Managing Space Launch Risk
The launch of the SpaceX rocket is another step toward private companies starting to play a major role in future space exploration. To date, the U.S. launch industry has a perfect safety record in protecting the public in the path of such flights. In regulating the industry, Congress has assigned responsibility to companies for a portion of public damages if any were to result, with the federal government covering additional damages. RFF experts Tim Brennan, Carolyn Kousky, and Molly Macauley offer approaches to balancing the shared risk between the public and private sectors.
Cost-Benefit Analysis in Regulation Review
MIT’s Michael Greenstone recently praised a new executive order that requires the government to review existing regulations to compare the costs of implementation with the actual benefits achieved. Cost-benefit analysis has played a larger role in analysis of government regulations over the past two decades, and not without controversy.
RFF Senior Fellows Winston Harrington and Dick Morgenstern, along with former EPA official Lisa Heinzerling, edited a 2009 report examining the role that cost-benefit analysis currently plays in conducting regulatory impact analysis, including surrounding controversies and avenues for improving its use in the regulatory process.
Carbon Product Labeling
The New York Times recently looked at some of the challenges of green labeling, noting that “it’s difficult to judge what ‘environmentally friendly’ really means.” In a recent discussion paper, RFF University Fellow Mark Cohen and co-author Michael Vandenbergh investigate carbon footprint labeling programs for consumer products. They find that while carbon labels could help consumers make informed choices, the labels would require third-party verification and globally accepted uniform methodologies to accurately capture the actual emissions associated with products.
