Papers

Costly and economically inefficient command-and-control greenhouse gas regulations are firmly entrenched in law, and there is no plausible scenario in which they can be removed by conservative political force. Even were that not the case, the risks imposed by climate change are real, and a policy of ignoring those risks and hoping for the best is inconsistent with risk management practices conservatives embrace in other, non-climate contexts. Conservatives should embrace a carbon tax (a much less costly means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions) in return for elimination of EPA regulatory authority over greenhouse gas emissions, abolition of green energy subsidies and regulatory mandates, and offsetting tax cuts to provide for revenue neutrality. Arguments that unilateral action by the United States produces little climate benefit, that a carbon tax will expand the size of government, that a carbon tax is a regressive, that adaptation and geo-engineering is preferable to emissions constraint, that economists cannot confidently design a carbon tax that does more good than harm, that the legislative process cannot deliver a carbon tax worth embracing, and that promoting a carbon tax puts conservatives on a slippery political slope are explored and found wanting.

We study potential equilibria in California’s 2013-2020 cap-and- trade market for greenhouse gasses (GHGs) based on information available before the market started. We find large ex ante uncer- tainty in business-as-usual emissions, and in the abatement that might result from non-market policies, compared to the market- based variation that could plausibly result from changes in al- lowance prices within a politically acceptable range. This implies that the market price is very likely to be determined by an admin- istrative price floor or ceiling. Comparable analysis seems likely to reach similar conclusions in most cap-and-trade markets for GHGs, consistent with outcomes to date in such markets.

SUMMARY

Taking action to address climate change by reducing U.S. emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) is among President Obama’s major goals. At an international conference in Copenhagen in 2009, he committed the United States to reducing emissions of greenhouse gases 17% by 2020, as compared to 2005 levels. At the time, 85 other nations also committed to reductions.

Since U.S. GHG emissions peaked in 2007, a variety of factors—some economic, some the effect of government policies at all levels—have brought the United States more than halfway to reaching the 2020 goal. Getting the rest of the way would likely depend, to some degree, on continued GHG emission reductions from electric power plants, which are the largest source of U.S. emissions.

In June 2013, the President released a Climate Action Plan that addressed this and other climate issues. At the same time, he directed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to propose standards for “carbon pollution” (i.e., carbon dioxide, the principal GHG) from existing power plants by June 2014 and to finalize them in June 2015. Under the President’s timetable, by June 2016, states would be required to submit to EPA plans to implement the standards.

On June 2, 2014, EPA responded to the first of these directives by releasing the proposed standards.

The proposal relies on authority given EPA by Congress decades ago in Section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act (CAA). This section has been little used—the last use was in 1996—and never interpreted by the courts, so a number of questions have arisen regarding the extent of EPA’s authority and the mechanisms of implementation. EPA tends to refer to the regulations as “guideline documents”—although that term is not used in the statute—perhaps to indicate that the section is intended to give primary authority to the states. The proposed guideline document would set interim (2020s averages) and final (2030) emission rate goals for each state based on four “building blocks”—broad categories that describe different reduction measures; in general, however, the policies to be adopted to reach these goals would be determined by the states, not EPA.

EPA faced a number of issues in developing the proposed regulations:

• How large a reduction in emissions would it propose, and by when?

• What year would it choose as the base against which to measure progress?

• How flexible would it make the regulations? Would it adopt a “mass-based” limit on total emissions or a rate-based (e.g., pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt- hour of electricity) approach?

• What role might allowance systems play in meeting the goals?

• Will compliance be determined only by the actions of power companies (i.e., “inside the fence” actions) or will actions by energy consumers (“outside the fence”) be part of compliance strategies?

• Would states and power companies that have already reduced GHG emissions receive credit for doing so? What about states and power generators with high levels of emissions, perhaps due to heavy reliance on coal-fired power? Would they be required to reduce emissions more than others, less than others, or the same?

• What role would there be for existing programs at the state and regional levels, such as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), and for broader greenhouse gas reduction programs such as those implemented pursuant to California’s AB 32?

This report summarizes EPA’s proposal and answers many of these questions. In addition to discussing details of the proposed rule, the report addresses a number of questions regarding the reasons EPA is proposing this rule; EPA’s authority under Section 111 of the CAA; EPA’s previous experience using that authority; the steps the agency must take to finalize the proposed rule; and other background questions.

Electricity, supplied reliably and affordably, is foundational to the U.S. economy and is utterly indispensable to modern society. The National Academy of Engineering has called electrification the greatest engineering achievement of the 20th century (Constable and Somerville, 2003). Generating electricity also creates pollution, however, especially emissions of air pollutants. While the most severe and life-threatening pollution from electric power plants is largely a thing of the past in America, power plant emissions of particulates as well as oxides of nitrogen and sulfur (NOx and SOx) 1 still cause harms and contribute to increases in morbidity and mortality (Bell et al., 2008; Laden et al., 2006; Pope et al., 2009). Those harms include premature deaths, contributions to illnesses such as asthma, and increased hospitalizations, and electricity prices do not fully incorporate the costs of those harms (NRC, 2010b). Harms from greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions—to which the power sector is an important contributor, accounting for nearly 40 percent of all domestic emissions (EPA, 2016)— remain almost completely unpriced and thus above the level they would be if market prices reflected their full costs.

EXCERPT:

On June 2nd, the Obama Administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released its long-awaited proposed regulation to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from existing sources in the electricity-generating sector.  The regulatory (rule) proposal calls for cutting CO2 emissions from the power sector by 30 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.  This is potentially significant, because electricity generation is responsible for about 38 percent of U.S. CO2emissions (about 32 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions).

 

On June 18th, EPA published the proposed rule in the Federal Register, initiating a 120-day public comment period.  In my previous essay at this blog, I wrote about the fundamentals and the politics of this proposed rule (EPA’s Proposed Greenhouse Gas Regulation: Why are Conservatives Attacking its Market-Based Options?).  Today I take a look at the economics.

On the occasion of President Xi’s State Visit to Washington, D.C., the United States and China today marked another major milestone in their joint leadership in the fight against climate change with the release of a U.S.-China Joint Presidential Statement on Climate Change. The Statement, which builds on last November’s historic announcement by President Obama and President Xi of ambitious, respective post-2020 climate targets, describes a common vision for a new global climate agreement to be concluded in Paris this December. The Statement also includes significant domestic policy announcements and commitments to global climate finance, demonstrating the determination of both countries to act decisively to achieve the goals set last year.

Electricity prices that describe marginal costs can vary substantially over time. Fixed rates ignore changing electricity system conditions. Setting prices that differ for certain periods is an approach to approximating the real-time price. If such time-of-use prices are set in advance, they will necessarily miss the full variability of real real-time prices. A simple index indicates that even very good time-of-use rates would miss the majority of the efficiency gain that would result with use of actual real-time prices.

The Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT) has requested that ERCOT perform a back cast of an interim proposal that will approximate Real-Time co-optimization of energy and Ancillary Services (AS). This interim proposal has been described as the “Interim Solution B+” and is intended to be a more appropriate method of pricing scarcity during conditions of low operating reserves in Real-Time. This back cast approximates the pricing outcomes and estimates what the market impacts may have been if “Interim Solution B+” had been in place for the years 2011 and 2012. This analysis builds off of the previous “Interim Solution B” back cast that was filed by ERCOT on February 13, 2013.

Texas has a window of opportunity to complement its resource adequacy initiatives with an accelerated program to adopt an operating reserve demand curve. Suppressed prices in real-time markets provide inadequate incentives for both generation investment and active participation by demand bidding. An operating reserve demand curve developed from first principles would improve reliability, support adequate scarcity pricing, and be straightforward to implement within the framework of economic dispatch. This approach would be fully compatible with other market-oriented policies, the existing Texas “energy only” market design, and the proposed options for long-term resource adequacy.

Electricity markets support open access and non-discrimination to allow competition, entry, and innovation. Investment and operation in the competitive sectors follow the incentives induced by prices. To achieve the intended outcomes of reliability and economic efficiency, it is important to have efficient prices that are consistent with the objectives and operation of the underlying system. The basic design of successful organized electricity markets, built on the principles of bid-based, security-constrained economic dispatch, goes a long way towards meeting this objective. However, the real electricity system involves features that are difficult or impossible to fully reconcile within this core model. This calls for an application of the principles of dispatched-based pricing to move as far as possible to achieving the ideal of efficient pricing and minimizing the need for additional payments through uplift and other interventions to maintain reliability. The challenge is constantly present to match the prices to reflect the actual changing conditions of the dispatch. Motivated by issues under review in New England, a summary of the basic principles and illustrative applications provides examples of seeking the first-best efficient prices to mitigate the unintended consequences of second-best out-of-market payments.

Excerpt from the Executive Summary:

From March, 2009, to December, 2009, the Center for Energy Economics and Terra Group surveyed state and federal regulators, environmental leaders, industry representatives and other key stakeholders in the U.S. electric power transmission system. This survey updates an earlier study completed in 1996. At that time, few “non-traditional” stakeholders were interested in transmission projects.

This situation has changed significantly. At present, public discussion of high-voltage transmission has been subsumed within broader policy debates about reducing greenhouse gases, moving renewable energy over long distances and redesigning our nation’s overall electric system. New players – including national environmental groups, academics, Washington think tanks, trade associations and renewable power generators – now play a major role in shaping public debate about transmission siting and need.

The study is motivated by the question “what is the optimal tariff design?” While we do not offer an answer to this question, we use the different designs in four select countries to illuminate the issues involved in designing electricity network tariffs. Electricity networks are a resource shared by all network users. A tariff design that is clear to network users and well understood by them can help them make efficient decisions. A design that sets up conflicting or perverse incentives results in economic distortions. We find that there are a variety of choices and trade-offs while designing the electricity network tariffs for any electricity system. The tariff design must not only be influenced by the technical and economic characteristics of the system, but also the secondary policy objectives that policy makers wish to achieve, while allowing network companies to recover the costs of building and maintaining the network.

What's Next After Copenhagen? Interview with, and embedded video of, Dr William Hogan. INSEAD.The outcome of the Copenhagen climate conference may have disappointed some business leaders and may not be the ‘Global Deal’ that many, including the UK’s Carbon Trust, had been hoping for, but it is being touted as another small step forward in the long process towards reducing carbon emissions.

The science of global warming has reached a consensus on the high likelihood of substantial warming over the coming century. Nations have taken only limited steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions since the first agreement in Kyoto in 1997, and little progress was made at the Copenhagen meeting in December 2009. The present study examines alternative outcomes for emissions, climate change, and damages under different policy scenarios. It uses an updated version of the regional integrated model of climate and the economy (RICE model). Recent projections suggest that substantial future warming will occur if no abatement policies are implemented. The model also calculates the path of carbon prices necessary to keep the increase in global mean temperature to 2 °C or less in an efficient manner. The carbon price for 2010 associated with that goal is estimated to be $59 per ton (at 2005 prices), compared with an effective global average price today of around $5 per ton. However, it is unlikely that the Copenhagen temperature goal will be attained even if countries meet their ambitious stated objectives under the Copenhagen Accord.

Foremost among a number of legislative reforms imposed upon state utility and regulatory commissions in recent years have been sunshine laws. The intent of sunshine laws is laudable and the idea simple: the public's business ought to be conducted in the open for the public to observe. Decision making should be transparent, with a clearly articulated rationale available for all who seek it. Not only the decision, but its evolution and the decision makers' thought processes, should be fully revealed. Few backroom deals can withstand such scrutiny. Should the level of accountability vary for an appointed or elected public official? In theory, no, but that only addresses questions about the appearance of accountability and openness. Does such a requirement improve the quality of decision
making; or, more importantly, does it improve the quality of decision? There is a strong case that it does not?