In this edition:
- New research on the legal and economic cases for federal coal carbon pricing
- Analysis on the effects of policy options to reduce traffic congestion and pollution
NOTE: Registration is still open for Wednesday’s seminar on the future of Arctic oil development, hosted by RFF and the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. Learn more.
Charging for Coal’s Carbon
Last week a New York Times op-ed called for the federal government to account for carbon emissions in the price of coal: “The federal government should also take into account the economic consequences of burning coal … [and] the added costs associated with the impacts of greenhouse gas emissions.”
New research from RFF’s Alan Krupnick, Joel Darmstadter, Nathan Richardson (of the University of South Carolina School of Law), and Katrina McLaughlin explains why “federal coal seems like a logical target for launching a carbon pricing policy.” They argue that the Bureau of Land Management “does have the statutory authority and regulatory ability to increase royalty payments on new coal leases to account for externalities related to CO2 emissions.” However, they caution that while the legal case for such a fee seems strong, the economic case “appears noticeably weaker.”
Paris Driving Restrictions
Paris—which “regularly ranks among Europe’s most air-polluted cities”—enforced temporary driving restrictions last week in an effort to reduce high levels of smog. The city’s persistently poor air quality has spurred debate over the need for more permanent policy solutions, including the possible use of a congestion charge to “reduce circulation and raise revenue.”
In new research, RFF’s Zhongmin Wang and co-authors examine the distributional consequences of congestion pricing schemes, focusing on a proposal in Beijing. The paper notes that congestion charges have been traditionally viewed as “less fair to low-income drivers … than a rationing system.” However, the research “suggests that the equity of congestion pricing is greater when the policy is used by developing rather than developed countries.”
