On 26 February 2015, NERA Senior Vice Presidents and Environmental Economics Co-Chairs Dr. Anne E. Smith and Dr. David Harrison each delivered testimony before the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform of the US House of Representatives on the benefits and costs of major proposed rulemakings of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The focus of their testimony is on two major regulations that US EPA is presently proposing: the proposed Clean Power Plan (CPP) and the proposed tightening of the national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS) for ozone. EPA’s own analyses indicate that both of these rules will have significant costs; Dr. Smith and Dr. Harrison find that these rules have the potential to be far more costly than EPA reports.

In Dr. Harrison’s testimony, he summarizes two recent NERA studies, one related to the NAAQS for ozone that was released in July 2014 (Assessing Economic Impacts of a Stricter National Ambient Air Quality Standard for Ozone) and one related to the proposed CPP that was released in October 2014 (Potential Energy Impacts of the EPA Proposed Clean Power Plan). Both studies were done in collaboration with Dr. Anne Smith, who submitted testimony in this same hearing regarding the potential benefits of these proposed regulations.