RFF’s Fraas and Lutter on How Best to Assess Carbon-Reduction Benefits for Domestic Programs

WASHINGTON—Resources for the Future Visiting Fellows Arthur G. Fraas and Randall Lutter have written a new blog post asking, “Should the Federal Regulatory Agencies Report Benefits to Americans from Mandated Reductions in Greenhouse Gas Emissions?” In it, they take up whether to report separately domestic benefits when assessing carbon reduction regulations. Their analysis is presented in the context of the following announcement:

"We have submitted the following letter, co-authored with five well-known economists, to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine committee charged with assessing the social cost of carbon. Our letter recommends that analyses of federal climate change regulations use benefits estimates based on the domestic social costs of carbon, while reporting separately the estimates of global benefits. We have also published a related letter to the editor in Science and a column in Forbes on this topic."

Other joint authors of the letter are Susan Dudley, George Washington University; Ted Gayer, the Brookings Institution; John Graham, Indiana University; Jason F. Shogren, University of Wyoming; and W. Kip Viscusi, Vanderbilt Law School.

Before joining RFF, Fraas was a regulatory analyst and branch chief for the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).  Lutter has served as an economist at OIRA and as chief economist and deputy commissioner for policy at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Read their full blog, which prominently includes the letter to the National Academies committee.