Skip to page content

Environmental Legislation

Global Climate Change
commentary
How Voters Can Assess New Climate Plans
Robert J. Lempert @RobertLempert
Nov 14, 2019
GreenBiz.com
While the U.S. government has announced its intention to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement, most presidential candidates and many states have proposed climate plans of their own. How might voters determine if any of these plans can seriously address climate change?
Read More »

Global Climate Change
commentary
When It Comes to Climate, Look for Vulnerabilities in Policy, Not Science
Benjamin Lee Preston @bl_preston, Nicholas Burger, Marjory S. Blumenthal @marjorysb, Robert J. Lempert @RobertLempert, Debra Knopman
Aug 4, 2017
The Hill
Federal policymakers have picked up on the concept of red teaming — actively seeking out one's own vulnerabilities. While red teaming may not make sense for climate science, it does offer great benefits when weighing climate policy options.
Read More »
Environmental Regulation
commentary
Impact on the Environment from President Trump's First 100 Days
Debra Knopman
May 4, 2017
BBC
President Trump's actions have not yet resulted in demonstrable change in environmental conditions or funding. But the groundwork is being laid to unwind major regulations and diminish staff at the EPA and other federal agencies with climate-related research in their portfolios.
Read More »
Global Climate Change
commentary
With Trump in the White House, States Could Step Up on Climate Change
Robert J. Lempert @RobertLempert, Debra Knopman
Nov 26, 2016
Fox News Channel
The new administration has expressed skepticism about climate change. But states may choose to pursue their own climate change initiatives.
Read More »
Robust Decision Making
commentary
Paris Gets the (Decision) Science Right
Steven W. Popper
Dec 18, 2015
The RAND Blog
The framework for the Paris negotiations is in sync with what science tells us about how to make effective public policy decisions. This alone makes them historic and may provide a model for both local and global action on more than climate alone.
Read More »
Global Climate Change
commentary
COP21: Ambition and Momentum
Robert J. Lempert @RobertLempert, Debra Knopman, Jordan R. Fischbach
Dec 17, 2015
The RAND Blog
Negotiators in Paris achieved a historic breakthrough by adopting a fundamentally different, and likely more effective, institutional framework to address climate change. It builds on two concepts missing from past attempts to forge a global treaty: voluntary participation and adaptive policymaking.
Read More »
Global Climate Change
commentary
COP 21 Not a Silver Bullet on Climate Change
Robert J. Lempert @RobertLempert
Nov 24, 2015
The RAND Blog
The Paris climate conference cannot provide the engine that will drive a solution to the world's climate change challenge. Rather, it can best serve as a mediator that will help guide and structure the swirling, bottom-up process of radical change that is the best hope of preserving Earth's climate.
Read More »
Global Climate Change
commentary
Adapting to a Hotter World
Evan D. Peet, Jaime Madrigano @JMadrigano
Oct 2, 2015
U.S. News & World Report
Because climate change is largely irreversible, mitigation alone won't solve the problem. While mitigation will prevent even greater, future climatic changes, adaptation — efforts to adjust to climate change's effects — will prepare the world for a new set of living conditions, whatever they may be.
Read More »
Nuclear Energy
commentary
Breaking Down Nuclear Waste as a Two-Part Issue
Tom LaTourrette, Debra Knopman
May 5, 2015
Las Vegas Sun
The U.S. Department of Energy is now planning separate repositories for commercial waste and the waste from the military's nuclear weapons production instead of disposing of both in the same repository as originally intended. Decoupling different parts of the nuclear waste problem is a small but positive step forward.
Read More »
Global Climate Change
commentary
Removing Road Blocks to Climate Change Adaptation Planning
Melissa L. Finucane @MelissaFinucane, Regina A. Shih @ReginaShih
Oct 3, 2013
The RAND Blog
Despite increasing interest and investments in climate adaptation science, the implementation of adaptation plans through institutional policies or other actions designed to reduce health vulnerabilities has been slow. Institutionalized assumptions are an important roadblock.
Read More »
Nuclear Sciences
commentary
San Onofre Risk Factors
Tom LaTourrette
Jun 20, 2013
The Orange County Register
The ongoing effort to open a spent fuel repository in the U.S. demonstrates the magnitude of the technical and political challenges of such an undertaking, writes Tom LaTourrette.
Read More »
Environmental Legislation
commentary
Transitioning to a Carbon Tax Credit
Constantine Samaras
Feb 20, 2013
The Energy Collective
Instead of setting an arbitrary Production Tax Credit value, we could provide a tax credit based on the social value of clean electricity generation, writes Constantine Samaras.
Read More »