The White House's newly announced Climate Action Plan draws upon a range of existing legal tools, including energy efficiency standards, the federal government's purchasing power, and the authority given to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act. The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions has a body of research focusing on cost-effective options for using the Clean Air Act to protect public health and encourage deployment of innovative technologies. This includes a new paper on how potential regulatory tools under the Clean Air Act, beyond greenhouse gas rules, could accelerate deployment of technologies to reduce emissions. 

A new paper by the Nicholas Institute and the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy outlines some of the key considerations likely to arise if energy efficiency is included as an option in forthcoming EPA rules regulating carbon dioxide from existing fossil fuel-fired power plants. It also shares examples where the EPA incorporated energy efficiency into Clean Air Act programs to highlight ways they may serve as a guide for developing the new rule.

The International Center for Climate Governance places the Nicholas Institute among the top 10 climate change economics and policy focused think tanks in its recent standardized global ranking. The ranking is the first by ICCG and is based on the integrity of the climate research of each institution and how effectively the research was used in addressing climate change policy in 2012. 

Brian Murray, director for economic analysis at the Nicholas Institute, recently presented at a California Air Resources Board workshop focused on preventing spikes in the state's cap-and-trade permit prices. Murray talked to ClimateWire following the presentation, about the design of California's allowance price containment reserve for its cap-and-trade system. 

A new journal article, co-authored by the Nicholas Institute's Ocean and Coastal Policy Program Director Linwood Pendleton, discusses the need for a new approach to better track and share long-term data on the economic damages from extreme weather and climate events among federal agencies and the private sector.

New analysis by a National Research Council Committee finds that not only do current federal tax provisions have minimal net effect on greenhouse gas emissions, but that several existing tax subsidies have unexpected effects, and others yield little reduction in greenhouse gas emissions per dollar of revenue loss. The Nicholas Institute's Brian Murray is among the members of the Committee charged with producing this analysis of the U.S. tax code's impact on greenhouse gas emissions.