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ObjectiveThe U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reports that the upper bound of benefits from removing mercury emissions by U.S. power plants after implementing its Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR) is $210 million per year. In contrast, Trasande et al. [Environ Health Perspect 113:590–596 (2005)] estimated that American power plants impose an economic cost of $1.3 billion due to mercury emissions. It is impossible to directly compare these two estimates for a number of reasons, but we are able to compare the assumptions used and how they affect the results.Data Sources and Data ExtractionWe use Trasande’s linear model with a cord/maternal blood ratio of 1.7 and calculate health effects to children whose mothers had blood mercury levels ≥ 4.84 μg/L.Data SynthesisWe introduce the assumptions that the U.S. EPA used in its Clean Air Mercury Rule (CAMR) analysis and discuss the implications. Using this approach, it is possible to illustrate why the U.S. EPA assumptions produce a lower estimate.ConclusionsThe introduction of all the U.S. EPA assumptions, except for those related to discounting, decreases the estimated monetized impact of global anthropogenic mercury emissions in the Trasande model by 81%. These assumptions also decrease the estimated impact of U.S. sources (including power plants) by almost 97%. When discounting is included, the U.S. EPA assumptions decrease Trasande’s monetized estimate of global impacts by 88% and the impact of U.S. power plants by 98%.

a b s t r a c tIn this paper, we evaluate the influence of two environmental policy levers on emissions in the metal-finishing industry: a voluntary program-the Strategic Goals Program (SGP)-and the threat of formal regulation. While voluntary approaches are increasingly utilized as policy tools, the effectiveness of such programs is often questioned, and the impact of a voluntary program in tandem with a regulatory threat is not well understood. We examine the decision to participate in the SGP and, conditional on that decision, determine the effects that the SGP and regulatory threat had on facility emissions behavior. Participation in the program appears related to several forms of external pressure: the regulatory threat, industry trade association membership, the level of environmental giving in a state, and a number of neighborhood characteristics. However, over the entire study period, participation in the SGP yielded little, if any, additional reductions in emissions, while the regulatory threat is correlated with significant emission reductions by both participants and non-participants. Splitting our study period into two time periods reveals a more nuanced relationship between SGP participation and emissions behavior than is evident over the entire study period. While participants do not appear to take advantage of the program initially, they make greater strides in reducing emissions than non-participants in later years. The split sample results also indicate that both participants and non-participants react strongly to the initial threat of regulation and to an increase in its relative stringency.

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Benefit-cost analysis can serve as an informative input into the policy-making process, but only to the degree it characterizes the major impacts of the regulation under consideration. Recently, the US, amongst other nations, has begun to use estimates of the social cost of CO 2 (SC-CO 2 ) to develop analyses that more fully capture the climate change impacts of GHG abatement. The SC-CO 2 represents the aggregate willingness to pay to avoid the damages associated with an additional tonne of CO 2 emissions. In comparison, the social costs of non-CO 2 GHGs have received little attention from researchers and policy analysts, despite their non-negligible climate impact. This article addresses this issue by developing a set of social cost estimates for two highly prevalent non-CO 2 GHGs, methane and nitrous oxide. By extending existing integrated assessment models, it is possible to develop a set of social cost estimates for these gases that are consistent with the SC-CO 2 estimates currently in use by the US federal government. Policy relevanceWithin the benefit-cost analyses that inform the design of major regulations, all Federal agencies within the US Government (USG) use a set of agreed upon SC-CO 2 estimates to value the impact of CO 2 emissions changes. However, the value of changes in non-CO 2 GHG emissions has not been included in USG policy analysis to date. This article addresses that omission by developing a set of social cost estimates for two highly prevalent non-CO 2 GHGs, methane and nitrous oxide. These new estimates are designed to be compatible with the USG SC-CO 2 estimates currently in use and may therefore be directly applied to value emissions changes for these non-CO 2 gases within the benefit-cost analyses used to evaluate future policies.

This study conducts a meta-analysis and benefit transfer of the value of water clarity in the Chesapeake Bay estuary to estimate the property value impacts of pollution reduction policies. Estimates of the value of water clarity are derived from separate hedonic property value analyses of 14 counties bordering the Bay. The meta-analysis allows us to: 1) estimate the average effect of water clarity in the Chesapeake Bay, 2) investigate heterogeneity of effects across counties based on socioeconomic and ecological factors, 3) evaluate different measures of water clarity used in the original hedonic equations, and 4) transfer the values to Bayfront counties in nearby jurisdictions to estimate the property value impacts of the Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL), a policy to reduce nutrient and sediment pollution entering the Bay that is expected to improve water clarity and ecological health. We also investigate the in-sample and out-of-sample predictive power of different transfer strategies and find that a simpler unit value transfer can outperform more complex function transfers. We estimate that aggregate near-waterfront property values could increase by roughly $400 million to $700 million in response to water clarity improvements from the TMDL.