8:30 am - 12:30 pm
Hyatt Regency Hotel
San Francisco, CA

Video available below

Political leaders in California, Washington, and the international arena are grappling with tough policy choices to cut greenhouse gas emissions. In no place are the rules yet settled. These choices can have major impacts on the U.S. economy and especially on its energy markets.

In all three arenas, RFF researchers are engaged in analyzing and designing policy options and providing advice to government officials. Senior Fellow Dallas Burtraw has played a strong role in the California Market Advisory Committee. Burtraw and Senior Fellow Karen Palmer are also technical advisors to the east coast Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and are helping design auctions for emissions allowances.

At the Federal level, Burtraw and Senior Fellows Raymond Kopp, Richard Morgenstern, Billy Pizer, and RFF President Phil Sharp have all testified in congressional hearings on various aspects of climate change policy including the EU's experience with their cap-and-trade system.

Led by Kopp and Pizer, the RFF Climate and Technology Policy Program brought together 23 major U.S. companies that represent a broad spectrum of the American economy to garner feedback on a set of issue briefs compiled in a recent report, Assessing U.S. Climate Policy Options, which is getting considerable attention on Capitol Hill and at the EPA, as well as with media and the business community. EPA has contracted with RFF to provide a series of workshops for its professional staff on the economics of climate policy.

On the international front, Fellow Joseph Aldy and RFF board member Robert Stavins published Architectures for Agreement, setting out alternative paths for an international arrangement to follow the Kyoto Protocol, which ends in 2012.

The Climate Policy Symposium brought RFF researchers to the public arena to discuss key issues affecting state, federal, and international decisions.

Audio Versions: Panel 1, Panel 2