Utility-Administered Low-Income Programs in the Southeast

This report examines utility-administered low-income programs in the Southeast United States.

This landscape assessment, produced by the Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance, identifies clear trends and opportunities as the Southeast region moves forward in its pursuit of comprehensive energy efficiency offerings to serve low-income communities.…

Throwing Shade: 10 Sunny States Blocking Distributed Solar Development

In order to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, it’s clear that a rapid shift to a 100 percent renewable energy system is needed by mid-century – a move supported by leading climate scientists, industry experts, religious groups, justice organizations and environmentalists alike. Distributed solar energy plays a unique and critical role in creating a renewable energy future that stems climate change, promotes social justice and protects biodiversity, yet the expansion of this market in the United States relies in large part on state policies that determine whether solar panels are accessible and affordable. The 10 states with the …

Evaluating Behaviorally Motivated Policy: Experimental Evidence from the Lightbulb Market

This paper evaluates motivations in the lightbulb market using a theoretical model and two randomized experiments. Welfare effects are derived as functions of reduced-form sufficient statistics capturing economic and psychological parameters. These are estimated using a novel within-subject information disclosure experiment. Results suggest that moderate subsidies for energy-efficient light bulbs might increase welfare, although informational and attentional biases alone do not justify an incandescent light bulb ban. The paper provides broader methodological insights into welfare analysis with mis-optimizing consumers.…

The True Value of BP’s $18.7 Billion Settlement

On July 2, the U.S. Department of Justice and BP—one of the world’s largest oil and gas companies—announced that they had come to terms on a historic $18.7 billion settlement over damages from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil disaster. By any metric, this is an enormous sum of cash; for example, it is more than the gross domestic product of 83 countries, according to the World Bank. U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced in a statement that, if ultimately approved, this restitution “would be the largest settlement with a single entity in American history”—appropriate considering that the spill was one …

EU ETS Myth Busting: Why it Can’t be Reformed and Shouldn’t be Replicated

To reduce emissions at source by the required amount, real changes in terms of EU consumption, production and infrastructure are needed, which will require making difficult political decisions to be made. The EU ETS was set up in order to allow the ‘market’ to produce this change, but with so many vested interests at stake and structural loopholes, it is doomed to fail. What the EU needs is an open, science-and-justice-based debate about the climate actions we need, and the policies that will make them work. At a time when the trading model is being pushed into other areas of …

Old Story, New Threat: Fracking and the Global Land Grab

This paper explains what is fracking, why and where it is happening today, who is promoting it and how; providing a map of the global boom of fracking, its web of actors as well as the state of popular resistance. Promoted as a more sustainable energy source than other fossil fuels, fracking is spreading worldwide through a state-capital alliance that is capturing control of huge land and water resources at the expense of ordinary people. Fracking is an expression of the water and land grabbing agenda already underpinning expanding corporate takeover of natural resources. In addition to further intensifying and …

Stopping the Runaway Train: The Case for Privatizing Amtrak

When Congress created Amtrak in 1970, passenger-rail advocates hoped that it would become an efficient and attractive mode of travel. More than 40 years of Amtrak operations have disappointed them, as Amtrak has become the highest-cost mode of intercity travel and remains an insignificant player in the nation’s transportation system. Nationally, average Amtrak fares are more than twice as much, per passenger mile, as airfares. Despite these high fares, per-passenger-mile subsidies to Amtrak are nearly nine times as much as subsidies to airlines, and more than 20 times as much as subsidies to driving. When fares and subsidies are combined, …

Domestic Action on Aviation Carbon: Using the Clean Air Act to Cut Aviation Emissions and Create an Alternative to the European Union Emissions Trading System

International aviation generates more than 3 percent of total global greenhouse gas emissions per year. This amount is relatively small but growing quickly, with worldwide aviation emissions projected to increase 300 percent to 700 percent by 2050. Until recently the sector faced no limits on these emissions. But starting this year, 2012, the European Union began regulating emissions from all flights to and from EU airports. Crucially, the European Union law covers both foreign and EU airlines and their emissions produced over their entire flight path, not just over EU airspace.

The new law, which is opposed by much of …

Clean Coal Technology: Environmental Solution or Greenwashing?

The purpose of this research is to contrast the marketing of clean coal technology with
the environmental justice issues of coal extraction in Appalachia that a cleaner burning process will not change. This study analyzes and explores the greenwashing connections that result from positioning the use of clean coal technologies as an environmental solution to the problems associated with our dependence on coal as an energy source.  The following question is addressed:

Q1: Is “clean coal” possible or is the promotion and marketing of such technologies a form of greenwashing with environmental justice consequences for rural communities?…

The Legal Option: Suing the United States in International Forums for Global Warming Emissions

The George W. Bush Administration’s refusal to deal seriously with the problem of global warming, perhaps the  greatest environmental problem of our time, requires that the international community think seriously about alternative  ways of inducing or even compelling the United States to meet its global responsibilities. One strategy being  considered is litigation. There are a variety of forms that global warming litigation could take. Plaintiffs harmed by  global warming could bring actions in U.S. federal courts against the American government. Alternatively, such  plaintiffs could sue key American corporations whose conduct has a disproportionate impact on global warming inside  U.S. or …