Richard L. Revesz’s Posts

• Fighting the full court press

  Cost-benefit analysis can help environmentalists battle offshore drilling 2

  Posted 1 year, 3 months ago

  In a time of fiscal crisis, environmentalists will have to make a strong case against the economic wisdom of offshore oil drilling to ensure that Congress does not pay dearly for its continued opposition.

• A tool in the toolbox

  Richard Revesz responds to Lisa Heinzerling, defending cost-benefit analysis 24

  Posted 1 year, 5 months ago

  This post continues a dialogue with professor Lisa Heinzerling: see Revesz's initial post and Heinzerling's response.

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  Cost-benefit analysis, correctly applied to many environmental problems, will show that strong environmental regulation is often economically efficient. Although some environmentalists, including Lisa Heinzerling in a recent post, have expressed reservations about the use of cost-benefit analysis to evaluate environmental rules, rejecting cost-benefit analysis instead of seeking to reform it would be a major strategic error for the environmental movement.

• Cost-benefit environmentalism

  The green community should mend, not work in vain to end, cost-benefit analysis 4

  Posted 1 year, 6 months ago

  Failing the cost-benefit test

  The R. Gallagher coal-fired power plant in Indiana emits over 50,000 tons of sulfur dioxide per year. Sulfur dioxide is a major component of particulate matter -- a form of pollution known to cause adverse cardiovascular and respiratory health effects. Sulfur dioxide also mixes with other pollution in the atmosphere to form acid rain. As a result of these adverse health effects, the Office of Management and Budget estimates that each ton of sulfur dioxide released into the atmosphere imposes $7,300 in costs on the American public. This means that the R. Gallagher facility imposes over… Read More

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