Integrating U.S. Climate, Energy, and Transportation Policies

In June 2008, the RAND Corporation convened three workshops on policies for mitigating climate change. These workshops brought together representatives of government, industry, advocacy groups, and the research community who hold different perspectives on what the goals of climate change mitigation policy should be and which strategies should be implemented to achieve them. The workshop series was made possible by a generous grant from the McCormick Foundation. Addressing the interconnection of climate change mitigation policy with the key sectors of energy and transportation will be major challenges for the United States in the coming years. The competing interests of these groups sometimes hamper progress on this front. Bringing them together enabled them to share different perspectives and to identify some common points of view on such issues as technological innovation; federal, state, and local roles; potential legislative and regulatory solutions; international cooperation; and public engagement. These RAND conference proceedings summarize key issues and discussion topics of the three workshops. This document is not intended to be a transcript of the discussions and does not quote any participants by name or affiliation. Rather, it organizes the key themes of the workshops by topic — in particular, pointing out areas of agreement as well as disagreement.