Browsing by Author "Profeta, Timothy"

Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
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    Climate Change Is Here, but Who Is Paying for It?
    (2020-06-24) Mulderrig, Conor; Profeta, Timothy; Thompson, Elizabeth
    In an era of increased political polarization and decreased confidence in national institutions, many bold initiatives have stalled or met an untimely end. This abdication of federal responsibility is no more evident than the ongoing response to COVID-19. Strategic response to the pandemic has largely shifted from the White House to governors’ mansions. A renewed era of federalism is beginning to take shape, and it is important to consider potential ramifications in other pressing areas—specifically climate change. State and local governments have advanced their own initiatives on climate change when faced with a failure of federal leadership. States have launched climate strategies to combat this growing threat both individually and in coalition. However, in order to mitigate and develop resiliency to climate change, much more needs to be done. This analysis will look at one aspect of the challenge: understanding costs. Resource management for states with ever-thin operational budgets is already logistically daunting without the massive investment in preventative measures needed to meaningfully combat climate change. Where do they start? Do states across the board have the technical capacity to understand what impacts they have already been facing? The resounding answer at this current moment is no.
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    Federal Grants to States: Opportunities for Climate Change Assessment, Planning, Programs, and Information Exchange
    (2020-06-24) Profeta, Timothy; Symons, Jeremy
    The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the critical relationship between the federal and state governments’ response to nationwide crisis. More than anything else, the ability of state leaders to respond ably and nimbly to the specific challenges of their jurisdictions has come to the fore and probably reoriented the federal/state relationship for years to come. The lessons we learn from the mobilization in response to the COVID disaster should be applied as we prepare for another disaster that is putting increasing demands on state and federal resources: climate change. With states and the federal government all having essential roles to fulfill in the response to national disasters, an effective federal-state partnership should be at the heart of a nationwide climate strategy. This partnership should have many components. In this policy brief, we focus on one critical component that can and should be moved on quickly as part of any federal program to address climate change: the expansion of federal/state grant programs that support state governments in climate change assessment, planning, programs, and information exchange. This conversation is particularly apt as the nation considers what types of public investment will help spur the economy into recovery from impact of the COVID pandemic.
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    Federal-State Partnerships: Tackling Climate through Infrastructure
    (2021-09-22) Profeta, Timothy; Tegen, Suzanne
    From January–July 2021, The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions (NI) and the Center for the New Energy Economy (CNEE) conducted a series of conversations with state leaders and have identified several specific policy priority areas relevant to infrastructure proposals. These policy areas and approaches have been repeatedly highlighted by state leaders contacted by NI and CNEE. This report highlights either emerging areas for states or cross-cutting needs that were consistently cited by states as important. This is not a list of state priorities for programmatic funding—such as how much funding should go to specific public investments—but areas that states seek to prioritize in partnership with the federal government. These areas consisted of: • Climate Resilient Infrastructure Investments • Building a Federal Navigator Service • Just Transitions for Coal Communities • Climate Capitalization • Environmental Justice Community Investment
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    Revisiting the NAAQS Program for Regulating Greenhouse Gas Emissions under the Clean Air Act
    (2017-01-05) Reichert, Christina; Litz, Franz; Monast, Jonas; Profeta, Timothy; Adair, Sarah
    The future is uncertain for the regulation of greenhouse gases from power plants, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Clean Power Plan, which covers existing plants. The rule is under review in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, and the Supreme Court has indicated its interest in hearing the case. Moreover, during his presidential campaign, president-elect Donald Trump promised to “scrap” the Clean Power Plan. If the rule is overturned or is severely weakened, whether through litigation or executive action, stakeholders are likely to litigate to seek to force the EPA to use other authorities under the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. This working paper examines the opportunities and challenges associated with regulation of greenhouse gases under the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) program, drawing a comparison with the Clean Power Plan’s approach under a different section of the Clean Air Act. The paper offers no opinion on the Clean Power Plan litigation, nor does it advocate for the Clean Power Plan or the NAAQS approach. Its focus is on understanding how the NAAQS program might incorporate greenhouse gases in in the event that the EPA pursues that approach.
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    Testimony Before the Subcommittee on Environment & Climate Change of the U.S. House Committee on Energy & Commerce
    (2019-12-11) Profeta, Timothy
    Nicholas Institute Executive Director Tim Profeta testifies before the Subcommittee on Environment & Climate Change of the U.S. House Committee on Energy & Commerce to suggest the best means by which to achieve economy-wide solutions to climate change. The central point of his testimony is that Congress should strongly consider a model that has been successfully proven through our nation’s history: the federal/state partnership.
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    Using the Old to Solve the New—Creating a Federal/State Partnership to Fight Climate Change
    (2019-10-17) Profeta, Timothy
    Climate change is a challenge like none other. Its impacts are occurring at a global scale, and any policy solution must take effect at an equivalent scale. Yet the politics of the issue push in precisely the reverse direction, as large efforts fail due to the challenges of collective action across governments and the comprehensive reach of the cost of the policies.  The United States might be the best illustration of this challenge. As the world’s second largest current emitter, and the largest historic emitter, the United States’ footprint is significant, and domestic action is essential to solve the problem. Yet all efforts to legislate a federal solution to the problem have failed.  This policy brief proposes that there may be another way to solve this riddle. Instead of attempting to settle all concerns about a program’s costs and impacts at the federal level, simply let Congress determine the level of ambition needed to achieve our climate goals. And then use the state governments, which are more in touch with the equitable tradeoffs of their populations and directly accountable to their communities, to execute plans to reach those goals.  This may be the best approach to achieve fast and significant climate action and put cooperation and solutions ahead of partisanship and bickering. Our network of state governments has provided politically acceptable solutions to a number of societal problems through our country’s history, and perhaps it is time to embrace their role in the climate fight fully. Such a federal/state partnership, in fact, should sound familiar to scholars of environmental law—it underlies nearly every other successful effort at environmental legislation. For the reasons described below, it may be the best bet to find success legislating on our most dire and pressing environmental challenge—climate change.