Court rules on U.S. Greenhouse Gas Regulation

Concepts in Greenhouse Gas Regulation

Political influences on greenhouse gas emissions from US states.

Starting at least in the 1970s, empirical work suggested that demographic (population) and economic (affluence) forces are the key drivers of anthropogenic stress on the environment. We evaluate the extent to which politics attenuates the effects of economic and demographic factors on environmental outcomes by examining variation in CO2 emissions across US states and within states over time. We...

A Proximate Mirror: Greenhouse Gas Rules and Strategic Behavior under the US Clean Air Act

The development of climate policy in the United States mirrors international developments, with efforts to initiate a coordinated approach giving way to jurisdictions separately taking actions. The centerpiece of US policy is regulation in the electricity sector that identifies a carbon emissions rate standard (intensity standard) for each state but leaves to states the design of policies, incl...

Greenhouse Gas Regulation in the United States

The effects of local pollution regulation on greenhouse gas emissions

In most countries, environmental regulation has focused on local pollution, which causes damages near the emission source, while national regulation on greenhouse gases (GHG) has been slow. In this paper, we ask whether US local air pollution regulations have had an effect on GHG emissions. On the one hand, a firm required to lower emissions of local pollutants might respond by adopting technol...