On the Issues: Tolls in New York City, Extreme Heat and Hospitals, and More

Matt Fleck, Mary Glavey, 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:

Who would have benefited from the recently canceled plan to reduce traffic congestion by tolling daytime drivers in New York City?

This month, Governor Kathy Hochul (D-NY) indefinitely suspended a plan to implement a toll on drivers entering New York City. Drivers would have been charged $15 to enter Lower Manhattan during the day, and revenue from the charges would have helped fund improvements to the city’s aging public transit system. The plan, known as congestion pricing, would have gone into effect on June 30; the suspension of the plan was unexpected. In a new blog post, Resources for the Future (RFF) scholars Joshua Linn and Nafisa Lohawala discuss the erstwhile plan, describing how detailed information about the benefits and costs of policies like this—and detailed information about who, exactly, benefits—could help make these policies more effective, equitable, and prone to public support. “Part of the problem is that the costs of congestion pricing are obvious to the drivers who pay the charges, but the benefits are more diffuse and depend crucially on how the revenue is spent,” say Linn and Lohawala.

How do rising temperatures and heat waves affect hospital systems and patient outcomes?

Mexico is recovering from a record-breaking heat wave that began in May and intensified over the following weeks due to a weather phenomenon known as a heat dome, which traps hot air over an area and causes extreme heat. More than 60 people have died from heat-related causes since Mexico’s hot season began in March, according to the nation’s health ministry. These high temperatures can strain the public health-care system in Mexico and elsewhere. Sandra Aguilar-Gomez, an assistant professor at the Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia, joined the Resources Radio podcast this week to discuss the effect of this strain on patient outcomes. “We see that there’s an increase in emergency-department visits and a linear increase in hospital visits as the temperature rises,” says Aguilar-Gomez. “What we find is that, as temperature rises, the emergency department is forced to send more people home and admit less people to the hospital.”

How can fisheries in the United States support the health of fish populations while helping fishers adapt to the sudden environmental shocks that are becoming more common due to climate change?

A record-low number of fish stocks were subject to overfishing in 2023. Of the 364 fish stocks that are tracked by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 21 were subject to overfishing, down from 24 stocks the previous year. Regulations that mitigate overfishing sometimes exist in tension with efforts to help fishers adapt to a changing environment, including the sudden, extreme weather events that are increasing in frequency and severity due to climate change. In a new blog post, RFF University Fellow James Sanchirico and coauthors discuss this tension and policies that can help fishers adapt to weather events such as heat waves without damaging the long-term value and sustainability of fish stocks. “If the history of fisheries management has been one of introducing limits, policymakers should ensure that purposefully relaxing those regulations will not undo the gains in conservation that have been accomplished to date,” they say in the blog post.

Call for Applications: New Critical Minerals Research Lab

Critical minerals, such as lithium and nickel, are crucial components of technologies that are instrumental in the clean energy transition. Accordingly, demand for these minerals is increasing, along with attention to policies that facilitate access to critical minerals. Yet the factors that affect the supply of and demand for critical minerals are complex. Absent a holistic understanding of the complexities, policies that address issues around critical minerals may be problematic and incomplete.

To support comprehensive policy research on critical minerals, the Critical Minerals Research Lab will bring together PhD candidates with diverse backgrounds and expertise to collaborate on interdisciplinary research about critical minerals and related policies. Students from across the country will hone their research questions and approaches and, in turn, will improve the policy recommendations that emerge from their work. The lab also will be a hub for information about grant opportunities, conferences, and ongoing policy discussions. Apply to join the Critical Minerals Research Lab.

Expert Perspectives

In Focus: Community Relocation Due to Climate Change

Meteorologists are predicting that the hurricane season in 2024 will be more active than the historical norm. With significant numbers of people and homes in the path of dangerous floods and other climate-driven disasters, how can decisionmakers work toward minimizing future harm? Carlos Martín, a university fellow at RFF and a director at the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, shares his thoughts on how to support communities that are especially vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. To learn more, watch our latest In Focus video and read a new report from the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies that names climate change as a driver of the US housing crisis.

Resources Roundup

Maximilian Auffhammer and Margaret Walls at the 2024 Association of Environmental and Resource Economists Conference.

Thoughts on the Economics Field from Three Environmental Economists

The Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (AERE) launched the AERE Fellows Program in 2005 to recognize individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the field of environmental and resource economics. This year’s three recipients of the AERE Fellows Award joined the Resources Radio podcast to discuss the evolution of environmental and resource economics and the state of the field today. “The young people are brilliant,” says John Whitehead, one of the recipients and a professor of economics at Appalachian State University. “They’re doing great work. It’s interesting, and we’re just learning a lot about how people respond to environmental insults or improvements in environmental quality and what that means for society.”

Improving Electricity Affordability in the Energy Transition

Many US households are struggling to afford their electricity bills, and utility companies are making significant investments in emissions reductions, which may end up increasing electricity rates for consumers in the short term. On June 26, experts will join RFF’s event series on environmental justice to explore the steps that regulators, legislators, utilities, and nonprofits can take to address electricity affordability. RFF’s Director of Government Affairs Brad Harris, who recently published a blog post on improving electricity affordability, will moderate the panel. RSVP to attend the event.

Evaluating the Impact of a New York Climate Law on Disadvantaged Communities

Disadvantaged communities in New York State bear a disproportionate burden of pollution from fossil fuel–fired power plants. Over the past three years, a partnership between RFF and the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance has researched policy options that New York State could adopt to reduce this burden. In a new issue brief, experts from RFF and the alliance explore policy options to improve the effectiveness of the state’s cap-trade-and-invest system at reducing emissions near disadvantaged communities. The cap-trade-and-invest system facilitates decarbonization by capping carbon dioxide emissions, requiring emitters to purchase allowances to emit, and investing in clean energy technology. “Overall, the greatest emissions benefits in our analysis were observed in the case where the electricity sector was obligated [i.e., included in the economy-wide cap-trade-and-invest system] and facility-specific caps were placed on power generators,” say the authors.

Community Responses to Flooding

Hurricane season has begun on the East Coast, bringing into the spotlight concerns about flooding and the resilience of communities to extreme weather. Each year, flooding costs the United States billions of dollars in economic damages, yet post-disaster recovery often is more expensive than pre-disaster preparation. A new working paper by researchers at RFF and the European Center for Risk and Resilience Studies finds that communities generally prepare insufficiently for floods, but these communities routinely take measures to build resilience in the aftermath of flooding disasters; for example, by enforcing stricter building codes or improving warning systems. “Preventing future flood damage can be costly, or change parts of a community, or pull attention away from other issues—challenges that can make flood mitigation controversial. But our research shows some of that controversy takes a back seat once a community has been affected by major flooding,” says Yanjun (Penny) Liao, a fellow at RFF and a coauthor of the paper.

#ChartOfTheWeek

Data: US Department of Agriculture. Chart: Deena Zaidi / Axios Visuals

The price of frozen orange juice concentrate in the United States hit an all-time high in April. That price in April, $4.28, is almost $2 higher than the cost of orange juice in January 2020. Diminutive orange harvests in recent years—particularly in Brazil and Florida, two of the world’s largest producers of oranges—have led to a reduced overall supply. While manufacturers of orange juice generally store concentrate from previous years to blend into new batches of juice, the smaller harvests in consecutive years have thinned these stores. Climate change has contributed to the thinner harvests. The result: higher prices for consumers.

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