Testimony
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Testimony on Retirement of the San Juan Coal-Fired Power Plant
Jason Schwartz and Denise Grab prepared a testimony for the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission regarding a proposal to retire the San Juan Generating Units, a coal-fired power plant in New Mexico. Their testimony details how applying Social Cost of Carbon metrics would allow the Commission to better monetize and contextualize the climate impacts of the proposal. Retiring the San Juan coal units would deliver billions of dollars in benefits to agricultural productivity, property values, and human health.
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Expert Report on Colorado’s Zero Emission Vehicle Program
In July 2019, Peter Howard and Jason Schwartz provided an expert report on Colorado’s Zero Emission Vehicle program, which will reduce millions of tons of greenhouse gas emissions annually. They demonstrate how the program’s climate benefits can be monetized and how those estimates can provide useful context for decisionmakers and the public.
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Testimony to New Jersey Legislature on Valuing Climate Impacts
Peter Howard and Denise Grab both provided testimony at an April 25 New Jersey State Legislature hearing on climate change mitigation and what the state can do to address greenhouse gas emissions. They discussed how New Jersey can contextualize and weigh climate impacts by using the social cost of greenhouse gases.
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Colorado Senate Testimony on the Social Cost of Carbon
In 2019, Colorado is considering a major overhaul of its electric resource planning rules and renewable energy standards. Jason Schwartz provided testimony in a Senate hearing on the reauthorization of the state’s Public Utilities Commission as part of this overhaul. Schwartz spoke about a possible requirement for the PUC to weigh the social costs of pollution in its decisions. Coloradoans, he explained, are paying the costs of climate pollution in the form of more dangerous wildfires, agricultural damages, declining snowpack, and a range of severe health effects. Many of these important costs can be quantified. In his testimony, Schwartz recommended that the PUC uses Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases metrics when evaluating energy resources in order to improve public welfare.
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Expert Testimony on Colorado’s Low Emission Vehicle Program and the Social Cost of Carbon
In 2018, Policy Integrity submitted expert testimony on the benefits of Colorado’s proposed Low Emission Vehicle Program. The LEV program could avoid millions of tons of greenhouse gas emissions, and we explain to the Colorado Air Quality Control Commission the importance of and methodology for monetizing the real-world contributions of those emissions to global climate change. Our report shows, by applying Social Cost of Carbon estimates, that Colorado’s proposed LEV program could generate billions of dollars’ worth of climate benefits.
