[BETA] Fortnightly

Since Obama won reelection, we must ask whether we’d rather have EPA cracking down on carbon emissions, or whether a legislated framework would be better for everyone.

Renewable portfolio standards and other green energy rules put a price on environmental benefits. Calculating this price can help clarify the social value of GHG reductions.

With a flurry of major new environmental regulations, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is altering the power generation landscape. But will the new federal rules survive court challenges—to say nothing of next year’s national elections? Fortnightly's Michael T. Burr considers the controversy over new environmental standards. PLUS: Top Utility Lawyers of 2011.

Carbon-reduction policies are being designed and implemented across the country. One common feature of these regulatory programs is a carbon cap-and-trade system—i.e., a carbon emissions market.

Despite political challenges, the EPA and Congress have made strides toward a more coherent and integrated approach to regulating air emissions. The time is right to reach consensus on a multi-pollutant strategy.

As Congress mulls omnibus climate-change legislation, questions are arising about the potential for greenhouse gas emissions markets to be manipulated. Current legislation attempts to address the problem, but only a streamlined oversight regime can hope to prevent emissions-trading abuses.

Seven CEOs—from Exelon, Great Plains Energy, National Grid, NRG Energy, Duke Energy, FPL Group, Great River Energy—explain how global warming is affecting their customers, shareholders, and employees.

Despite assertions to the contrary, the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme is working. Industry has changed both short-term behavior and longer-term plans to reduce compliance costs—the driving down of greenhouse-gas emissions being the intended and achieved result. In this article, we review examples of the ETS affecting both planned and actual behavior. The other side of the coin is how regulatory and political uncertainty undermines this.

Utilities need to begin planning for U.S.-wide emissions restrictions that will be more effective than state efforts. Such restrictions are no longer a matter of “if,” but “when.”