6 pages

EC 450 Fall 2015

Paper Assignment

You are required to write a paper (maximum 6 pages, double-spaced, 11pt font, 1-inch margins, excluding tables, figures and graphs). Today, you will receive an e-mail indicating a specific U.S. state that you are assigned to. Your task is as follows. 1. For your state, identify (a) The state regulatory agency (or agencies) in charge of environmental protection for the state. If more than one agency is involved, characterize the division of responsibility among the agencies. (b) Which of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Regional Offices (there are ten of them) is in charge of the state's environmental issues. A useful link in this regard will be http://www2.epa.gov/aboutepa. From this site, there is a drop-down menu for Regional Offices. Going to a given regional office webpage, you will find a map (usually on the upper right-hand corner of the regional office webpage) providing a link to state level information. 2. Using either the state regulatory agency's website or the EPA's state level web page, identify a specific current environmental issue. For example, for the state of Michigan, a number of environmental issues are raised, including (a) Clean-up of the Enbridge Oil Spill; (b) The use of injection wells and hydraulic fracturing as part of natural gas extraction; and (c) Drinking water quality. Note: 1. As mentioned on your syllabus, the topic cannot be broad (e.g., carbon emission, climate change, pollution), but must be more targeted (e.g., drought in California, air pollution in New Delhi). So, finding a topic through EPA’s website ensures that your focus remains on a specific topic. 2. The EPA and state level sites may not be your only (or even your best) source for a topic, but be sure to keep in mind that other sites are often developed by groups or companies with an agenda, so that the information or prospective provided there may not be unbiased. 3. For you chosen issue, (a) Summarize the current problem, including who are the key players (governmental and otherwise) and what incentives (or lack thereof) have led to the problem. (b) What solutions are currently being proposed and to whom will accrue the costs and benefits of the solution? Are these benefits and costs quantified (and how)? Ideally, you can provide arguments made by opposing sides in the ongoing policy debate (with proper references). (c) Can you think of alternative solutions (economic incentives or otherwise) that might be used in this setting? (d) Note: I am not looking for you to render an opinion regarding the issue, but rather to lay out the issues on both sides of the debate and to use economics to inform the debate.

You may submit an initial draft of the paper by 5 PM, November 25th, but it is not a mandatory requirement and your grade will be determined by the quality of your final submission only. You should submit papers to the Turnitin Dropbox provided on Desire-2-Learn without identifying information included in the paper (e.g., name or student number). The Desire 2 Learn system will automatically show this information to me when I view the submission, but the information will not be retained by Turnitin. If you forget and submit your paper with your identifying information on it, it will be retained in the Turnitin repository.

The deadline to submit the paper is 5 PM, December 8, 2015. For late submission, 1.5 points (out

of total 15 points on the paper) will be deducted every 24 hours till 5 PM, December 12, 2015

and after that, no submission will be accepted.

There will be a penalty of at least 1.5 point if you exceed maximum page limit or if you don’t

follow formatting guidelines.