            |
"California's
Climate Change Policy:
The Economic and Environmental Impacts of AB 32"
Monday,
October 4, 2010
The California Museum
1020 O Street
Sacramento, CA
This
page was March 17, 2011 to include several of the speakers'
slide presentations, webcasts of each of the four sessions in the program,
as well as
several articles written for the special issue of the ARE
Update.
Conference
Program and Presenters: The conference brought together leading economists,
analysts, and executives from academia, the state government, and
industry to discuss the impacts of climate change and AB 32 on the
California economy and the environment. The speakers provided comprehensive,
objective, and up-to-date analyses of the likely impacts of AB 32.
Program
- Welcoming
Remarks: Colin Carter, Director, Giannini Foundation
- Luncheon
Speaker:
John Hewitt, Chief Counsel, CA Department of Food and Agriculture
- VIDEO
(Part 1)
- Closing
Remarks: Dan Walters, Sacramento Bee
- VIDEO
(Part 2)
Presenters
Colin
A. Carter is professor of agricultural
and resource economics at the University of California, Davis and
director of the University of California Giannini Foundation. His
research focuses on issues related to commodity markets and agricultural
trade. He has published extensively on issues related to state trading
in agriculture, futures markets, trade remedy law, and the economics
of genetically modified crops.
John DiStasio is general manager and CEO of the Sacramento
Municipal Utility District (SMUD). A 29-year SMUD veteran, he served
previously as assistant general manager for energy delivery and customer
service. He also serves on the executive board of the Sacramento Metropolitan
Chamber of Commerce, the Greater Sacramento Urban League, and is past
president of the Northwest Public Power Association and current member
of the American Public Power Association’s CEO Climate Change
task force.
Meredith Fowlie is assistant professor of agricultural
and resource economics at the University of California, Berkeley.
Her research analyzes policy interventions designed to reduce the
environmental impacts of energy production and consumption, with particular
focus on understanding how market-based environmental regulations
are working in practice. Her work on the electricity sector has emphasized
interactions between electricity markets and emissions permit markets.
She is also conducting research on climate change, addressing a host
of issues pertaining to policy design and implementation.
Richard M. Frank is Executive Director of the Center
for Law, Energy & the Environment at the University of California
at Berkeley School of Law, where he also teaches courses in environmental
law, climate change, and public interest litigation. Immediately before
joining U.C. Berkeley, he served as California’s Chief Deputy
Attorney General for Legal Affairs. He serves currently on the California
Air Resource Board’s Economic Allocation & Advisory Committee,
formed to assist the Air Resources Board in implementing AB 32.
Lawrence H. Goulder is Shuzu Nishihara Professor
of environmental and resource economics at Stanford University and
chair of the Department of Economics. His research examines the environmental
and economic impacts of U.S. and international environmental policies,
including policies designed to address climate change and pollution
from industry and transportation. He serves as chair of the Economics
and Allocation Advisory Committee of the California Air Resources
Board’s AB32 Implementation Group.
Kenneth Green is a resident scholar and interim director
of the Center for Regulatory Studies at the American Enterprise Institute.
An environmental scientist by training, he has studied public policy
involving risk, regulation, and the environment for more than 16 years
at public policy research institutions across North America. He has
served as an expert reviewer for the United Nation's Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change and testifies frequently on environmental
issues before regulatory and legislative bodies at both state and
federal levels.
Mathew E. Kahn is a professor at the Institute of
the Environment, the Department of Economics, and the Department of
Public Policy and Luskin Scholar, University of California, Los Angeles.
He is the author of Green Cities: Urban Growth and the Environment
(Brookings Institution Press 2006) and most recently of Climatopolis:
How Our Cities Will Thrive in the Hotter Future (Basic Books in 2009).
He served as an independent reviewer of the California Air Resources
Board’s economic analysis of the draft scoping plan for implementing
AB32. His current research examines the relationship between the decreases
in concern over global warming during a time of high unemployment.
John Hewitt is Chief Counsel for the California Department
of Food and Agriculture. Prior to this appointment, he worked for
the California FarmBureau Federation since 2001, where he served as
associate counsel. Previously, Hewitt served as a land and water resource
specialist for the California Regional Water Quality Control Board.
He is a member of the Natomas Basin Conservancy and Federal Grain
Inspection Advisory Committee. Hewitt earned a Juris Doctorate degree
from McGeorge School of Law and a Bachelor of Science degree in agricultural
business from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo.
Kevin Kennedy is the Assistant Executive Officer
in charge of the Office of Climate Change (OCC) at the California
Air Resources Board, where he has broad responsibility for overseeing
the implementation of AB 32. Prior to this appointment, he was the
chief of the Program Evaluation Branch in OCC, where he led the team
responsible for evaluating and developing market-based compliance
mechanisms, incentives, voluntary actions, offsets and other approaches
for achieving emission reductions in support of AB 32. He previously
worked for the California Energy Commission, and has more than 20
years experience in energy and environmental policy.
Christopher R. Knittel is associate professor of
economics and Chancellor’s Fellow at the University of California,
Davis. He is a research associate at the University of California
Energy Institute and a faculty associate at the University of California,
Davis Institute of Transportation. His current research focuses on
carbon policy, biofuels, and automotive-based pollution. He is a member
of the California Air Resources Board’s Economics and Allocation
Advisory Committee for the AB32 Implementation Group.
W. David Montgomery is vice president of Charles
River Associates, a leading global consulting firm that offers economic,
financial and management expertise to firms, industries and governments.
His current research focuses on the economic impacts of climate change
policy. He was a principal lead author of the Second Assessment Report
of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. At the invitation
of and in collaboration with the California Air Resource Board, he
led an analysis of the California Air Resource’s Board AB32
scoping plan.
James Nachbaur is an economist in the non-partisan
Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO). He has been involved in numerous
AB 32-related analyses. These include critiques of the Air Resources
Board's economic analyses supporting its AB 32 Scoping Plan, as well
as analyses of AB32's job impacts, and the economic impacts of California
"going it alone" on climate change policy. The LAO's analysis
of Proposition 23, including its fiscal impacts, was recently completed
for inclusion in the November 2010 election voter information guide.
Mark C. Newton is the director of Resources and Environmental
Protection in the non-partisan Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO).
He has been involved in the management of numerous AB 32-related analyses.
These include critiques of the Air Resources Board's economic analyses
supporting its AB 32 Scoping Plan, as well as analyses of AB32's job
impacts, the economic impacts of California "going it alone"
on climate change policy, and budget issues arising from AB 32 implementation.
The LAO's analysis of Proposition 23, including its fiscal impacts,
was recently completed for inclusion in the November 2010 election
voter information guide.
Gordon Rausser is the Robert Gordon Sproul Distinguished
Professor and former Dean of the College of Natural Resources at the
University of California, Berkeley. He is currently editor of the
Annual Review of Resource Economics, and has been elected Fellow of
a number of prestigious professional and academic associations He
has served as Senior Economist at the President’s Council of
Economic Advisors and as the Chief Economist at the Agency for International
Development in Washington D.C. He is co-founder of the Law and Economics
Consulting Group and is a frequent commentator on national radio and
television, an active advisor on public policy issues to business
and political leaders in many parts of the world.
David Roland-Holst is an adjunct professor in the
Departments of Economics and Agricultural and Resource Economics at
UC Berkeley. He has served in academic posts in the U.S., Europe,
and Asia and worked with U.S. and foreign national governments, the
Asian Development Bank, Inter-American Development bank, Organization
for Economic Cooperation and Development, World Bank, and the United
Nations. Developer of the Berkeley Energy and Resources (BEAR) model,
he has written extensively on climate change and economic assessment
of California’s greenhouse gas control policies and has advised
the California Air Resources Board regarding implementation of the
AB 32 Scoping Plan.
Daniel Sperling is professor of Civil Engineering
and Environmental Science and Policy and founding Director of the
Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California,
Davis. He holds the "automotive engineering" seat on the
California Air Resources Board, and is instrumental in designing and
implementing a series of GHG policies, including California's Low
Carbon Fuel Standard, carbon caps for land use and passenger travel,
and zero emission vehicles. In 2008 he was appointed chair of the
"Future of Mobility" Council of the Davos World Economic
Forum. He is author of 12 books, including Two Billion Cars (Oxford
University Press, 2009).
Robert N. Stavins is professor of government and
business at Harvard University and director of the Harvard Environmental
Economics program. He is editor of a number of books on environmental
economics, including the recent Post-Kyoto International Climate Policy,
published in 2009 by University Press. He served as independent reviewer
of the California Air Resources Board’s economics analysis of
the draft scoping plan for implementing AB32.
Daniel A. Sumner is the Frank H. Buck, Jr., Professor
in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University
of California, Davis and the Director of the University of California,
Agricultural Issues Center. He participates in research, teaching,
and conducts public outreach on the economics of topics such as food
safety and quality, farm subsidies, trade policy and environmental
effects of agriculture. Prior to beginning his tenure at UC Davis,
Sumner served at the President’s Council of Economic Advisors
and as Assistant Secretary for Economics at the U.S. Department of
Agriculture.
Sugandha
D. Tuladhar is associated with Charles River Associates,
a leading global consulting firm that offers economic, financial and
management expertise to firms, industries and governments. His current
research focuses on the economic impacts of climate change policy.
He specializes in building computable general equilibrium models and
was part of the team that analyzed the California Air Resource's Board
AB32 scoping plan in collaboration with the California Air Resource
Board.
David G. Victor is professor at the University of
California, San Diego’s School of International Relations and
Pacific Studies and director of the Laboratory on International Law
and Regulation. He is the author of The Collapse of the Kyoto Protocol
and the Struggle to Slow Global Warming, published by Princeton University
Press in 2004 and Climate Change: Debating America’s Policy
Options published in 2004 by the Council on Foreign Relations. His
research interests include energy and climate change policy.
Dan Walters is a columnist with the Sacramento Bee
and an expert on California politics. He has been a journalist for
nearly 50 years, working almost exclusively for California newspapers.
At age 22, he was the nation's youngest daily newspaper editor. He
has written more than 6,000 articles about California and its politics,
and his column now appears in more than 50 California newspapers.
He is also the founding editor of the California Political Almanac,
and co-author of The Third House: Lobbyists, Money and Power in Sacramento,
a book on lobbying. Walters is a frequent guest on national television
news shows commenting on California politics.
Brian
D. Wright is professor and chair of agricultural and resource
economics at the University of California, Berkeley. His research
focuses on the economics of conservation of genetic resources, implications
of intellectual property rights for public and private research, insurance
and risk management, economics of markets for storable commodities,
and the price behavior of renewable and finite resources
David Zilberman is professor of agricultural and resource economics
at the University of California, Berkeley and a member of the executive
board of the Energy Biosciences Institute. He conducted pioneering
work on payment for environmental services and adoption of technology
in agriculture. His recent research focuses on how climate change
policy impacts agriculture and food markets, the economics of biofuels,
and the efficiency of low carbon fuel standards.
|