Publications

Nitric acid plants emit dangerous air pollutants that cause illness and alter the climate. This report finds EPA long overdue on a regulatory revision and at risk of allowing major costs to be imposed on the American public.

Up to 259 lives could be saved every year if certain large buildings in New York City stopped burning dirty heating oil. Using newly available data, a reworked analysis finds that residual oil has even greater consequences than estimated in an earlier report.

The CLEAR Act, sponsored in the Senate by Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Susan Collins (R-ME), would place a price on carbon, auction 100% of the pollution permits, and refund most of the revenue back to consumers. This brief found that pricing carbon would spur investment and innovation in new energy technologies, giving a substantial boost to industries like manufacturing and construction—both hit hard in the recent financial crisis. Relatively well-paying jobs would be generated in these sectors, helping to mop up the slack created by the recession.

In about 9,000 big apartment and commercial buildings in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx, boilers burn a dirty fuel to heat their units. “Residual Risks” analyses the health, environmental, and economic benefits of switching away from this dirty fuel to cleaner alternatives like natural gas.

No More Excuses: The Economic Case for Coal Ash Regulation is a brief but careful analysis which reveals several compelling findings on the regulation of the toxic by-product of coal combustion. In broad strokes, it is clear that the benefits of regulating coal ash storage facilities would far outweigh the costs. The benefits of a regulation requiring coal ash to be stored in dry conditions and in synthetically-lined, covered facilities could save tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars per storage facility.