Tim Profeta Reappointed Director of Duke’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions

DURHAM, N.C. – Timothy H. Profeta has been appointed to a second five-year term as director of Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.

Under Profeta’s leadership, the Institute was founded, launched, and grown into one of the nation’s preeminent institutions focused on the development and implementation of environmental policy. The Nicholas Institute has become deeply engrained in efforts to address climate change, provide for oceans conservation, and ensure adequate water quantity and quality at the state, federal, and international levels.

Duke Provost Peter Lange commended Profeta’s leadership that led to the reappointment: “Tim’s review showed that he has done a superb job as the inaugural director of the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions. Starting with nothing more than a concept, he has enabled the Institute to become a ‘go-to’ place in Washington, the State of North Carolina, and increasingly across the nation, on a variety of critical environmental policy issues.” He said that the Institute “is known for its nonpartisan, research-based policy analysis grounded in the work that only University-grounded researchers can do. With Tim’s reappointment, the Institute enters a more mature stage of its development, undertaking a strategic planning process that engages both its Board and an extended number of faculty across the University, and deepens its commitment to contribute to the curriculum while continuing to deepen its policy impact.”

William K. Reilly was U.S. EPA Administrator from 1989-93 and has served as the Chairman of the Nicholas Institute’s Board of Advisors since its inception. He said of Profeta’s reappointment: “In creating the Nicholas Institute, Duke attempted something without precedent among universities: create a place where environmental policymakers would come to get the best advice—practical, objective, in real time the way policymakers work—that researchers could offer. Tim Profeta built a first-class staff, drew from across the campus for help and ideas, and made the connections in Washington and elsewhere to ensure the Institute was relevant. Now the Institute is the cockpit for cutting-edge initiatives—carbon trading and climate change, water policy, corporate sustainability. And it’s only five years old. I join in saluting Duke, the Institute and Tim in celebrating his reappointment.”

The Nicholas Institute was founded in 2005. Its mission is to help decision makers create timely, effective, and economically practical solutions to the world’s critical environmental challenges. The Institute draws on the broad expertise of more than 50 core and affiliated staff members, Duke faculty members campus-wide, and partners from industry, government, environmental organizations, and other academic institutions.

“Our strength is that we combine the breadth, depth, and rigor of university research with the speed and relevancy essential for the policymaking process,” says Profeta, who was appointed founding director of the Institute and senior associate dean at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment in 2005.

Profeta also noted his aim to broaden engagement with faculty and students across Duke’s campus in his second five-year term.

“We have built the bridges between Duke and the world’s decision makers,” Profeta said. “Now we need to bring the full capabilities of Duke across the transom, as well as ensuring that we bring what we learn to Duke’s laboratories and classrooms.”

He pointed to the recent Winter Forum as an example of how the Institute brings back its knowledge to the Duke community. The Institute convened the three-day workshop on the green economy for undergraduate students in January. The forum was widely considered a success because of its interactive learning experience, coverage of the issue from a wide variety of disciplines, and up-to-date curriculum informed by the most recent developments in government and the private sector. Ninety-five percent of forum attendees indicated that they would recommend attendance to a friend.

Prior to coming to Duke, Profeta served as counsel for the environment to Sen. Joseph Lieberman, and was a principal architect of the Lieberman-McCain Climate Stewardship Act of 2003, which has established the basic architecture for almost all the legislative proposals that have followed.

Profeta continues to draw upon his experience on Capitol Hill to engage in pertinent climate change debates. In 2009, he assisted the offices of four U.S. Senators in developing a bipartisan proposal to contain costs while maintaining environmental integrity under a national cap-and-trade program for greenhouse gas emissions, and presented testimony to the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry on the design of financial markets created by a cap-and-trade system.

“As a nonpartisan resource, we don’t advocate or lobby. Our job is to listen to all sides, identify sticking points, and help design practical fixes to address those concerns,” Profeta says.

Many of the Institute’s initiatives during the last five years have focused on identifying and resolving barriers to climate legislation, with particular emphasis on addressing key concerns decision makers and stakeholders have about the effects, benefits, and implementation of a cap-and-trade system. Among them:

• A widely cited working paper, published in August 2008, outlined the possible use of an “allowance reserve” to control the costs in a climate regulatory system. The reserve system was incorporated into most legislative proposals since the paper’s publication.
• A series of four briefs, “Mitigation Beyond the Cap,” published in 2008 and 2009, explained the pros and cons of using offsets to incorporate greenhouse gas mitigation from sectors and actors outside a regulatory policy. The briefs identified potential shortcomings of the strategy, such as leakage, impermanence risk, and liability, and reviewed options to address them.
• A comprehensive 420-page guide, co-produced in 2007 with Duke’s Center on Global Change, examined technology options for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel-powered electricity, which accounts for one-third of all U.S. carbon dioxide emissions. The guide reviewed policies to help utilities achieve these reductions.
• “Harnessing Farms and Forests in the Low-Carbon Economy,” also published in 2007, provided the first “how-to” manual for farmers and foresters interested in reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions through changes in land use and farming practices, and turning those reductions into verifiable credits for trading in carbon markets.

The Institute has had measurable impact outside the climate sphere as well.

At the national level, it has fostered conversations between public and private stakeholders on issues such as fishery catch shares and how to zone the oceans for different uses based on ecosystems; helped create a sustainability education program for the nation’s commercial fisheries managers; and helped facilitate a national conference on reforming the Clean Water Act.

At the state level, Institute policy analysts used North Carolina’s historic 2007-08 drought to assess how best to allocate and price the state’s finite water supply—information that has been shared with other Southeastern states as well. Working with partners from other North Carolina universities, they provided the North Carolina General Assembly with nine options to improve the state’s water resource policy, and have served as resources to local governments as they development consensus principles to protect and restore water quality.

At the international level, Institute policy analysts are working with Asian and African leaders on issues such as ecosystem and watershed management, water scarcity and sanitation, and food security.

More than 60 graduate and undergraduate students have received assistantships or taken part in Institute programs. Hundreds of members of the Duke community have attended the Nicholas Institute and Environmental Institutions Seminar Series, which features timely presentations on a broad range of topical environmental issues.

Maintaining a broad reach and research focus is critical because the complex environmental issues facing society today require interdisciplinary solutions, says Profeta, who holds both a law degree from the Duke Law School and a Master of Environmental Management degree from the Nicholas School.

“With climate and energy legislation pending, renewed federal focus on ocean and coastal policies, and increased global concern about climate change and water, the opportunities for environmental progress are greater than ever, but so are the challenges” he says. “We stand ready to assist.”

###