Federal Coal Workshop: Fair Market Value and Alternatives Analysis
June 29, 2016
For the first time in 30 years, the Department of the Interior has launched a comprehensive review to identify and evaluate potential reforms to the federal coal program. Public input will help inform the size and scope of Interior’s Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS). This public workshop gathered legal, policy, and economic experts to analyze key issues for this review, including: how to ensure that American taxpayers earn “fair market value” for the use of their public resources; how to account for the environmental and public health impacts of coal production; and how to identify and analyze viable alternatives so that policymakers and the public can make informed decisions about the future of federal coal.
Welcome and Introduction
Richard Revesz, Professor of Law and Dean Emeritus, NYU School of Law; Director, Institute for Policy Integrity
Jayni Hein, Policy Director, Institute for Policy Integrity
Defining “Fair Market Value”
Bruce Huber, Associate Professor of Law, Notre Dame Law School - Fair market value and procedural safeguards
Jayni Hein, Policy Director, Institute for Policy Integrity, NYU School of Law - Fair market value from a social welfare maximizing perspective; the legal rationale for royalty rates
Nathan Richardson, Assistant Professor of Law, University of South Carolina School of Law and Visiting Fellow, Resources for the Future - Fair market value and royalty reform: accounting for carbon dioxide emissions
Richard Revesz (Moderator), Professor of Law and Dean Emeritus, NYU School of Law
Analyzing Royalty Rate Scenarios and Effects on Production, Revenue, and Emissions
Mark Haggerty, Headwaters Economics - The impact of royalty reform scenarios on prices, production, and state revenue
Peter Howard, Economics Director, Institute for Policy Integrity, NYU School of Law - Royalty reform scenarios to account for upstream methane and transportation costs
Spencer Reeder, Senior Program Officer, Vulcan Philanthropies; James Stock, Harold Hitchings Burbank Professor of Political Economy, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and faculty member, Harvard Kennedy School - Modelling social cost of carbon royalty adder scenarios, with different Clean Power Plan base cases
Sara Kendall (Moderator), Washington, D.C. Office Director, Western Organization of Resource Councils
Substitution Analysis and Carbon Budgeting
Nathaniel Shoaff, Staff Attorney, Sierra Club - BLM’s past substitution analysis, and recommendations for approaching substitution in the programmatic review
Jason Schwartz, Legal Director, Institute for Policy Integrity, NYU School of Law - How other federal agencies have conducted substitution analysis and recommendations for BLM
Pete Erickson, Senior Scientist, Stockholm Environment Institute - The impact of ramping down federal coal and oil leasing on U.S. carbon dioxide emissions and climate change goals
Chase Huntley, Director of the Energy & Climate Program, The Wilderness Society - Carbon budgeting for federal lands: policy goals and process
Pamela Eaton (Moderator), Senior Director, Reducing Climate Emissions Campaign, The Wilderness Society
Bidding and Leasing Reform
Mary Ellen Kustin, Policy Director, Public Lands Project, Center for American Progress - Bid reform recommendations
Michael Hanemann, Chancellor’s Professor and Professor of Environmental and Resource Economics, UC Berkeley - Option value and the value of delaying leasing
Ryan Alexander (Moderator), President, Taxpayers for Common Sense
Concluding Remarks and a Path Forward
David Hayes, Distinguished Visiting Lecturer in Law, Stanford Law School; former Deputy Secretary and Chief Operating Officer, U.S. Department of the Interior
The Institute for Policy Integrity at NYU School of Law is a non-partisan think tank dedicated to improving the quality of government decisionmaking. We produce original scholarly research in the fields of economics, law, and regulatory policy. We also advocate for reform before courts, legislatures, and executive agencies.
