If the “user pays” idea is worth saving, the United States needs a different calculation, writes Liisa Ecola. Some states are looking at mileage fees. With mileage fees, you pay based on the number of miles you drive, rather than the number of gallons of gas used.
Media and policy sources often cite natural resources as a primary driver of tensions in the South and East China Seas. In reality, the region’s hydrocarbon potential is moderate. Resource issues function primarily as focal points for more powerful underlying drivers of domestic political legitimacy, popular nationalism, and regional order.
A conservative, cost-efficient response to climate change involves sending price signals to people and businesses now so that they take steps to reduce emissions, writes Keith Crane.
As solar power remains more expensive than conventional sources of electricity in most parts of the world, demand for photovoltaic solar panels still primarily depends on government subsidies, says Keith Crane.
Even if the United States no longer imports oil from the Middle East, the United States will still be vulnerable to oil price shocks driven by developments in the Middle East, writes Keith Crane.
Energy expert Keith Crane discusses shifts in U.S. energy markets, their economic implications and effects on gasoline and electricity prices, and how these developments might affect climate change.
If policies aimed at large reductions of carbon dioxide emissions are enacted, more carbon capture and storage will be needed. RAND researchers explored the ability of the industrial base to support the expansion of carbon storage.
Instead of setting an arbitrary Production Tax Credit value for producers of renewable energy, we could provide a tax credit based on the social value of clean electricity generation, writes Constantine Samaras.
Further study, including primary data collection in regions where extraction is occurring, will be important to track the magnitude of emissions and to ensure that Pennsylvania's permit requirements are adequate to protect human health and the environment, writes Aimee Curtright.
The 2013 SOTU address will be remembered for its impassioned call for greater gun control just two months after Sandy Hook. But President Obama's second-term agenda can be characterized by its sheer breadth, reflecting the broad range of policy challenges facing the U.S. today.
RAND physical scientist Aimee Curtright describes RAND research that provides a first-order estimate of air emissions, and the monetary value of the associated damages, from the extraction of shale gas in Pennsylvania.
A federal government corporation and an independent government agency are the two most promising models for a new organization to manage and dispose of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste in the United States.
A federal government corporation and an independent government agency are the two most promising models for a new organization to manage and dispose of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste in the United States.
RAND researchers describe the attributes of potential organizational models and the steps needed to choose the form of a new organization charged with managing and disposing of commercial and defense high-level radioactive materials.
Producing natural gas from shale generates air pollutant emissions. RAND researchers provided a first-order estimate of air emissions, and the monetary value of the associated damages, from the extraction of shale gas in Pennsylvania.
Improving the security of the Gulf of Guinea's oil infrastructure would increase output and promote additional investment, to the benefit of oil importing nations. The U.S. Air Force has expertise that could help build local security capabilities.
Both candidates glossed over two issues: the myth that independence from imported oil will reduce gasoline prices and the policies that will be needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and temper climate change, writes Keith Crane.
The sanctions have imposed economic costs and have effectively signaled that not only the United States, but much of the rest of the world, see Iran's policies on nuclear enrichment as a serious potential threat to the region and the world, writes Keith Crane.
