October 2004

Improving Public Participation for a Cleaner Danube River. Resident Scholar Ruth Greenspan Bell and colleagues work with Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro, and Bosnia and Herzegovina to build policies, legislation, and institutions in support of environmental public participation.
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Energy Independence? Not Any Time Soon The short-term fixes won't make much difference in the way the world oil market works. Policies that could make a real difference have lead times measured in decades.
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September 2004

Oil Prices Keep Swinging: The Search for Stability. Consumers and politicians complain bitterly when oil prices bounce upward, but the remedies all seem to lie decades in the future.
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August 2004

Environmental Power to the People in Asia. Resident Scholar Ruth Greenspan Bell and Barbara Finamore of the National Resources Defense Council convene a meeting of Asian practitioners to share experiences and examine the growing trend toward environmental public participation.
(Resources article)


May 2004

State of the Planet: Feed and Educate Kids First. Visiting Scholar Tom Freedman and Richard Fritz suggest that free and reduced-cost school lunch programs should be expanded beyond the U.S. to benefit world peace and development.
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Provisions for HOT lanes in the current transportation bill are a welcome step in the right direction. But RFF Researchers Ian Parry and Elena Safirova suggest that lawmakers should do more to encourage road pricing at the local level.
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April 2004

RFF researchers examine the role of India's Supreme Court in improving air quality in Delhi. The Court mandated the conversion of commercial motor vehicles to use compressed natural gas as a fuel.
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Fuel taxes are one approach to addressing U.S. energy and transportation problems, but there are far better approaches. Senior Fellow Ian Parry promotes alternatives such as congestion pricing, pay-as-you-go-insurance, and fees on diesel-fueled trucks.
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March 2004

Look before you launch. There will always be those who want to fly. But as the coming decades bring ever-better alternatives to humans in space, fewer leaders and voters may be willing to underwrite the risk and expense. Senior Fellow Molly Macauley on President Bush's Commission on Moon, Mars, and Beyond.
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February 2004

Mercury's Toxic Emissions And How to Reduce Them. As mercury drifts from smokestacks into the food chain, it's a danger to human health. But the next steps to reduce mercury pollution are entangled in a fierce policy debate over how far to go, how fast, and how to do it.
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Coal: The World's Hunger for Energy Versus the Threat of Pollution. By 2025, the world is likely to burn half again as much coal as it does today. Will coal-related pollution rise in proportion? That depends on whether governments are willing to enforce, and pay for, public policies for cleaner air.
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Senior Fellow Joel Darmstadter questions quick fixes for coping with high gasoline and oil prices. He puts the current price spike into a broader perspective and notes that "this too shall pass."
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