Several recent studies have used simulation models to quantify the potential effects of recent environmental regulations on power plants, including the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS), one of the US Environmental Protection Agency’s most expensive regulations. These studies have...

The Clean Air Act has assumed the central role in US climate policy, directing the development of regulations governing greenhouse gas emissions from existing coal-fired power plants. This paper examines the operation of coal-fired generating units over 25 years to estimate the marginal costs...

In 2009, President Obama pledged that, by 2020, the United States would achieve reductions in greenhouse gas emissions of 17 percent from 2005 levels. With the failure of Congress to adopt comprehensive climate legislation in 2010, the feasibility of the pledge was put in doubt. However, we find...

Economic approaches are expected to achieve environmental goals at less cost than traditional regulations, but they have yet to find widespread application. One reason is the way these tools interact with existing institutions. The federalist nature of governmental authority assigns to...

This paper examines the choice between revenue-raising and non-revenue-raising instruments for environmental protection in a second-best setting with pre-existing factor taxes. We find that interactions with pre-existing taxes fundamentally influence the costs of regulation and seriously...

The animal husbandry industry is a major emitter of methane, which is an important greenhouse gas. The industry is also a major emitter of ammonia, which is a precursor of fine particulate matter - arguably, the number-one environment-related public health threat facing the nation. We present an...

The Clean Power Plan (CPP) is the centerpiece of the US efforts to reduce carbon emissions, introducing regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants for the first time on a national basis. These regulations may interact with existing initiatives, for example, in California,...

Carbon policies introduce potentially uneven cost burdens. Anticipating these outcomes is important for policymakers seeking to achieve an equitable outcome and can be politically important as well. This paper describes the details of a microsimulation model that utilizes the price and quantity...

It appears inevitable, absent legislative intervention, that regulation under the Clean Air Act (CAA) will move beyond mobile sources to the industrial and power facilities that emit most U.S. greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. We analyze the mechanisms available to the EPA for regulating such...

The Clean Power Plan is expected to play an important role in reducing US greenhouse gas emissions. On February 9, 2016, responding to appeals from the affected industries and states, the Supreme Court issued a “stay” suspending implementation of the Clean Power Plan until after the judicial...