New Brookings task force will create the blueprint for a federal Office of Carbon Scoring

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Center on Regulation and Markets at the Brookings Institution is organizing a task force to provide the institutional, analytical, and policy foundation for establishing a federal Office of Carbon Scoring (OCS) that would analyze the potential impact of proposed legislation on greenhouse gas emissions and other relevant climate metrics. 

The nine-member task force will be chaired by Meredith Fowlie, professor in the Agriculture and Resource Economics department at University of California, Berkeley, and Jim Stock, director of the Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability and professor in the Economics department and Kennedy School at Harvard University. 

“As more and more people in the U.S. experience climate change, we are likely to see future congressional proposals to take further steps towards decarbonization” said Fowlie and Stock. “Crafting and evaluating such proposals requires estimating how much they actually would reduce emissions, which can be a complex exercise. Having a trusted, timely, and neutral estimate of those emissions impacts – akin to a fiscal impact estimate from the Congressional Budget Office – would help legislators refine their proposals so that they achieve their climate goals.” 

The task force will focus on answering critical questions to provide a blueprint for a federal carbon scoring effort, including the most efficient way to score the emissions impact of legislation for policymakers and how an office could be set-up institutionally with the broadest possible support among legislators, policymakers, and regulators. 

Throughout the project, the task force plans to consult a wide range of stakeholders and issue consensus recommendations to regulators and to Congress. In addition, the task force will also draw on the expertise of a dedicated advisory council. 

Members of the task force include: 

Co-chair: Meredith Fowlie, Professor – Agriculture and Resource Economics Department, University of California, Berkeley 

Co-chair: Jim Stock, Director – Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability, Harvard University 

Director: Sanjay Patnaik, Director – Center on Regulation and Markets, The Brookings Institution 

Members: 

Geoffrey Blanford, Senior Technical Executive – EPRI  

James Bushnell, Professor – University of California, Davis 

John Reilly, Senior Lecturer – Massachusetts Institute of Technology 

Kevin Rennert, Fellow and Director – Federal Climate Policy Initiative, Resources for the Future 

John Weyant, Professor – Stanford University 

Catherine Wolfram, Visiting Professor – Harvard Kennedy School 

Members of the Advisory Council include: 

David Anthoff, Associate Professor – University of California, Berkeley 

Chris Busch, Director, Transportation and Senior Economist – Energy Innovation: Policy and Technology LLC 

Wendy Edelberg, Senior Fellow and Director – The Hamilton Project, The Brookings Institution 

Doug Elmendorf, Dean – Harvard Kennedy School 

Michael Greenstone, Milton Friedman Distinguished Service Professor in Economics and Director of the Energy Policy Institute, University of Chicago 

Nathaniel Keohane, President – Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES) 

Suzi Kerr, Senior Vice President and Chief Economist – Environmental Defense Fund 

John Larsen, Partner – Rhodium Group 

Erin Mayfield, Assistant Professor – Dartmouth College  

Warwick McKibbin, Distinguished Professor of Economics and Public Policy – Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University