Updating the Cost of Carbon
The Office of Management and Budget recently released updated values of the social cost of carbon (SCC) and said that a new public comment process would be forthcoming. Revisions to the SCC have become a contentious topic, generating concerns about the US Environmental Protection Agency’s plans for carbon standards for power plants and questions from Republican leadership about agency transparency.
RFF’s Joel Darmstadter and Alan Krupnick noted that the complicated nature of SCC research and calculation means that “unanimous acceptance of such an estimated number is nearly impossible.” The authors conclude that the recent critique of the Interagency Working Group’s SCC estimation process is less substantive than meets the eye. Darmstadter also joined RFF’s Jan Mares in examining the global effects of an SCC value, highlighting a “distributive justice element” needed to help poorer countries adapt to energy policies.
Offshore Drilling Reforms
SNL Financial recently examined the inadequate number of safety reforms implemented by the Department of the Interior after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion. Since the incident, 25 recommendations have yet to be addressed. Safety experts noted that some of the reforms are complicated, including “establishing a system to track investigation recommendations to verify that they get implemented.”
In research done at the request of the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, RFF’s Art Fraas, Richard Morgenstern, and coauthors Lynn Scarlett and Timothy Murphy recommend how agencies that manage deepwater drilling can improve regulatory capacity and safety performance. They note the value of external review and recommend independent, third-party audits and peer review, which “should become formal, regular requirements of the agency’s oversight.”
