Valuing Climate Damages
Valuing Climate Damages

Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2017-06-23

Total Pages: 281

ISBN-13: 0309454204

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The social cost of carbon (SC-CO2) is an economic metric intended to provide a comprehensive estimate of the net damages - that is, the monetized value of the net impacts, both negative and positive - from the global climate change that results from a small (1-metric ton) increase in carbon-dioxide (CO2) emissions. Under Executive Orders regarding regulatory impact analysis and as required by a court ruling, the U.S. government has since 2008 used estimates of the SC-CO2 in federal rulemakings to value the costs and benefits associated with changes in CO2 emissions. In 2010, the Interagency Working Group on the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases (IWG) developed a methodology for estimating the SC-CO2 across a range of assumptions about future socioeconomic and physical earth systems. Valuing Climate Changes examines potential approaches, along with their relative merits and challenges, for a comprehensive update to the current methodology. This publication also recommends near- and longer-term research priorities to ensure that the SC- CO2 estimates reflect the best available science.

WHO global air quality guidelines
WHO global air quality guidelines

Author: Weltgesundheitsorganisation

Publisher: World Health Organization

Published: 2021-09-07

Total Pages: 300

ISBN-13: 9240034226

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The main objective of these updated global guidelines is to offer health-based air quality guideline levels, expressed as long-term or short-term concentrations for six key air pollutants: PM2.5, PM10, ozone, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide and carbon monoxide. In addition, the guidelines provide interim targets to guide reduction efforts of these pollutants, as well as good practice statements for the management of certain types of PM (i.e., black carbon/elemental carbon, ultrafine particles, particles originating from sand and duststorms). These guidelines are not legally binding standards; however, they provide WHO Member States with an evidence-informed tool, which they can use to inform legislation and policy. Ultimately, the goal of these guidelines is to help reduce levels of air pollutants in order to decrease the enormous health burden resulting from the exposure to air pollution worldwide.

Air Quality Management in the United States
Air Quality Management in the United States

Author: National Research Council

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2004-08-30

Total Pages: 426

ISBN-13: 0309167868

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Managing the nation's air quality is a complex undertaking, involving tens of thousands of people in regulating thousands of pollution sources. The authors identify what has worked and what has not, and they offer wide-ranging recommendations for setting future priorities, making difficult choices, and increasing innovation. This new book explores how to better integrate scientific advances and new technologies into the air quality management system. The volume reviews the three-decade history of governmental efforts toward cleaner air, discussing how air quality standards are set and results measured, the design and implementation of control strategies, regulatory processes and procedures, special issues with mobile pollution sources, and more. The book looks at efforts to spur social and behavioral changes that affect air quality, the effectiveness of market-based instruments for air quality regulation, and many other aspects of the issue. Rich in technical detail, this book will be of interest to all those engaged in air quality management: scientists, engineers, industrial managers, law makers, regulators, health officials, clean-air advocates, and concerned citizens.

Estimating the Public Health Benefits of Proposed Air Pollution Regulations
Estimating the Public Health Benefits of Proposed Air Pollution Regulations

Author: National Research Council

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2002-11-30

Total Pages: 187

ISBN-13: 0309086094

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EPA estimates that thousands of premature deaths and cases of illnesses may be avoided by reducing air pollution. At the request of Congress, this report reviews the scientific basis of EPA's methods used in estimating the public health benefits from its air pollution regulations.

Reforming Regulatory Impact Analysis
Reforming Regulatory Impact Analysis

Author: Winston Harrington

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2010-09-30

Total Pages: 243

ISBN-13: 1136526331

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Over the past decades, considerable debate has emerged surrounding the use of cost-benefit analysis (CBA) to analyze and make recommendations for environmental and safety regulations. Critics argue that CBA forces values on unquantifiable factors, that it does not adequately measure benefits across generations, and that it is not adaptable in situations of uncertainty. Proponents, on the other hand, believe that a well-done CBA provides useful, albeit imperfect, information to policymakers precisely because of the standard metrics that are applied across the analysis. Largely absent from the debate have been practical questions about how the use of CBA could be improved. Relying on the assumption that CBA will remain an important component in the regulatory process, this new work from Resources for the Future brings together experts representing both sides of the debate to analyze the use of CBA in three key case studies: the Clean Air Interstate Rule, the Clean Air Mercury Rule, and the Cooling Water Intake Structure Rule (Phase II). Each of the case studies is accompanied by critiques from both an opponent and a proponent of CBA and includes consideration of complementary analyses that could have been employed. The work's editors - two CBA supporters and one critic - conclude the report by offering concrete recommendations for improving the use of CBA, focusing on five areas: technical quality of the analyses, relevance to the agency decision-making process, transparency of the analyses, treatment of new scientific findings, and balance in both the analyses and associated processes, including the treatment of distributional consequences.

Reviving Rationality
Reviving Rationality

Author: Michael A. Livermore

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2021-06-17

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 0197539467

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For decades, administrations of both political parties have used cost-benefit analysis to evaluate and improve federal policy in a variety of areas, including health and the environment. Today, this model is under grave threat. In Reviving Rationality, Michael Livermore and Richard Revesz explain how Donald Trump has destabilized the decades-long bipartisan consensus that federal agencies must base their decisions on evidence, expertise, and analysis. Administrative agencies are charged by law with protecting values like stable financial markets and clean air. Their decisions often have profound consequences, affecting everything from the safety of workplaces to access to the dream of home ownership. Under the Trump administration, agencies have been hampered in their ability to advance these missions by the conflicting ideological whims of a changing cast of political appointees and overwhelming pressure from well-connected interest groups. Inconvenient evidence has been ignored, experts have been sidelined, and analysis has been used to obscure facts, rather than inform the public. The results are grim: incoherent policy, social division, defeats in court, a demoralized federal workforce, and a loss of faith in government's ability to respond to pressing problems. This experiment in abandoning the norms of good governance has been a disaster. Reviving Rationality explains how and why our government has abandoned rationality in recent years, and why it is so important for future administrations to restore rigorous cost-benefit analysis if we are to return to a policymaking approach that effectively tackles the most pressing problems of our era.

Lessons from the Clean Air Act
Lessons from the Clean Air Act

Author: Ann Carlson

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2019-05-09

Total Pages: 263

ISBN-13: 1108421520

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Examines the successes and failures of the Clean Air Act in order to lay a foundation for future energy policy.

Controlled Human Inhalation-Exposure Studies at EPA
Controlled Human Inhalation-Exposure Studies at EPA

Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2017-04-10

Total Pages: 159

ISBN-13: 030945252X

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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has a mission and regulatory responsibility to protect human health and the environment. EPA's pursuit of that goal includes a variety of research activities involving human subjects, such as epidemiologic studies and surveys. Those research activities also involve studies of individuals who volunteer to be exposed to air pollutants intentionally in controlled laboratory settings so that measurements can be made of transient and reversible biomarker or physiologic responses to those exposures that can indicate pathways of toxicity and mechanisms of air-pollution responses. The results of those controlled human inhalation exposure (CHIE) studies, also referred to as human clinical studies or human challenge studies, are used to inform policy decisions and help establish or revise standards to protect public health and improve air quality. Controlled Human Inhalation-Exposure Studies at EPA addresses scientific issues and provides guidance on the conduct of CHIE studies. This report assesses the utility of CHIE studies to inform and reduce uncertainties in setting air-pollution standards to protect public health and assess whether continuation of such studies is warranted. It also evaluates the potential health risks to test subjects who participated in recent studies of air pollutants at EPA's clinical research facility.