On the Issues: Public Lands for Sale?, Environmental Nonprofit “Watchdogs,” and More

Maya Krainc, Matt Fleck, and Elizabeth Wason

Twice a month, we’re compiling the most relevant news stories from diverse sources online, connecting the latest environmental and energy economics research to global current events, real-time public discourse, and policy decisions. Keep reading, and feel free to send us your feedback.

Here are some questions we’re asking and addressing with our research chops this week:

What is the legality and feasibility of selling public lands to continue funding tax cuts and develop new housing?

Congress is moving forward with a massive legislative package through a process known as budget reconciliation (which allows legislative proposals to become law with support from a simple majority in the Senate). Under consideration in this reconciliation process—which could help raise revenue for the federal budget and support a continuation of tax cuts enacted in 2017—is the proposed sale of federal public lands to private developers. But questions remain about the legality and feasibility of selling public lands, the implications of these sales for public land access, and whether developing public lands would meaningfully address issues of housing affordability, as some advocates claim. Resources for the Future (RFF) scholars Margaret Walls and Alexandra Thompson explore these concerns in the latest installment of RFF’s If/Then policy analysis series: “Using land sales to pay for the 2017 tax cuts is a slippery slope, in our view, raising the possibility of future irreversible changes to our public land estate.”

What approaches are used by environmental nonprofit organizations to help enforce compliance with environmental laws?

The Center for Biological Diversity is suing the Trump administration for failing to provide information about the potential rollbacks of environmental policies, as connected to an executive order aimed at boosting domestic fossil fuel production. The lawsuit demands transparency about the effects of the executive order on the environment and human health, citing harm against the org’s ability to protect the environment. The lawsuit is one of several filed against the Trump administration by organizations in the environmental nonprofit sector. Litigation is one of various approaches that environmental organizations take to safeguard the environment and push public and private actors toward compliance with environmental laws and regulations. Laura Grant, an associate professor at Claremont McKenna College, joined Resources Radio last week to discuss these approaches and their demonstrated influence. “There are case studies where you can see a direct link between one or more environmental organizations and a policy outcome,” says Grant.

Can school districts offset the costs of electric school buses through a new type of program offered by some utility companies?

While overall air quality in the United States has improved since the passage of major environmental regulations in the 1970s, many Americans still face harmful levels of air pollution. To address one source of this pollution—exhaust from diesel-powered school buses—school districts across the country are transitioning to electric school buses. However, electric school bus fleets can cost school districts millions of dollars. Vehicle-to-grid (V2G) programs, which allow electric buses to store electricity and then reinject it into the grid in exchange for payments from utilities, may offer a source of revenue to help offset the high price tag of electric school buses. RFF Fellows Beia Spiller and Suzanne Russo, along with World Resources Institute coauthor Michelle Levinson, evaluate the benefits and limitations of V2G programs for school districts in a new blog post, emphasizing that profitability depends on local contexts and program design. “Districts should approach invitations to participate [in V2G programs] with the mindset, ‘Trust, but verify,’” say the researchers.

Expert Perspectives

Executive Order Requires 10 Regulations to Be Rolled Back for Every New Regulation That’s Put in Place

President Donald Trump signed an executive order in late January that requires 10 regulations to be repealed for every new regulation that is enacted. The executive order also states that the net costs of any new regulation, combined with the repealed regulations, must be “significantly less than zero.” The previous Trump administration required that two regulations be repealed for every new regulation.

“The 10-to-1 trade-off is directed to be made only in terms of costs (or the cost savings of repeal),” says RFF Senior Fellow Alan Krupnick, who has written about this strategy of repealing regulations during the current and previous Trump administrations. “The benefits of the regulations (or the forgone benefits of repeal) are not to be counted, so the net effects of the regulations (or their repeal) do not figure into calculations nor decisions about which regulations to cut, keep, or add. Counting only costs is like having a scissors with only one blade: pretty useless for accurate cutting, but great for gouging. If substantial numbers of established policies are repealed without accounting for lost benefits, then there’s no guarantee that the country will be better off than it was when the regulations were in place.”

In Focus: Why Electricity Costs Are Increasing

RFF Fellow Jesse Buchsbaum discusses the causes behind rising electricity costs—and how those costs are passed on to consumers—in a recent In Focus video. Buchsbaum highlights the necessity of affordable and reliable electricity for households in the United States, and how the costs of upgrading electricity infrastructure can be distributed in such a way that vulnerable communities aren’t unfairly burdened by high prices.

Resources Roundup

US Public Opinion on Climate Change and Related Issues Mostly Remains Split

Agreement that climate change is happening and caused by human activity increasingly has become a partisan issue in the United States, along with support for wind and solar energy. Brian Kennedy, a senior researcher at the Pew Research Center, discusses similar findings from a recent survey of public opinion on climate issues—and patches of common ground—on this week’s episode of Resources Radio. “Broadly, what you see … is a shared concern about economic factors [related to climate and energy policies] among Republicans and Democrats, but differences in opinions in terms of how to use energy policy to keep prices low and improve job growth,” says Kennedy.

Areas of the American West with High Wildfire Risk Have Fast-Growing Job Markets

Wildfires are becoming increasingly frequent and intense in the United States, particularly in the West. Yet regions of the West that are the most prone to wildfire also are seeing disproportionately high job growth. In a recent report, RFF scholars Emily Joiner, Margaret Walls, and Matthew Wibbenmeyer discuss this trend, the six vulnerable regions with especially high rates of job growth, and the kinds of jobs that are most affected by wildfire risk. “Hazard mitigation and resilience planning isn’t something that can just apply to residential communities, but is also something that business and industry needs to be concerned about, too,” says Joiner in an interview with the Mountain News West Bureau. “It is up to policymakers to ensure that economic development and resilience policies are aligned so that new growth occurs in the safest locations,” says Walls in the press release for the report.

Examining Energy Storage on the US Electric Grid

Energy storage that is connected to the electric grid is becoming increasingly important as more electricity gets generated from renewable sources that provide variable amounts of energy throughout a day. When the supply of electricity from these sources exceeds demand, that surplus electricity can be stored and then provided to the grid later on. In a recent report, RFF scholars Molly Robertson and Karen Palmer and coauthor Omid Mirzapour provide an overview of factors that affect and potentially support the development of energy storage in the United States. “Economics, public policies, and market rules each play a role in making certain regions hospitable to storage investment,” the authors say. “Policies and market rules may over- or under-incentivize investment in energy storage and affect the fundamental economics of the technology.”

A Potential Cap-and-Trade System for Multiple Pollutants

In recent years, researchers have found that the total damages to human health from cumulative pollutants in a given area can be greater than the sum of individual damages from those pollutants. In a new working paper, RFF Gilbert F. White Fellow Justin Kakeu devises a policy option that would enable the regulation of multiple pollutants within a single, market-based framework—a cap-and-trade system, which historically has been used to reduce emissions of a single pollutant instead of multiple pollutants. “Traditional single-pollutant markets often overlook [interactions between pollutants], leading to inefficiencies and unintended consequences,” says Kakeu. “The multipollutant framework addresses this issue by designing permits that account for the combined effects of pollutants, ensuring that policies are both effective and equitable.”

🎨 Climate in the Culture 🎵

Washington, DC, will host its first climate week starting this Sunday, and continuing through May 2. The nation’s capital will join a growing list of US cities that host annual climate-themed weeks of programming, including New York City, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. “Every city should build a climate week to highlight their community’s unique commitment, attributes, and opportunities that make climate action possible,” according to the organizers in DC. Events range from tours and talks with local entrepreneurs to panel discussions about clean energy technologies and large-scale environmental problems. Given that DC is a hub for policymakers, foundations, trade organizations, and think tanks, expect scheduled and impromptu climate happy hours to abound with wonks, acronyms, entrepreneurs fishing for capital, and big ideas.

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