I am Chief Economist at the Climate Center of the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington DC. Prior to joining the NRDC in May 2008, I was a professor in the economics department at the University of Denver for eight years. My research in environmental and natural resource economics, experimental economics, and poverty and welfare, appeared in academic and popular journals. At NRDC, my work has focused on macroeconomic modeling of climate change legislation, as well its distributional impacts. I received my PhD in economics from the University of Washington, Seattle.
Posted March 6, 2013 by Laurie Johnson in Curbing Pollution, Health and the Environment, U.S. Law and Policy
Funded by the industry trade association US Chamber of Commerce (not to be confused with the US Department of Commerce), a recent report by National Economic Research Associates (NERA) attempts to discredit the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) analyses of...continued→
Posted January 18, 2013 by Laurie Johnson in Curbing Pollution, Health and the Environment, Solving Global Warming, The Media and the Environment
A new “study” by the coal industry front group American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE) asserts that EPA regulations are driving up energy bills. The author of the report, lawyer Eugene M. Trisko, calculates that household energy expenditures as a fraction of...continued→
Posted September 17, 2012 by Laurie Johnson in Curbing Pollution, Health and the Environment, Living Sustainably, Solving Global Warming, U.S. Law and Policy
A new study published today by Chris Hope (Judge Business School, University of Cambridge) and me in the Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences shows how global warming’s destructive impacts are being significantly underestimated by the U.S. government—because the government’s cost-benefit...continued→
Posted September 17, 2012 by Laurie Johnson in Curbing Pollution, Health and the Environment, Living Sustainably, Solving Global Warming, U.S. Law and Policy
The U.S. government is significantly underestimating the negative impacts climate change will impose on our children and grandchildren, according to a new study published today in the Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences. In the article, my coauthor Chris Hope (Judge...continued→
Posted April 23, 2012 by Laurie Johnson in Curbing Pollution, Health and the Environment, Solving Global Warming, The Media and the Environment
Since the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was established in 1970, we’ve greatly improved our air and water, protected the developing brains and lungs of our children, and saved millions of lives. At the same time, the economy more than tripled...continued→
Posted February 28, 2012 by Laurie Johnson in Curbing Pollution, Solving Global Warming, U.S. Law and Policy
Last week, The Economist published a series of articles on the impact of regulations on the US economy and businesses. For a magazine normally regarded for insightful analysis, the poor quality of these articles is surprising. They represent more of...continued→
Posted February 1, 2012 by Laurie Johnson in Curbing Pollution, Health and the Environment, Moving Beyond Oil, Saving Wildlife and Wild Places, Solving Global Warming
[We’re] probably looking at…from Montana to Houston, I don’t know, [job creation] in the hundreds...” (Robert Jones, TransCanada’s Vice President for Keystone Pipelines, CNN, November 11, 2011) Interesting quote. TransCanada and its allies can’t seem to keep their...continued→
Posted December 20, 2011 by Laurie Johnson in Curbing Pollution, Health and the Environment, U.S. Law and Policy
As part of their ongoing jobs-scare campaign to block public health standards (and protect their bottom line), the Council of Industrial Boilers (CIBO) just rehashed its discredited 2010 economic “study” (click here for a summary of critiques by myself, the...continued→
Posted December 8, 2011 by Laurie Johnson in Curbing Pollution
A refreshing study, released by the Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies (Ceres), now shows us exactly where jobs will be (and have been) created from the supposed “job-killing” environmental regulations under attack in the US House of Representatives. It’s a...continued→
Posted November 12, 2011 by Laurie Johnson in Curbing Pollution, Health and the Environment, U.S. Law and Policy
National Economic Research Associates (NERA) is at it again, producing yet another industry-backed report (click here, here and here for some others) claiming economic calamity from proposed environmental regulations. Funded by the leading coal-industry front group, the American Coalition for...continued→
Posted November 7, 2011 by Laurie Johnson in Curbing Pollution, Health and the Environment, Moving Beyond Oil, Solving Global Warming
Following on the tails of the recent IPCC report documenting the connection between extreme weather events and climate change (click here for excellent NBC coverage, and here for here for other summaries, stories and reports) comes two analyses attaching dollar...continued→
Posted September 20, 2011 by Laurie Johnson
(Apologia to my readers for having to repeat text from my other blogs. What else can a poor economist do when industry keeps making the same “mistakes”...) The U.S. House of Representatives is currently considering a bill (H.R. 2681) that...continued→
Posted September 12, 2011 by Laurie Johnson in Curbing Pollution
In response to toxic air pollution standards finalized by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for industrial boilers, the American Forest and Paper Association (AFPA) just released a ‘study’ (conducted by Fisher International Inc.) projecting massive job losses from the proposed...continued→
Posted September 7, 2011 by Laurie Johnson in Curbing Pollution
Last Friday, just before the holiday weekend, President Obama caved to GOP demands by withdrawing plans to strengthen the nation’s public health standard for ozone pollution (“smog”) under the Clean Air Act. It’s hard to make sense of. Tightening the...continued→
Posted August 16, 2011 by Laurie Johnson in Curbing Pollution
In a last minute attempt to stop the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from protecting public health, industry is furiously trying to weaken pollution standards that prevent asthma, acute respiratory illnesses, and deaths. Funded by the American Petroleum Institute, a recent...continued→
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