congratulations!

Here is the AERE Fellows webpage.

Right on, we couldn't get out of the garage. I had to take down the bags, pull the car out and tie them back up there. 

This sort of thing happens to me almost daily. 

A Senate panel will begin consideration of a carbon tax bill as part of a broader hearing on climate change in mid-July.

Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) told reporters in the Capitol on Thursday that Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) climate bill will surface during that hearing.

Boxer has said she wants to get the legislation to the floor this summer. But it faces a tough path in the Senate, and is likely dead on arrival in the GOP-controlled House.

While liberal Democrats have revived previously moribund climate change discourse in recent months, Republicans and centrist Democrats have their heels dug in against measures that would hike the cost of fossil fuel energy. ...

The legislation would impose a carbon fee on the some of the nation’s largest fossil fuel producers at point of production, rather than emissions. The former affects drillers and importers, while the latter hits power plants.

The fees would raise $1.2 trillion through the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Sanders' bill would return 60 percent of those revenues to residents to help offset costlier energy.

The idea of a carbon tax has gained steam in policy circles as a way to boost revenues while slashing greenhouse gas emissions, but it has little traction on Capitol Hill.

Aside from the congressional gridlock on the issue, the White House has said that it won't pursue a carbon tax.

via thehill.com

If we can get enough letters from the average Joe and Josephine, not the fat cats who donate to political campaigns, then maybe, just maybe, the U.S. might decide to seriously consider climate change with a little carbon pricing.

Or not. But a guy can still dream. 

The problem with policing steroids is that the crime pays too handsomely and the conviction amounts to a carrying charge.

Suspending a big-league ballplayer for 50 or even 100 games for using performance-enhancing drugs is like sticking a parking ticket on Al Capone’s getaway car. It is more of a nuisance than a noose, and it’s about as effective a deterrent as a wrist slap with a spaghetti strand.

Simply stated, the money’s too big and the sanctions are too small. Three months after San Francisco’s Melky Cabrera began serving a 50-game suspension last season for admitted use of a banned substance, the Toronto Blue Jays signed the outlaw outfielder to a two-year contract worth $16 million.

How many ballplayers — indeed, how many Average Joes — would gladly accept the risk of detection, the damage to one’s reputation and a few months of unpaid vacation for the potential reward of life-changing dollars? How many of us could turn down that much temptation if the price of being caught consisted of inconvenience and ignominy but not incarceration?

via www.courier-journal.com

Maybe the goal of Major League Baseball is not to eliminate steroids, but to achieve the optimal amount ... plenty of home runs but not so much that fans think the sport is dirty? After all, chicks dig the long ball.

After going 3-0 in pool play and earning the 5th overall seed for single-elimination bracket play, we found ourselves in a pitcher's duel against the 28th seed in a win-or-go-home elimination game.  Tied 1-1 after the regulation 6 innings, we stayed tied until the bottom of the 8th.  With a runner on third, 2 outs and 2 strikes on the batter, I'm coaching third, I manned up and signaled our runner for a straight steal of home. Worst case, the pitch is strike 3 and we go on to play the 9th, best case, we catch everyone off-guard and win the game and save arms. 

When the lefty on the mound came set, my runner took off for home.  No one saw it coming...not the pitcher, not my assistant coaches, not the batter, not the opposing coaches, not the catcher, and most importantly not the umpire.  Our runner gets to the plate just as the pitch gets there.  Luckily our batter didn't swing (he might've taken the runners head off).  The catcher dove forward to try to make the tag, but was late.  Umpire looked down the line at me for a second with a 'What the hell just happened?' look on his face, then looked back down and signalled SAFE.  Game over.  We advance.  I'm pretty sure my celebration included a girly squeal.

The other team argued that the pitch was strike three and the inning should be over.  The umpire claimed that my runner beat the pitch to the plate so the pitch was irrelevant (run scored before the pitch).  Really I think in the confusion he forgot to look at the pitch. 

We ended up losing our next game 3-2 (another 8 inning thriller that we lost on a bad fair/foul call down the third base line--in my opinion of course).  Knocked out in the round of 16, we finished somewhere between 9th and 16th.  Based on the tie-breaker rules they use (runs allowed, run differential,...) we officially finished 10th place in the state of Ohio. 

I'm ready for the bigs.

Attorneys for Exxon Mobil Corp. and Exxon Pipeline Co. have filed a motion asking for dismissal of a lawsuit by Mayflower residents over a recent oil spill.

ExxonMobil Pipeline's Pegasus pipeline ruptured March 29 and spilled thousands of barrels of oil in the town about 25 miles northwest of Little Rock and forced the evacuation of about 20 homes.

A lawsuit by Kathryn Jane Roachell Chunn and Ellen Burgess asks for unspecified damages because of diminished value to their property and nuisance.

The motion to dismiss filed Thursday in federal court in Little Rock says the oil did not contact the women's properties and therefore they cannot claim diminished value or nuisance.

The motion also asks that the lawsuit be dismissed with prejudice — meaning it could not be refiled.

via news.yahoo.com

Basic hedonic real estate valuation tells you that the value of your house is a function of the house amenities combined with neighborhood amenities, or more likely, the perception of those amenities. If someone released information that your neighbor's house was build on an old cemetery, I'm pretty sure that the value of your house would be diminished. Similarly, if you found out that a river of crude oil ran through your neighborhood, it might affect your property value..even if it didn't 'contact' your property.

*By forgive, I mean I no longer avoid Exxon gas stations.

Last week, the Department of Energy announced a little-noticed update to its energy-efficiency standards for microwaves, requiring newer models to use less power in stand-by mode.

But there was a surprise buried in the fine print: The agency is now using a higher figure for the “social cost of carbon” in calculating the benefits of the rule. Instead of assuming that the harm caused by carbon-dioxide emissions comes to $22 per ton in 2013, regulators are now using a figure of about $36 per ton....

This was a scheduled update, and you can read the reasoning in this newly released memo (pdf) from the Office of Management and Budget, dated May 2013. And essentially, the government is now incorporating newer climate models that capture the future damage from sea-level rise more explicitly. Those models also project that agriculture will suffer more heavily in a hotter world. 

So, in its central estimate, the federal government now assumes a ton of carbon-dioxide emitted in 2013 does roughly $36 in damage, rather than its previous estimate of $22, with the value rising each year:

Again, as the chart shows, a lot depends on what “social discount rate” you use to value future generations — the central value is considered to be 3 percent. ...

A larger value for the social cost of carbon basically means that any efficiency standard or air-pollution regulation that reduces carbon-dioxide emissions will have higher benefits assigned to it. That could, in theory, make it easier for stricter standards to pass a cost-benefit analysis test....

We got an early glimpse of this with the Energy Department’s microwave rule. Under the old social cost of carbon, the microwave standards had an estimated $4.2 billion in benefits over the next 30 years. Under the new carbon numbers, the microwave rule has an estimated $4.6 billion in benefits.

Other stuff will cost you more too, but the benefits will outweigh the costs.

Hat tip: Common Resources

One of my wife's students will begin Harvard this fall. He plans to major in economics so he wrote to her and asked if I had suggestions for "Ways to learn material, books to read, important classes to take?" Here's what I sent her to send to him, for anybody who might find it useful. ...

via www.newmarksdoor.com

In short:

1. Intermediate Micro
2. Econometrics
3. Math
4. Research
5. Write

But, books to read? How about the ones assigned by your instructors? If you read those you should have plenty to do. Have some fun with the remainder of your time.

I was told a number of years ago that Harvard Kennedy School professor Rob Stavins is always very careful to point out to his students that a job created is a cost, not a direct benefit. (Of course, the benefits to the company of hiring another worker may outweigh this cost, but that doesn't make the cost not exist.) It shouldn't be surprising, then, that many of the so-called "job creators" in our society aren't so down with that label unless it's politically convenient.

Recently, entrepreneur Nick Hanauer got the chance to essentially say as much to the U.S. Senate. A few points in the remarks are worth noting ...

DOT quietly pulled [charging stations for plug-in electric cars at four interstate highway rest stops in Johnston and Alamance counties] out of the ground and trucked them to a warehouse. In their place today are four blue signs memorializing the end Feb. 28 of an “EV charging station pilot project.” ...

The 240-volt car chargers, built like little gas pumps, were provided with a federal grant routed through the state Commerce Department’s Green Business Fund. The idea was to offer a bit of security for the first Americans who buy Nissan Leafs and other electric-only cars, and Chevy Volts and other plug-in hybrids that also have gas tanks. ...

The average user plugged in for 47 minutes, according to DOT records, and there was no charge for the charge. ...

This effort by the Democratic administration of then-Gov. Bev Perdue was not popular with the Republican leaders of the General Assembly. With Democratic support, they passed a law in June 2012 directing DOT to make plug-in drivers pay for the electricity they consume at highway rest stops.

DOT officials could not figure out a way to do that. Vending machines are the only exception allowed under a federal law that bars sales at North Carolina’s interstate rest stops. So the charging stations were removed before the 2012 law took effect in March. ...

But, but, but ... I don't understand. The NC Legislature passed a law to requir that the DOT charge for electricity at rest stops but could not find some way around a federal law that only allowed vending machines to make money at rest stops? The only way this makes sense is if the evil vending machine companies are behind this. Maybe if you spend $1 on electricity you won't have enough money for an Royal Crown cola AND a moon pie? And we continue:

They were not heavily used. In 14 months, only 146 vehicles plugged into the four chargers, most of them at the twin Alamance County stops flanking I-85. The other two were on I-40 near Benson.

These 146 cars sucked up 446.9 kilowatt-hours of electricity. They soaked North Carolina taxpayers for a grand total of $44.69.

Lee doesn’t have the final tally, but he confirms that DOT spent more than that to make those pilot-project signs and install them.

Yes, that sounds outrageous ... the signs costing more than the electricity. But can you imagine how much it would have cost the taxpayers in perpetuity? We don't have to imagine ... assuming no change in usage or electricity prices:

1. $44.69/14 = $3.19 per month
2. $3.19 x 12 = $38.30 per year
3. $38.30/.03 = $1277 in perpetuity (where r = .03 is the social discount rate)

If you don't like my assumptions, apply some sort of growth assumption and do a sensitivity analysis around electricity prices. I'm tempted to do it but it would require too much work to make the non-point. This would not be a problem if the NC Legislature just figured out a way to allow the DOT to charge for the charge. 

1. Price the external effects of driving--like emissions, congestion, road use/maintenance...
2. Raise revenue for other government programs

Sometimes these two objectives conflict.  For example, by pricing the external effects of driving, a gas tax makes driving more expensive and leads drivers to seek alternative ways to reduce the cost of driving.  Some will seek alternative means of transportation (mass transit, bike), while others will seek more fuel efficient vehicles.  Regardless, one result (one might say goal) of a gas tax is less driving and that means potentially less tax revenue.  So objective 1) above might conflict with objective 2). 

Here's some evidence...

North Carolina is joining a growing number of states raising fees for hybrid and electric car owners to make up for revenue those drivers aren't paying in gas taxes on their fuel-efficient vehicles.

The proposal strikes many owners of alternative-fuel vehicles and some advocacy groups as a wrong-headed approach to balancing energy independence with paying for infrastructure.

But policymakers and some experts argue taxing hybrid and electric vehicle owners is a matter of making sure all drivers help maintain the roads they use and construct new ones.

Experts widely blame dwindling gas-tax revenues on improving fuel efficiency. That's considered an environmental and national security win, but poses issues for infrastructure funding.

I just let Typepad know that the comment situation is unacceptable. They need to allow me to approve commenters by IP so this doesn't happen, fix it themselves, or I am going to have to switch to a new blog provider. I can't take this much longer.

For now, if you are thinkig of starting a blog, I'd recommend something other than Typepad.

via economistsview.typepad.com

We use Typepad, is anyone having any comments problems here? We don't get many comments, maybe the reason is because Typepad won't let you ... or that we are always right.

We are pleased to inform you that the Scientific Programme of the 20th Annual Conference of the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists is now accessible online at http://www.webmeets.com/EAERE/2013/Prog/.

We also invite you to visit the Conference website at http://www.eaere2013.org, where information on keynote speakers, the venue, transportation, social programme, registration, accommodation, and much more is available.