When Environmental Quality Isn’t the Goal: New EPA Fuel Standards Foul the Air

Miller, Sofie E.

GW Work

When Environmental Quality Isn’t the Goal: New EPA Fuel Standards Foul the Air Open Access

Environmental Protection Agency regulations are sometimes presented as economically efficient, correcting a market failure and maximizing net social benefits; other times they appear to subordinate that goal and instead pursue the single-minded objective of reduced pollution. And sometimes they go in another direction altogether. By the EPA’s own accounting, the newest Renewable Fuel Standard achieves neither economic efficiency nor improved environmental quality, and it leaves the public paying the price.