Areas of Expertise:
climate change, carbon markets, offsets, air quality, public utility commissions
Jonas Monast directs the Climate and Energy Program at Duke University's Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions. Jonas’s work focuses on the interaction of state and federal energy policies, regulatory options for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and the intersection of financial markets and climate policy. He directed Duke University’s Climate Change Policy Partnership from 2007-2010 and coordinated the Nicholas Institute’s Carbon Market Initiative.
Jonas also teaches courses on the intersection of energy and environmental issues at Duke University’s School of Law and Nicholas School of the Environment.Prior to joining Duke, Jonas worked as an attorney in the Corporate Social Responsibility Practice at Foley Hoag LLP, where he advised clients on emerging legal and reputational risks regarding human rights and the environment. Jonas also served as a congressional fellow for the late Senator Paul Wellstone and as legislative counsel for the Center for Responsible Lending. He earned his law degree from Georgetown University and his B.A. from Appalachian State University.
Energy infrastructure across the United States is aging, and plant retirements are increasing due to a combination of newly implemented and impending environmental requirements and inexpensive natural gas. Utilities and regulators will have to decide how to update or replace aging facilities—estimated at a cost of $1.5 to $2 trillion over the next twenty years. This article in the Columbia Journal of Environmental Law explores the opportunities and challenges to aligning state energy, environmental, and consumer protection goals within the current regulatory system, and proposes a “triple bottom line” (“TBL”) approach to state utility regulation to achieve this alignment.
There is a pressing need for technology improvements that make it cost-effective for coal-fired power plants to capture carbon emissions. Carbon capture and storage technologies are particularly important for the fleet of existing coal-fired power plants, as energy projections suggest that these facilities will continue to provide a major portion of the nation's electric power—and the nation’s CO2 emissions—for decades to come.
This paper, the second in the "Deploying Low-Carbon Coal Technologies Series," not only looks at factors affecting domestic coal-fired generation and provides an overview of CO2 emission projections associated with the existing fleet of coal-fired power plants, but also highlights near-term policy choices.
Author (s): Brooks Rainey Pearson, Jonas Monast, Jeremy M. Tarr, Jessalee Landfried
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed in 2012 proposed performance standards for carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from new fossil fuel–fired power plants. Once finalized, the new-source standards will trigger section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act, which required the EPA to regulate CO2 emissions from existing power plants. Broad statutory language and limited legal precedent suggest that a variety of policy design options are available to the EPA and states when regulating CO2 emissions from existing power plants. At the same time, section 111(d) raises unanswered questions. In October 2012, the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions convened a stakeholder workshop in Washington, D.C., to discuss these questions. This report preserves the workshop discussion by summarizing panel presentations, highlighting points of conversation, and capturing key themes. This report also identifies tradeoffs facing regulators who will draft the existing-source regulations and notes issues ripe for further exploration.
Author(s):Jeremy M. Tarr, Jonas Monast, and Tim Profeta
The development and deployment of low-carbon coal technologies is critical to any plan to limit greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. In 2011, coal-fired power generation contributed nearly 35% of national greenhouse gas emissions. The public sector has continued investing in research and development in recent years, and has made funds available for early demonstration projects. But even with federal funding, advanced coal demonstration projects have faced barriers at the state level, highlighting the important, but often overlooked, role that state regulators will play in deploying low-carbon coal technologies. Demonstrating and deploying low-carbon coal technologies at scale poses a number of challenges, including unique regulatory hurdles in states with traditionally regulated electricity markets. To address these challenges, this draft paper provides (1) an overview of the federal and state policies affecting deployment of low-carbon coal technologies, (2) a case study of two proposed Appalachian Power Company demonstration projects that illustrate the particular challenges in traditionally regulated states, and (3) options for both traditionally regulated and restructured states to address state-level challenges regarding technology deployment.
Author(s):Sarah K. Adair, David Hoppock, Jonas Monast, and Dalia Patino Echeverri
