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Dear Ken ,
RFF DEVELOPMENTS December 2001 e-Newsletter We are pleased with the positive response to RFF Developments. We hope this newsletter will continue to serve your needs and keep you informed of current activities at RFF. As mentioned in last month's inaugural newsletter, any questions/comments you have may be sent to Karin Warner at warner@rff.org. In this newsletter: 1) RFF Events & Seminars 2) RFF in the News 3) RFF New Publications 4) RFF 50th Anniversary News: RFF Reunion April 18-19, 2002 1) RFF Events & Seminars Please mark your calendars for the following: Tuesday, December 11th (8:30 a.m. - 12:15 p.m.) Addressing Distributional Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Controls (At RFF - 1616 P St. NW Washington, DC, 1st Floor Conference Room) This technical workshop will focus on the results of new RFF research funded by the Energy Foundation that estimates the costs of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to U.S. households, manufacturing industries and energy-intensive industrial sectors of various policies to reduce emissions. For more information, please contact Susan Doyle at doyle@rff.org or (202)328-5028. RFF Seminars *RFF Seminar Series* RFF hosts regular lunchtime seminars every Wednesday. Presentations highlight current and interesting policy topics, and research that is in-progress. They are offered as an opportunity for the public and members of the academic, environmental and business communities, government, and the news media to hear about research underway at RFF and other institutions. (Attendees are welcome to bring their lunch.) Join us on Wednesdays from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. at Resources for the Future: 1616 P St. NW Washington, DC 20036 1st Floor Conference Room or Visit us online at www.rff.org to hear an audio recording of the latest seminar (typically posted within 24 hours). Now Available: November 28th seminar by Roger Sedjo (Resources for the Future), "Renting Carbon Offsets: The Question of Permanence" (http://www.rff.org/seminar/history.htm#nov28) Upcoming Seminars: Wednesday, December 12th Reforming Permitting Terry Davies, RFF; Jay Benforado, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; Mary Gade, Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal; and Paul Portney, RFF Wednesday, December 19th The Last Great Places: A Glimpse of The Nature Conservancy's Photography Exhibition Andy Grundberg, The Nature Conservancy Wednesday, December 26th No Seminar...Happy Holidays! ********************************************************************** 2) RFF in the News * Tom Beierle was a guest on WAMU's Public Interest with Kojo Nnamdi on November 7, 2001. The topic was "Restricted Access to Government Information." * Mike Taylor has been asked by the World Health Organization's Food Safety Program to serve as a consultant on its annual review of the United Nations' food standard setting body, The Codex Alimentarius Commission. * Tom Freedman and Mike Taylor are planning a symposium in early 2002 on the politics of the U.S. response to global hunger, which is a follow-up to the RFF Food Security Report. Check the January RFF Developments newsletter for more details. * Molly Macauley chaired a session on the role of government in space at a symposium on space business sponsored by the Dept. of Commerce and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Her full congressional testimony from last fall was included in the briefing book that the Dept. of Commerce put together for the symposium. * Carolyn Fischer gave a presentation to the Canadian Climate Secretariat, a federal/provincial greenhouse gas emissions trading working group. * Dick Morgenstern gave a talk on "Carbon Policies in an International Context" to the International Petroleum Research Organization. ************************************************************** 3) New RFF Publications Public Access to Environmental Information and Data Practice: Examples from the United States, the European Union, and Central and Eastern Europe This reference manual provides a practical overview of how the United States and European countries implement systems that grant the public access to environmental information. The initial audience consists of governments and stakeholders in Central European countries seeking to develop their own systems (a requirement of the 1998 Aarhus Convention on public participation in environmental decision making), but environmental advocates in many other parts of the world will find the information useful. The manual was developed jointly by researchers from Resources for the Future, the Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe, and the New York University School of Law, as part of a project funded by the Global Environment Facility. Ruth Greenspan Bell | November 2001 For more information go to: http://www.rff.org/reports/PDF_files/FOIA_Bell.pdf Discussion Papers: RFF and Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology: Evaluating the StarLink Corn Case StarLink - a type of bioengineered corn that produces its own pesticide and was approved only for animal feed - was found in the human food supply just over a year ago, prompting massive recalls of corn-based products. Resources for the Future, in cooperation with the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology, is in the process of identifying and analyzing the regulatory and public policy issues raised by the StarLink episode. Mike Taylor and Jody Tick | October 2001 For more information go to: http://www.rff.org/disc_papers/PDF_files/0149StarLink_Final.pdf State-Level Variation in Land-Trust Abundance: Could it Make Economic Sense? Few economic analyses examine land trusts, their decisions, and the land-trust "industry," despite their growing importance. For example, statistics on the wide variation in the number of trusts in different regions of the United States raise questions about whether such variation makes economic sense. This paper builds a model to identify the optimal number of private conservation agents, and concluded that the number of trusts is consistent with the optimal number of trusts that is predicted by the model on the basis of the relative importance of spatial externalities and organizational size in different regions. Heidi J. Albers and Amy W. Ando | October 2001 For more information go to: http://www.rff.org/disc_papers/PDF_files/0136.pdf An Economic Assessment of Space Solar Power as a Source of Electricity for Space-Based Activities Discusses the development of a conceptual model of the economic value of space solar power (SSP) as a source of power to in-space activities, such as spacecraft and space stations. Looks at the offering of several estimates of the value based on interviews and published data, discuss technological innovations that may compete with or be complementary to SSP, and consider alternative institutional arrangements for government and the private sector to provide SSP. Molly K. Macauley and James F. Davis | October 2001 For more information go to: http://www.rff.org/disc_papers/PDF_files/0146.pdf The Fall 2001 Resources quarterly publication is now available. To find out more, go to: http://www.rff.org/resources_archive/2001.htm To find out more about a member of the RFF staff go to: http://www.rff.org/about_rff/staff_dir.htm *************************************************************************** 4) RFF 50th Anniversary News RFF Reunion to take place April 18-19, 2002 in conjunction with the Spring Board & Council Meetings. For more details, please contact Susan Johnson Doyle at doyle@rff.org, (ph)202.328.5038, or (fax)202.939.3460 Countdown until the 50th Gala: 316 days! *************************************************************************** If you have received the RFF Developments e-newsletter and do not wish to continue receiving it in the future, please reply to warner@rff.org. For all other inquiries regarding the RFF Developments e-newsletter or RFF in general, please reply to Karin Warner at warner@rff.org.
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