Publications

Surface transportation market failures, including greenhouse gas emissions, local air pollution, traffic congestion, and traffic collisions, generate billions of dollars in economic harm every year. Guided by economic principles, this report outlines several options for reforming U.S. surface transportation that account for technological, institutional, and political realities. It also highlights the unequal burden of market failures in the transportation sector and discusses policy solutions that can help lead to more just outcomes.

The failure of the federal government to adequately safeguard the health, environment, and economy of the United States with efficient regulatory protections is not a new phenomenon. For over three years now, the Trump administration has systematically delayed, undermined, and erased key regulations that protect our health, our environment, our workplaces, our living conditions, and our economy. The steady erosion of regulatory safeguards has severely compromised our baseline defenses against Covid-19.

The Trump administration recently replaced the Obama administration’s strongest climate policy, the Clean Car Standards, with a significantly weaker rule. We explain how EPA and NHTSA, to justify the rollback, rely on an analytical gimmick that contravenes decades of agency practice across administrations as well as the principles of basic economics. 

The Trump administration regularly boasts about the cost savings of rolling back regulations, focusing on industry profits without considering significant negative impacts. This policy brief address and counters the administration's cost savings claims and demonstrates that they should not be taken at face value.

This issue brief summarizes EPA's enforcement and compliance policy in light of COVID-19, describing its significance and clarifying its contours. The policy opens the door to potentially problematic and harmful actions, especially on a short-term basis.