Acid Rain Economic Assessment PDF
Preview Acid Rain Economic Assessment
Lyon Play/air Library IMPERIAL COLLEGE, LONDON SW7 2AZ Tenn Loan to be returned by last date stamped. The loan period will be reduced to THREE WEEKS if the book is reserved by another reader. ACID RAIN ECONOMIC ASSESSMENT ENVIRONMENT AL SCIENCE RESEARCH Editorial Board Alexander Hollaender Council for Research Planning in Biological Sciences, Inc. Washington, D.C. Ronald F. Probstein Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, Massachusetts Bruce L. Welch Environmental Biomedicine Research, Inc. and The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Baltimore, Maryland Recent Volumes in this Series Volume 27-SHORT-TERM BIOASSAYS IN THE ANALYSIS OF COMPLEX ENVIRONMENTAL MIXTURES III Edited by Michael D. Waters, Shah beg S. Sandhu, loellen Lewtas, Larry Claxton, Neil Chernoff, and Stephen Nesnow Volume 28-UTILIZATION OF MAMMALIAN SPECIFIC LOCUS STUDIES IN HAZARD EVALUATION AND ESTIMATION OF GENETIC RISK Edited by Frederick 1. de Serres and William Sheridan Volume 29-APPLICATION OF BIOLOGICAL MARKERS TO CARCINOGEN TESTING Edited by Harry A. Milman and Stewart Sell Volume 3D-INDIVIDUAL SUSCEPTIBILITY TO GENOTOXIC AGENTS IN THE HUMAN POPULATION Edited by Frederick 1. de Serres and Ronald W. Pero Volume 31-MUTATION, CANCER, AND MALFORMATION Edited by Ernest H. Y. Chu and Walderico M. Generoso Volume 32-SHORT-TERM BIOASSAYS IN THE ANALYSIS OF COMPLEX ENVIRONMENTAL MIXTURES IV Edited by Michael D. Waters, Shahbeg S. Sandhu, loellen Lewtas, Larry Claxton, Gary Strauss, and Stephen Nesnow Volume 33-ACID RAIN: Economic Assessment Edited by Paulette Mandelbaum A Continuation Order Plan is available for this series. A continuation order will bring delivery of each new volume immediately upon publication. Volumes are billed only upon actual shipment. For further information please contact the publisher. ACID RAIN ECONOMIC ASSESSMENT Edited by Paulette Mandelbaum Chemical Engineering and Policy Analyses (CEPA) Rochester, New York Technical Editor Carole Beal Acid Rain Information Clearinghouse Rochester, New York PLENUM P·RESS • NEW YORK AND LONDON Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Conference on Acid Rain (1984: Washington, D.C.) Acid rain. (Environmental science research; v. 33) "Proceedings of a Conference on Acid Rain sponsored by the Acid Rain Information Oearinghouse, a project of the Center for Environmental Information, held December 4-6,1984, in Washington, D.C."-T.p. verso. Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Acid rain-Economic aspects-United States-Congresses. 2. Acid rain-Govern ment policy - United States - Congresses. I. Mandelbaum, Paulette A. II. Acid Rain Information Clearinghouse. (Washington, D.C.) Ill. Title. IV. Series. TDI96.A25C66 1984 363.7'386 85-17021 ISBN-13 :978-1-4615-8355-4 e-ISBN-13:978-1-4615-8353-0 IX)I: 10.1007/978-1-4615-8353-0 Proceedings of a conference on Acid Rain sponsored by the Acid Rain Information Clearinghouse, a project of the Center for Environmental Information, held December 4-6, 1984, in Washington, D.C. The Center for Environmental Information Inc. gratefully acknowledges funding provided by the following sources in support of the publication of these proceedings: Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks Edison Electric Institute Federal Government of Canada National Acid Precipitation Assessment Program United States Environmental Protection Agency © 1985 Plenum Press, New York Softcoverreprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1985 A Division of Plenum Publishing Corporation 233 Spring Street, New York, N.Y. 10013 All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher ABOUT THE CENTER FOR ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION The Acid Rain Information Clearinghouse is a project of the Center for Environmental Infor mation Inc., 33 South Washington Street, Rochester, New York 14608. CEI, a private, non profit organization established in 1974, provides information through its publications, access to computerized information sources, educational programs, conferences and library. As a matter of policy, CEI does not take positions on environmental issues. CONFERENCE ADVISORY COMMITTEE Richard Chastain Lester B. Lave, Ph.D. Southern Company Services Graduate School of Industrial Thomas D. Crocker, Ph.D. Administration, Carnegie-Mellon Department of Economics, University University of Wyoming Paul W. MacAvoy, Ph.D. William Hogan, Ph.D. Graduate School of Management, Energy and Environmental Policy University of Rochester Center, Harvard University Paul Stolpman Steve Howard United States Environmental National Wildlife Federation Protection Agency Jay S. Jacobson, Ph.D. Greg Wetstone Boyce Thompson Institute for Health and Environment Plant Research Subcommittee, House of Representatives, United States Congress CONFERENCE MODERATORS William Hogan, Ph.D. Paul A. Miller, Ph.D. Energy and Environmental Department of Science and Policy Center, Harvard University Humanities, Rochester Institute of Technology PREFACE This volume, Proceedings of the Conference ACID RAIN: Economic Assessment, is meant to present the areas of agreement which economists have established and the uncertainties which they have discovered in their attempts to use the methodology of economics to better understand the nature of the acid rain issue. Scientific articles about acid rain initially appeared in 1972. The public turned its attention to the issue in the mid-1970s. In April 1979, the first acid rain bill was introduced in the Senate, authored by New York's Senator Daniel P. Moynihan. The bill sought to establish a federal research program dedicated to filling the gaps in understanding of the phenomena of long-range transport of air pollutants and their environmental, health and economic impacts. 'The bill was passed into law in 1980. Since then, tens of bills have been proposed to control emissions of S02 and NOx, thought to be the precursors of acid rain. And yet, in contrast with the pattern set by the majority of environmental issues, where legislation followed very quickly on the heels of public anxiety and involvement, by July 1985 not a single federal acid rain control bill had been passed. The reasons for the logjam in Congress and the federal government have been analyzed in great detail, but add up to a single fact: the traditional coalitions which delivered national congressional majorities for pro environmental laws, and in particular for the Clean Air Act of 1977, had dissolved because some members of the coalition, such as the northeastern states, stood to gain a great deal from acid rain control bills, while others such as the coal industry and coal miners of the Midwest, stood to lose a great deal. The politics of acid rain were further complicated in spring of 1983, when efforts were undertaken to win midwestern support by levying a tax across the nation. At that juncture, the western states and Hawaii were brought into the foray and generally took stands opposing the tax. Quite apart from the questions of regionalism and fragmentation of the traditional clean air lobby, there was a firm feeling from mid-1981 in the Office of Management and Budget and the White House, that the costs of acid rain controls would add up to billions of dollars although at the same time, the benefits were showing up as millions of dollars. The Reagan Administration would commit funds to research, but would take no steps toward initiating an acid rain control strategy. By early 1984, while the congressional politics of acid rain were caught in a stalemate, there was a realization at the Acid Rain Information Clearinghouse that as the scientific community slowly generated results and developed a more complete understanding of the causes and effects of acid deposition, a need could arise to make decisions in the absence of scientific certainty, based on some sort of socio-economic analysis. vii viii Preface It was to create a forum for discussion of what decision makers, constrained by the political economy of the acid rain issue, could do with the uncertain scientific information as it emerged, that ARIC's December conference was held. Two sorts of questions were asked of the economists invited to speak. One was methodological, and concerned the economist's ability to assess or estimate factors as complex as the national or regional costs and benefits of acid rain controls. The other touched on societal values, and asked economists to address the question frequently raised by the environmental community, that is, whether or not efficiency ought to playa decisive role in environmental debate. Because of the great uncertainties which accompany current understanding of the physics and chemistry of acid rain and the effects of acid deposition, as weIl as uncertainties associated with some components of the economic analysis, decision-theorists were asked to discuss methods of risk assessment and decision making in the absence of scientific certainty. The first three sessions of the conference, and the guest addresses by the DEC D's Ian Torrens and the United Mine Workers' President Richard Trumka, dealt with the economic problems noted above. One conference session and the guest addresses by New York's Commissioner of Environmental Conservation, Henry Williams, and EPA's Assistant Administrator for Air and Radiation, Charles Elkins, dealt with modes of decisionmaking in the face of uncertainty. In addition, because scientists, economists and policy analysts are all working on acid rain problems, and because each group is impatiently awaiting results or analysis from one or another of the fields, a session was built around discussion of the difficulties which scientists, economists, policy analysts and decision makers encounter, both in communicating their needs to one another and in attempting to obtain the research results of which they are in need. AIlen Kneese, a leading environmental economist and Senior FeIlow at Resources for the Future, reviewed each of the papers before the conference. In concluding remarks, he assessed the state of the art in economic methodologies and its application to the acid rain issue. The publication of these Proceedings is the result of the cooperation of a great number of people. Thanks are due to the 26 speakers and respondents, who provided us with their articles in time and were willing to foIlow tedious requests to review their papers as we moved from one format to another. We are indebted to Ronald Dwight and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, for co-sponsoring Ian Torrens' keynote address to the conference in their Face-to-Face series. The talk and the informal discussion which foIlowed set a tone of exceIlence and openness for the conference. Warmest thanks are due to A. Lee Nesslage, of the Center for Environmental Information, who coordinated the conference arrangements and was always willing to make changes in her weIl thought-out plans in order to accommodate the needs of the program, and to Frederick W. Stoss, Manager of Information Services at the Acid Rain Information Clearinghouse, for providing general background information and documentation for the conference. We are grateful to a number of people who assisted in the preparation of the manuscript. Thanks are due to William R. Wagner, Manager of Communications of the Center for Environmental Information, for his work in arranging the figures and tables in the book, to Mrs. William H. Wagner, for faithfully transcribing the talks which were presented and the discussions which took place at the conference, to Steve Preface ix Berendt of COMPUTYPE, who typed the bulk of the manuscript in. record time and with true proficiency, and to Shelley Gordon and Eileen Williams of the Manuscript Division at the University of Rochester Computer Center, for their willingness to experiment with the transfer of the manuscript from one format to another, and for turning the manuscript into camera-ready copy. Great thanks are due to Ann Held, Dianne Piccirilli and Wanda Versprille, of Chemical Engineering and Policy Analyses (CEPA) of Rochester, New York, who over the past year and one-half have canvassed the speakers and coordinated materials at each juncture of the preparation of the conference and proceedings. Finally, we are most thankful to Carole Beal of the Center for Environmental Information, who shepherded the manuscript from the first to the third and final draft, spending countless hours to produce a consistent and error-free text, and who carefully indexed the entire book. Paulette Mandelbaum June 30,1985 Editor CONTENTS Welcoming Remarks 1 Elizabeth Thorndike ACID RAIN: AN INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE Keynote Address 5 Ian M. Torrens ACID RAIN SCIENCE: STATE OF THE ART Synopsis of Scientific Understanding of Acid Deposition and Its Effects 21 J. Christopher Bernabo CONFRONTING THE ASSUMPTIONS AND UNCERTAINTIES: ASSESSING COSTS Cost and Coal Market Effects of Alternative Approaches for Reducing Electric 37 Utility Sulfur Dioxide Emissions C. Hoff Stauffer, Jr. Response 49 Larry B. Parker Response 59 Robed W. Crandall Response 63 Frederick C. Dunbar CONFRONTING THE ASSUMPTIONS AND UNCERTAINTIES: ASSESSING BENEFITS Estimates of Acid Deposition Control Benefits: A Bayesian Perspective 77 Thomas D. Crocker Response 95 A. Myrick Freeman III xi
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