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For more than 20 years, IEc has been a key contractor for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Office of Air and Radiation. Our support has focused on developing new tools and economic methodologies for Agency use and on providing strategic and analytical support around economics issues such as costs and benefits of policies (e.g. the employment effects of regulation).

Through our mission contract with the Office of Policy Analysis and Review (OAR), we also provide support to EPA in facilitating stakeholder interactions, making recommendations to streamline regulatory and permitting requirements, and developing white papers on new strategic policy options. Most of our support to OAR requires us to work effectively on high visibility work products under tight time constraints.

Some prominent examples of our work in this area are:

  • Assessing the costs and benefits of the Clean Air Act, including macroecnomic implications of the full suite of regulatory requirements of this broad-reaching statute;
  • Developing new tools and techniques to assess the impacts of climate change on U.S. resources and the American economy; and
  • Jointly with the research organization Resources for the Future, assessing the implications of new greenhouse gas regulation on low- and moderate-income families, and identifying policy options (such as tax rebates) to address any disproportionate impacts.
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EXPERIENCE
IEc provided the primary extramural support for EPA's landmark study The Costs and Benefits of the Clean Air Act from 1990 to 2020. Our staff developed new methods for cost and benefit assessment, characterized a wide range of unquantifiable, but nonetheless important, consequences of Clean Air Act implementation, and worked with EPA's Science Advisory Board to address concerns and reach agreement on a final set of estimates.

The report provides compelling evidence that the Act has been an excellent investment: extending life expectancy, preventing respiratory and cardiovascular disease, improving the environment, and even increasing GDP, that far exceeds both its direct and economy-wide costs.