Skip to page content

Energy and Environment

Featured

RAND energy and environmental analyses examine the implications of existing and proposed energy policies on the environment. Building on a long history of policy research, RAND helps balance the need for environmental protections and economic development.

Essay

Environmental Racism: How Historic Redlining Continues to Affect Communities

Jun 27, 2022

Starting in the 1930s, neighborhoods across America were redlined—marked on government maps as too hazardous, as in, too Black or too immigrant, for federal home loans. When zoning officials needed somewhere to put a new factory or freeway, those redlined neighborhoods were like a bullseye that they hit again and again.
Report

California's Edible Food Recovery Mandate: One Solution for Two Problems

Jun 21, 2022

Organic waste in landfills emits 20 percent of California's methane, and about 1.1 million tons of potentially donatable food were discarded in 2018. California's food recovery mandate, Senate Bill 1383, could make an important contribution toward mitigating the climate crisis and food insecurity.

Topics in Focus:

Explore Energy and Environment

Commentary

As U.S. Energy Booms, Don't Forget About Roadway Infrastructure

Natural gas production is growing and many states and communities are reaping the economic benefits. One of the costs, however, will be damage to roads. One hydraulic fracturing operation requires about 600 to 1,100 one-way, heavy truck trips to bring equipment, materials, and sometimes water to and from a well site.

Mar 11, 2014
Commentary

Making Informed Investment Decisions in an Uncertain World

Changing how we make development decisions requires a cultural shift as much as it requires an analytical shift. Methodological innovations like Robust Decision Making can help. By motivating and equipping analysts to manage uncertainty, they can shape how we think about, discuss, and make decisions.

Feb 28, 2014
News Release

Tools Can Help Policymakers Increase Coastal Resilience to Rising Seas and Storm Surge

Two key analytic tools can be used to evaluate how coastal protection and restoration decisions made now will play out over time, even given an uncertain future.

Feb 21, 2014
Blog

State of the Union 2014: President Obama Calls for a Year of Action

Obama called for “a year of action” to achieve his 2014 agenda — from helping people sign up for health insurance, to immigration reform, to completing the mission in Afghanistan. RAND is committed to raising the level of public policy debates and offering evidence-based, actionable solutions.

Jan 29, 2014
Commentary

Investing in Firefighting

While the U.S. Forest Service has not completely agreed with RAND's proposal to transition to a fleet dominated by water-dropping scooper aircraft for fighting fires, they have leased one CL-415 scooper aircraft. It might be more cost-effective for the USFS to simply purchase it outright.

Dec 30, 2013
Commentary

One Year Later: Hurricane Sandy's Lessons in Resilience and Recovery

The recovery from Sandy shows once again that how well communities bounce back from disasters depends not just on how they react after a crisis, but on how resilient they have made themselves beforehand. Building community resilience should be part and parcel of disaster preparedness.

Nov 15, 2013
Commentary

Responding in Typhoon Haiyan's Wake

Prior responses to other recent disasters offer important lessons. Improved preparedness and efficient coordination mechanisms can help ensure that, when time is of the essence, the United States provides the most effective response.

Nov 12, 2013
Commentary

A Year After Sandy, a New Threat to New York City

As residents continue to recover from Superstorm Sandy, they are about to confront dramatic changes in the flood insurance landscape. Changes to federal floodplain maps will mean thousands of New Yorkers will suddenly be living in areas designated as high-risk flood, which will send their insurance rates soaring.

Nov 5, 2013
Project

Evaluating Robust Water Management Strategies for the Colorado River Basin

RAND worked with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and Colorado River Basin states to apply innovative robust decision methods to evaluate thousands of plausible futures on the Colorado River and develop and compare strategies to address future vulnerabilities.

Nov 5, 2013
Blog

What Mobility Might Look Like in the U.S. in 2030

Mobility — the ability to travel from one location to another — may look very different in the United States in the year 2030. Three key drivers differentiate possible scenarios: the price of oil, the development of environmental regulations, and the amount of highway revenues and expenditures.

Oct 28, 2013
Blog

Using Air Power Against Pirates Off West Africa

A U.S. Official has confirmed that two mariners thought to be U.S. Citizens were kidnapped from an American ship in a pirate attack off of the West African coast — the 40th such attack reported in the Gulf of Guinea in 2013. The current security situation in the Gulf has affected petroleum and natural gas production.

Oct 25, 2013
News Release

Rising Cost of Flood Insurance Will Create Serious Challenges for New York City

Some New York City residents may soon face sharp increases in their flood insurance premiums as a result of major changes occurring in the National Flood Insurance Program and the redrawing of flood maps that expand the areas at risk. Property owners in areas now deemed at highest risk may face increases of $5,000 to $10,000 annually.

Oct 25, 2013
Commentary

The Strategy Behind China's Aid Expansion

Between 2001 and 2011, China's pledged foreign aid was $671 billion. In all regions and countries, China's assistance focuses on the development of natural resources, principally energy-related (coal, oil, and gas). Both parties presumably benefit from China's aid but both are also exposed to added risks and hidden costs.

Oct 9, 2013
Commentary

Weather Forecasts, and Our Trust in Them, Need to Improve

When scientists predict extreme weather that never materializes, lay people tend to wonder what went wrong. This is a natural tendency that is not tied to a failure of the science, but rather to differences in the way scientists and lay people view predictions about extreme events.

Oct 8, 2013
Commentary

Removing Road Blocks to Climate Change Adaptation Planning

Despite increasing interest and investments in climate adaptation science, the implementation of adaptation plans through institutional policies or other actions designed to reduce health vulnerabilities has been slow. Institutionalized assumptions are an important roadblock.

Oct 3, 2013
Blog

New RAND Study Examines Chinese Economic Assistance to Other Countries

With the world's second largest economy, China has the capacity to engage in substantial programs of economic assistance and government-sponsored investments in 93 emerging-market countries.

Sep 19, 2013
Commentary

The Desirability of 'Free' C-27s for the U.S. Forest Service

Although we believe that a scooper-centric firefighting aircraft portfolio for initial attack would still be preferred, Air Force-provided 1,850-gallon C-27Js could be a cost-effective component of the retardant-bearing portion of the Forest Service's airborne firefighting arsenal, write Edward G. Keating and Daniel M. Norton.

Sep 6, 2013
Commentary

Translating Policy Into Action to Build Community Resilience

The philosophy and motivation surrounding community resilience has strongly resonated with community leaders but there remains a divide between how experts articulate resilience policy and how that policy translates to on-the-ground implementation. Building Community Resilience: An Online Training addresses that tension.

Sep 4, 2013
Project

Ensuring Robust Flood Risk Management in Vietnam

Ho Chi Minh City faces significant and growing flood risk. Recent risk reduction efforts may not work if climate and socio-economic conditions diverge from earlier projections. Robust decision making can help Vietnam's largest city develop integrated flood risk management strategies despite this uncertainty.

Aug 16, 2013
Blog

RAND Experts on Obama's Climate Speech

While President Obama was delivering his speech on climate change at Georgetown University on June 25, some of RAND's energy policy experts were live-tweeting their thoughts on the president's proposals.

Jun 26, 2013

Previous
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
Next

Research conducted by