The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) invited Tyler H. Norris, J.B. Duke Fellow and Duke University PhD student, to serve as a panelist at FERC’s Staff-Led Workshop on Innovations and Efficiencies in Generator Interconnection in September 2024. Specifically, Norris was invited to provide analysis and comments related to “connect and manage” and potential improvements to flexible energy-only interconnection options.

This study develops a unique and comprehensive household and plot-level dataset covering ten districts of Ethiopia complemented with remotely sensed data and qualitative information collected from the study sites. The econometric results show that compared to open-access plots equipped with pump irrigation, other irrigated configurations—especially private groundwater-based systems—have higher vegetation cover and show less susceptibility to the most common environmental concerns mentioned in the survey regions: water logging, soil salinity, and erosion externalities.

This paper provides a high-level overview of chaining, an emerging concept that marries two highly consequential provisions of the tax code established by the passage of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA): Transferability of tax credits and direct (also known as elective) pay to nonprofit or public entities in lieu of tax credits.

Besides unlocking additional capital, chaining could reduce the cost of capital, ease cash flow, and allow for different parties to share risk. The US Department of the Treasury is actively accepting comments on chaining until December 1, 2024. Through those comments, Treasury is seeking to ascertain, in part, how much more capital chaining can enable and how chaining would be executed.

Concentrated animal feeding operations, particularly hog and poultry farms, have expanded rapidly in North Carolina in recent decades. The air pollution and water contamination they generate cause many environmental and health problems for local communities. Using the universe of farm characteristic and housing transaction data in North Carolina, the authors recover hedonic estimates of property value impacts from exposure to these industrial livestock operations.

Nature-based solutions (NBS) address societal challenges by managing ecosystems to provide environmental and human benefits. This report assesses 27 publicly accessible databases on NBS research and projects, highlighting their utility as well as limitations and gaps in coverage. Key recommendations include making databases downloadable, adding standardized geographic and project attributes, and improving measurement of effectiveness. Better data accessibility and consistency are essential for developing design standards and scaling up NBS implementation.

"The challenge for any writer taking on the Mississippi is balancing scope with readability, and this is where Upholt's book makes a real contribution," writes Martin Doyle, director of the Water Policy Program, in this review of Boyce Upholt's The Great River. Doyle discusses the book's place among the many volumes about the river's impact and history.

Electric vehicle (EV) market share is increasing and substantial public and private investment in EV charging infrastructure is rising to meet demand. This report examines recent developments across a dozen states in the Southeast.

Addressing climate change requires urgent and innovative action aimed at both mitigating its effects and addressing its most severe impacts. However, current investment levels are insufficient to match the escalating climate risks and damages. Despite the annual target of $100 billion established at the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference/Conference of Parties, climate finance directed to low- and middle-income countries continues to lag behind stated goals.

Building on the ongoing theme of “What does good water governance look like for the United States?,” the objective of the 2023 Aspen-Nicholas Water Forum was to explore why, despite the centrality of water to the environment, as well as to communities and society broadly, water has simply been overlooked in environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goal-setting processes, analyses, or frameworks. The forum also asked what might be the opportunities, or risks, of greater inclusion of water into ESG generally. This report highlights the discussions at the forum on how ESG does, and does not intersect with water, and what the challenges or opportunities might be.

Debt distress, biodiversity loss and climate change are interconnected crises for developing countries. A task force of multilateral development banks and environmental institutions is convening a task force to establish a framework to ameliorate these crises by reforming debt-for-nature swaps. The authors of this Policy Forum identify four reforms that should underpin the new framework.