State Energy Efficiency
The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy has released its 2014 scorecard evaluating and ranking state energy efficiency, concluding that states saved a total of 24 million megawatt hours of power in the past year. The scorecard noted that states are “truly at the forefront of energy efficiency policy in the US,” with state investments in such programs increasing from $2.5 billion to $7.5 billion per year over the past 8 years.
Register now for an upcoming webinar co-hosted by RFF and the Electric Power Research Institute on the role of state-based energy efficiency in EPA’s proposed Clean Power Plan. This topic is also discussed in the fourth installment of RFF’s Expert Forum on the Clean Power Plan, where participants gauge options for states to improve energy efficiency.
Ending the Oil Export Ban
A new report by the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) suggests that ending the country’s ban on crude oil exports would lower consumer gas prices and support economic growth “with implications for employment, investment, public revenue, and trade.” The report, which was based on a review of studies pertaining to the ban, also noted that eliminating the ban would likely increase greenhouse gas emissions as well as the risk of spills during the transportation of crude.
RFF’s Alan Krupnick and Stephen Brown from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, comment on the GAO’s review of export ban studies—one of which was published by RFF—in a new blog post. They write: “The GAO study provides a service by carefully comparing the four studies … [then] goes beyond all of these studies by considering the implications of lifting the ban on exporting crude oil from the US strategic petroleum reserve (SPR). We agree that the SPR should be rethought.”
