Big Decisions in Administrative Law, with Jody Freeman and Jeff Holmstead

Stay tuned for more episodes in our month-long spin-off series, “Big Decisions: The Future of US Environmental and Energy Policy.” Every Tuesday in October, RFF President Richard G. Newell and RFF Board of Directors Chair Sue Tierney will share guest-hosting duties and chat with leading decisionmakers, analysts, researchers, and reporters about the big decisions that will impact US environmental and energy policy in the years to come.

Notable Quotes

• Climate change will intensify under the next president: “More intense hurricanes, more intense fires, a longer fire season—all the things we’re experiencing are worse because of developments in the world of climate … Everything looks like it’s on fire for the new president, and I think it’s going to be very challenging to figure out what to do, and in what order. And remember: presidents don’t have much time before the midterms, so they’ve got to figure out what their priorities are.” —Jody Freeman (18:17)
• Congress should lead on environmental policy: “I don’t think that a conservative Supreme Court is going to be opposed to environmental regulation, and I think they will do their best to see that agencies implement the statutes consistent with congressional intent … but it will be clear that the courts are not the place [to deal] with the solutions to climate change … [the US Environmental Protection Agency] can certainly do some things, but I think, ultimately, we should all be looking to Congress and hoping to come up with the kinds of solutions that can get enough votes to pass and be durable.” —Jeffrey R. Holmstead (25:31)
• With bipartisan help, Biden could pursue a clean energy standard: “I would expect a Biden administration to try to use the Clean Air Act and then set sectoral standards for the transportation sector, and for the electric power sector, and for the oil and gas sector, and so on … We might wind up seeing a clean energy standard for which we might be able to attract Republicans’ support, because we have Republican states that have renewable portfolio standards where they’ve been very successful.” —Jody Freeman (27:33)

Top of the Stack

• This is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett
• Chernobyl miniseries
• The Rule of Five by Richard J. Lazarus
• Borgen television series
• Schitt's Creek television series
• Watchmen television series

The Full Transcript

Sue Tierney: Hello, and welcome to Resources Radio, a weekly podcast from Resources for the Future. I'm your guest host Sue Tierney. This episode continues our month long spinoff series called “Big Decisions: The Future of US Environmental and Energy Policy.” Our regular hosts, Daniel Raimi and Kristin Hayes, are taking a well-earned month off, so we'll broadcast this special series in our same Resources Radio time slot every Tuesday in October, and return to Daniel and Kristin in November.

For this Big Decisions series, I have the pleasure of sharing guest hosting duties with Richard Newell. He's the President and CEO of RFF and a leading expert on the economics of energy in the environment. Richard and I will have conversations with leading decisionmakers on both sides of the aisle, top analysts, scholars, and reporters, to discuss the big decisions that will likely affect US environmental and energy policy in the years to come. Please stay with us.

My guests today are Jody Freeman and Jeff Holmstead. Besides being a friend of mine, Jody is a professor at Harvard who specializes in administrative law and environmental law. At Harvard Law School, Jody is the founding director of the Environmental and Energy Law Program, which focuses on climate and energy policy. She also established the Law School's first environmental law clinic. I also count Jeff as a friend. He is an attorney with experience in both the government and the private sector. Not only is Jeff a member of RFF's President's Council, but he is also a partner at the Houston-based law firm Bracewell LLP, and he is a former assistant administrator at the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Jeff was head of EPA's Office of Air and Radiation longer than anyone else in EPA history.

Thank you so much for joining us, Jeff and Jody. I am personally delighted that you've joined us for this podcast. So let me start, we're going to continue with this Big Decisions series by talking with the two of you about big environmental policy decisions in the upcoming administration. But before we go into that, let's kick things off with a question for each of you about each of you. What in your life steered you toward working on energy and environmental issues? Jody, let's start with you, and then Jeff, take it away.

Jody Freeman: It's interesting, I wish I had one of these wonderful stories about how I was scuba diving in the Great Barrier Reef and I had an epiphany, or something, about the future of the planet, but I didn’t. I have a really nerdy, intellectual type of answer, which is, when I went into law and I thought that I would go into a career in law teaching, and I was interested in researching stuff, I thought, “wow, this area of environment is so interesting because it's about everything.” It's about the economy, and it's about poverty, and it's about environmental protection, and it's got everything in it, all the hard issues. And that was before climate change was really on the radar in this way. So I feel like I made a good bet on a set of issues that are challenging and hard and interesting, and then it only got more interesting when climate change became such a focus.

Sue Tierney: Yeah, you did choose a complicated area, but I'm sure it's fun every day. And Jeff, how about you?

Jeffrey Holmstead: Well, my story is very different. When I graduated from law school, I didn't even know there was such a thing as environmental law, and I certainly had no interest in anything having to do with administrative law.

Jody Freeman: That hurts my heart, Jeff.

Jeffrey Holmstead: I can imagine, but you'll feel better after I finish my answer, because sort of unexpectedly, I ended up with an opportunity to interview for a job in the White House Counsel's office during the George H. W. Bush administration. And when I interviewed with the White House Counsel, a fellow named C. Boyden Gray, he asked me if I would be willing to spend maybe half of my time working on regulatory issues. And I had no real interest, although I had clerked on the DC circuit so I had a bit of background, but I wanted to work in the White House, so I said, "Well, of course I'd be happy to work on those issues."

And you may remember that George H. W. Bush had campaigned in part on wanting to modernize the Clean Air Act, and the White House was really very involved in all the details of negotiating the 1990 amendments. And I became the White House staff lawyer who was largely responsible for working with EPA, and in some ways trying to make sure that EPA didn't go off the reservation when it came to the 1990 amendments. And within just a few months I was spending 90 percent of my time on environmental issues—mostly Clean Air Act issues—and they were the most interesting issues I had ever seen. It was a combination of science and economics and policy and law and politics, and it was enormously interesting, and I realized it was enormously important. And so as a result of that sort of unexpected introduction, I've spent most of my career working on Clean Air Act issues. And I have to say, I'm very happy it's worked out that way.

Sue Tierney: That's great. And Jeff, I should mention, and give a shout out to C. Boyden Gray, who is a member of the board of RFF. So all things come to pass, it's great. So let me start with a question that I find interesting for the two of you, because both of you had senior positions at the start of a new administration in Washington, and you both worked on environmental regulatory issues. So could you share some thoughts about what it's like for a new team to gear up when there is a change of administration, which of course could happen if Vice President Biden is elected, and how different do you think that that new administration would be if President Trump is reelected? And this time let me start with Jeff.

Jeffrey Holmstead: So I experienced the transition from Clinton to George W. Bush, and that was back in a time when I think things weren't quite so polarized as they are today. So when I came into EPA at the beginning of that administration, there were certainly things that we would have done differently had we been in charge of EPA, but there was not a sense that we needed to go in and undo things that had been done. There were the Tier 3 regulations; there were the relatively new NAAQS on PM2.5 and ozone. Those issues had been decided, and some of them were still being litigated, but there was never a sense that we had to review everything that had been done because for the most part, we believed that they should be implemented and enforced.

There was one big exception. You may remember on her way out the door that EPA Administrator Carol Browner had made the first appropriate and necessary determination dealing with the regulation of air toxics from the power sector, and that is one thing that we did reverse. But other than that, we came in looking at what the president had said during the campaign, including his somewhat ill-advised campaign promise that he was going to promote a bill to regulate SO₂ and NOx and mercury, and CO₂ from the power sector. There was certainly a lot of discussion about whether we really should include CO₂ in that.

But for the most part, we came in, and I had many of my own ideas about regulatory reform, and the president had a few priorities that were important to him. I do think it's very different now, and I think if president Trump is reelected it will be a continuation of what we have seen. I don't think there would really be a change in direction at all. But if Mr. Biden is elected, I think we will see something similar to what we saw in the beginning of the Clinton administration, where there was a real rush to undo many of the things that had been done. So I think the world is different now, and I think the election will have enormous consequences for what happens at EPA.

Sue Tierney: Thanks, Jeff. And Jody, you started out in the transition in the White House under President Obama. Do you want to share some thoughts about that time?

Jody Freeman: Yeah, what I would say about that time was it was both daunting and exhilarating, because if you remember, the economy had essentially gone off a cliff. Now, of course, what's happening now to us with the COVID-19 pandemic plus the economic consequences actually dwarfs that. But it was very serious at the time, and so there was this sense of urgency around the economy, and there were so many hard things that had to be done right away. And I think on these issues of environment and climate in particular, there was a real sense of urgency at the start of the Obama years because, from our perspective, the George W. Bush administration had done a lot of things that we felt we needed to reverse.

So for example, as you remember, Bush had withdrawn the United States from the Kyoto Protocol formally. He had reversed his initial policy that carbon dioxide was a pollutant and that it should be regulated. Originally, Bush as a candidate had supported a plan to regulate power plants, CO₂, and EPA Administrator Christine Whitman had thought that EPA would take that on and help get that legislation passed to do that and implement it. And in the meantime, Massachusetts v. EPA—the big Supreme Court case that had been decided in 2007—was the real game changer. When the Supreme Court said that EPA in fact does have authority to regulate greenhouse gases as pollutants and sent the decision whether to make an endangerment finding or not and explain it again back to the EPA, all that was waiting for President Obama and his team.

Obama on the campaign trail had said, "Look, we are going to take a look at this endangerment finding question, which is the predicate to regulating greenhouse gas, finding that they endanger health or welfare. And we're going to look again at the Bush administration's decision to deny California a waiver to set its own greenhouse gas standards for vehicles," and on and on it went. And the agenda, if you remember, both McCain and Obama, when running for president in 2008, had said they wanted to do something serious about climate change. It's almost unthinkable now, you almost can't remember that, that both the Republican side and the Democratic side said, "This is a priority issue." And McCain was credible on it because he had co-sponsored a bill in Congress.

In any event, climate was at the top of the priority list, except for two things. When we came in, the other two things were one: the economic collapse that had to be fixed. And so the administration had to figure out how to do a recovery bill very quickly. And the other thing was, of course, healthcare, and healthcare was a core Democratic issue. So those took precedence a little bit ahead of climate change, but it was exhilarating because right away in the transition, we knew that our area—climate and energy—was going to be important. There was a new Office of Energy and Climate Change in the White House, which is in fact where I worked, where I was Deputy and where I was Counselor for Energy and Climate Change.

So it was probably the most exhilarating thing I'd ever done. Unlike Jeff, I hadn't been involved in prior administrations. I'm just a mild-mannered law professor, and this was an opportunity to be part of something really exciting, to be involved in governance. And to start at a reasonably high level was pretty daunting but super exhilarating.

The one thing I'd say, Sue, in response to your question about what happens in this transition, if there is one, to a Biden White House, I don't know what Jeff thinks about this, but I think there are some shenanigans in every transition. Some would call it vandalism, some would call it pranking, but there were jokes about how the W's got removed from the keyboards when the Clinton administration was waiting for George W to come in. Stuff like that; those are the stories that get told about this stuff.

But I would say that what you count on in a transition is that the outgoing administration will ease the way and provide memos and pre-clearances, get lists going for people who are going to need security clearances, and do all kinds of stuff to pave the way and make it smooth, and agencies write play books and summaries and memos to help the incoming team. And I think that the George W. Bush administration got huge credit for its enormously graceful handling of the transition to Obama. They were classy, and they did the work, and they put the Obama administration on a good footing.

And I see none of that very likely to happen if the Trump team is handing over to a Biden team. I think we will have a transition that will be enormously challenging, there will have been no cooperation, no help, and I think that will put the Biden team in a position where they've got to work doubly hard to take the reins.

Sue Tierney: Yeah, I'm going to just do an underscoring of what you've said, Jody. I had the honor of co-chairing the transition team at the Department of Energy, and the Bush team did a beautiful job of getting things ready for the new crowd. And so that was a really great thing at the time.

Jeffrey Holmstead: It's really nice to hear you saying nice things about the George W. Bush administration. I'm sorry that I had left EPA by that time, so I can take no credit for it. I did want to just make a quick comment. I think the transition, if there is a transition, from the Trump administration to a Biden administration, it will be very different from the previous transition from Obama to Trump because the Biden administration has a well-organized transition team, and I'm obviously not involved, but I'm aware that they've thought through a lot of issues, and they've anticipated what the priorities will be and the things they need to deal with.

Because the Trump campaign was so unusual, and had effectively invented its own playbook, it just didn't have any of that. And so the transition was a long and difficult one, not so much because the Obama administration hadn't cooperated, but because the Trump administration really didn't have people who were ready to step in, and who had experience, and who had spent time thinking about the issue. So I think if there is a transition, it will be quite different from the last one.

Sue Tierney: It strikes me that what you're describing, both of you, is potentially the difference between someone who runs for office and doesn't expect to win, and someone who has governed previously.

Jody Freeman: Yeah, not just governed, but the Biden folks know their way around the West Wing. I mean, it's not just that they have governed in some capacity, they've been in the White House and know how to do what they need to do. And I'm certain the transition team is hard at work, and has been for some time, but it's just tougher when the outgoing folks are trying to jam the gears. And I'm pretty skeptical about this outgoing set of folks that they'll be helpful at all.

Sue Tierney: Well let me turn from that. Jody, you mentioned that when you were working in the White House it was the stressful time associated with the collapse of the economy, and one could say that right now it's an extraordinarily unprecedented time with so many sources of stress—whether it's COVID, our new chapter of economic distress, the protests over racial injustice, certainly the impacts of extreme weather events in a lot of different parts of the country, and let me just throw in there the changes on the Supreme Court.

So I wonder if each of you would comment about how you think one or another of those important sources of stress could affect governance issues related to environmental protection in the upcoming period. And this time let me start with Jody, and then we'll turn to Jeff.

Jody Freeman: The way I think about the collection of issues right now that are waiting for a Biden administration, if he is successful, is that it's going to be like drinking from a fire hydrant. It feels to me right now like everything that was happening to the Obama folks but on steroids. So you don't just have an economy in real trouble; you have an economy in dire condition that's been shut down now for about six months in significant respects. You've got a pandemic—a historic pandemic—that nobody can think of an analogy to, unless you go back to 1918. It's an incredibly challenging time. Anybody who takes the reins now is walking into this set of challenges.

And here we are at a time when climate change is making the world just more challenging because of a number of natural disasters that are worse because of a warming planet. So, there are more intense hurricanes, more intense fires, a longer fire season. All of the things we're experiencing are just worse because of developments in the world of climate. What I'm trying to say is: everything looks like it's on fire for the new president, and I think it's going to be very challenging to figure out what to do in what order. And remember presidents have like 18 months before the midterms, and so you've got to figure out what your priorities are.

And I think the Biden team is probably going to really focus on the pandemic, getting the country healthy again, and getting the economy back to work, and then they've also made a lot of important pledges on climate action. So how to do all that at the same time is going to be hard, and they're going to be really busy, and I think the shift in the Supreme Court also presents some real questions that have to be answered. You hear a lot of talk about if Mitch McConnell succeeds in getting Amy Coney Barrett confirmed, and at the time of this recording, we don't know, and the hearings are coming up. But if that confirmation happens, there will be a big reaction among Democrats that this was illegitimate. And there's talk of things like court packing and what can be done to counteract the effect of six conservative justices. And there's just a lot of conversation about this.

So, I think questions will arise about what the right response is. For energy and environment and climate, I think a sixth conservative justice will make a big difference in the sense that it will cement a trajectory that already is happening on the court, and I'm curious to hear Jeff's views about this, too. I think the court already is skeptical about broad agency regulation. I think that the court will not be very welcoming when agencies come, whether it's in the environmental arena or any other regulatory arena, and say, "We are interpreting our statute in a forward-thinking way to deal with new problems." I think the court wants to see very clear textual assignments of authority and will send these things back to Congress.

I think that's already the way the court was going, and I think Amy Coney Barrett, given her view of statutory interpretation—how she signaled she really approaches statutes and constitutional interpretation in the mold of justice Scalia—I think we can expect that she will be skeptical toward ambitious agency regulation. And I think all told, that is probably not going to be helpful for people who want to see the EPA use the Clean Air Act to address climate change aggressively. So I think if you add up all these things—all of the challenges facing the president, plus this development on the Supreme Court, plus a Congress that has so far not shown that it can pass legislation to deal with climate change or energy challenges—you have a major set of policy challenges that the administration will be wrestling with right out of the gate.

Sue Tierney: Okay Jeff, you get some equal time here.

Jeffrey Holmstead: I will start by saying that I largely agree with what Jody said, but let me make a comment that she didn't quite say, and that is that I think for people who are intensely interested in environmental issues, and especially in climate change, it may be a little frustrating. They've focused on what Vice President Biden has said about climate change, and people are intensely interested in that and what they can do, but of necessity, as Jody said, the White House is going to have other priorities, like dealing with the pandemic and dealing with the economic situation.

As much as those of us in this chat care about climate change, it's not a top-tier issue for most average Americans. And I think there will be political and economic necessities that will keep the Biden administration focused on the pandemic, on the economy, and maybe on healthcare. And I think that may be a little frustrating to people who are really expecting a focus on climate change and some more thoughtful, Biden-supported version of the Green New Deal.

What I would say is I would expect people at EPA will largely go about the business of implementing the programs that they have, and using the authorities that they have, so I don't think that will distract them very much at EPA. I think the career professionals at EPA are actually pretty amazing, and no matter who is in charge, they do their best to help leaders make good decisions and to implement their priorities, and I think that will happen at EPA. But I think for any big, ambitious, new things that require a lot of political investment by the White House, I just don't think we're going to see that in the first couple of years, if there is a Biden administration.

I guess maybe, since Jody talked a bit about the Supreme Court, maybe I should go ahead and just talk a bit about that too. I also agree that the Supreme Court— regardless of whether we have a sixth conservative justice—is going to be skeptical of regulatory imperialism, where agencies are attempting to use creative, new interpretations of old statutes to deal with new problems. And Jody and I have had this conversation over the years: I know she was very supportive of the Clean Power Plan, while I thought it went beyond EPA statutory authority. I'm quite confident that this Supreme Court would agree with me and not with Jody, and I think that, off the bat, creates a real challenge for a Biden EPA, because obviously depending on a little bit on what happens with the current Affordable Clean Energy case, and whether there's a decision, and so on and so forth.

But if that issue is remanded back to EPA, they will have to decide whether to use the Clean Power Plan structure to try to come up with an aggressive, cost-effective way to deal with climate change, and that will require significant time and effort and resources. And are they really going to do that knowing that there is a very high likelihood that it won't stand up in the Supreme Court? So I think those kinds of issues are going to be issues that a Biden EPA would have to deal with.

I don't think that a conservative Supreme Court is going to be opposed to environmental regulation, and I point out to people that Justice Scalia very famously authored the decision in EPA vs. Whitman that said, "EPA, when you're setting the National Ambient Air Quality Standards, you're not allowed to consider costs, and you can only look at the health effects." So I think that they will do their best to see that agencies implement the statutes consistent with congressional intent, but I do think that that will make it challenging to have the kinds of creative approaches that we saw with the Clean Power Plan.

And let me just make one other quick comment about the Supreme Court. I also think that for all of the climate litigation that's going on—and there are many different types of cases out there, but I think ultimately those issues will go to the Supreme Court—it will be clear that the courts are not the place that our judges are going to be dealing with the solutions to climate change. I think all of this means that it's going to be put squarely back in the lap of Congress. I mean, EPA can certainly do some things, but I think ultimately we should all be looking to Congress, and hoping to come up with the kinds of solutions that can get enough votes to pass and be durable.

Jody Freeman: Yeah, I would just say, Sue, I think Jeff and I actually agree on this, that the best solution is for Congress to do something about climate change and energy policy in a thoughtful way. And to my mind, Congress has just been out of action, and I think the executive branch has felt that if this is something that's important, then we ought to use existing authorities to the extent we can to deal with it, with the Clean Air Act being the most potent authority. And I would expect a Biden administration to try to do both things at once: to use the Clean Air Act and then to set sectoral standards for the transportation sector, and for the electric power sector, and the oil and gas sector, and so on, which is well within its authority. And then I would also expect the administration to be trying to get through Congress a bill that prices carbon, whether it's back to a cap-and-trade approach, or a carbon tax, whatever the policy might be, I think they're going to try to advance legislation.

To my mind, it's going to be tough politics to get through something really comprehensive, so it might wind up being smaller bites. We might wind up seeing a clean energy standard for which you might be able to attract Republicans’ support because we have Republican states that have renewable portfolio standards where they've been very successful. There's some reason to believe that a clean energy standard could be bipartisan. Then you could imagine a lot of climate energy policy being done through the Recovery Act, like we did in the Obama administration with billions of dollars being put into advanced battery technology, and smart grids, and so on, so that you could do a combination of spending legislation and regulation that would really advance the ball on climate and energy policy. So I would just say don't be looking necessarily for one sweeping thing, but look for a combination.

Sue Tierney: Thanks for that, Jody. And Jeff, do you want to just have anything in response to that before I ask you guys your last question?

Jeffrey Holmstead: You know, the only thing I would say is that I am perhaps a little more optimistic than Jody is about the likelihood of Congress passing some sort of comprehensive climate change legislation. I'm not a Pollyanna, I know that there are challenges, but I think that there are many people in the business community who believe that climate change is an important issue to deal with, and that would like to have some longer-term certainty that can only come with legislation.

You know, we certainly saw some of that back in the days of Waxman-Markey, but I think the proportion of the business community that sees this as an important issue and that would like to have some longer-term certainty means that there would be support, not just in the environmental community, but also in the business community, to have some sort of comprehensive climate legislation. So I certainly don't rule that out, although I recognize that it will not be the highest-priority issue for a new administration or a new Congress. But once the economy is back on a little more solid ground, I think that's something that could happen.

Sue Tierney: Well, you guys, this is it, you've just shown our listeners about why it is so wonderful to have a chance to listen to thoughtful, smart attorneys who are deeply steeped in administrative law, where so much action occurs in the federal government. But the best part is, not only you two are both brilliant, but also how courteous you both are. What a nice, refreshing thing it is to have people with different points of view, or areas of commonality, but who have respect for each other. So thank you very much for that.

Jeffrey Holmstead: Are you saying it's not always like that?

Sue Tierney: Surprise, surprise. So let me turn to the final question that is the standard one at the end of Resources Radio, and it's called What's at the Top of your Stack. So tell us something that you have either read, watched, or heard about recently related to energy, the environment, or the democratic process, that you think is really interesting, and that you would recommend to our listeners. And Jeff, let me begin with you.

Jeffrey Holmstead: Oh my goodness. You know, I'm happy to give you a recommendation of a wonderful book I just finished reading, but it has nothing to do with energy and the environment.

Sue Tierney: Well, if it was wonderful, let's let the listeners know.

Jeffrey Holmstead: You've probably already read it, because it's been around for a while, but my wife convinced me to read Ann Patchett's This is the Story of a Happy Marriage, and it was fabulous, and it made me think seriously about a lot of things. So I do highly recommend that. The other thing, in terms of an energy issue: I thought the Netflix series on Chernobyl was one of the best pieces of art I've ever seen. I understand that it may not have gotten all the details right, but I think it maybe had much less to do with nuclear power and much more to do with different types of governments and the way they treat their people. But I thought that was a remarkable show, and anybody who has not watched it should certainly do so.

Sue Tierney: I totally agree. And Jody, how about you?

Jody Freeman: Well, I'm going to give a plug to my wonderful colleague, Richard Lazarus's book about the history of Massachusetts v. EPA, which is widely viewed as the most important environmental law case ever that the Supreme Court decided. And it's called The Rule of Five, and it's just a great chronicle, written for a lay audience, about this very exciting case and the main players, and how we came to a closely decided Supreme Court decision in which John Paul Stevens managed to attract the swing vote of Justice Kennedy and write an opinion that EPA has authority to regulate greenhouse gases.

Jody Freeman: And I just think it's a terrific book, so I want to give him a plug, and he's a wonderful guy. I do want to recommend a TV show, though, just because in COVID-19, it's very important one shares what they're watching. And I am obsessed by Borgen, which is a show about Danish politics. It's kind of like House of Cards, but softer and gentler and kinder. All in Denmark, and it's dubbed, and it's fantastic. So look at Borgen; that's my big insight.

Sue Tierney: Wow, that's great. Both are wonderful recommendations from both of you, and I'm just going to add two things to the TV viewing audience. Okay, I'm a Schitt's Creek fan, so there you go.

Jody Freeman: Definitely.

Sue Tierney: And I also have loved Watchmen. I loved that graphic novel, and the series is pretty powerful.

And with that, let me thank you guys again for joining us this week. I feel like we are so honored to have had your thoughtful attention and time, so thank you very much, Jody Freeman and Jeff Holmstead. You've given us a lot of food for thought, and it's going to be interesting to see what happens in the coming months.

Jeffrey Holmstead: Thanks; thanks very much for having me.

Jody Freeman: Thanks for having us, Sue. Great to talk to you.

Sue Tierney: You've been listening to Resources Radio. Thanks so much for tuning in. If you have a minute, we'd really appreciate you leaving us a rating or a comment on your podcast platform of choice. Also, feel free to send us your suggestions for future episodes.

Resources Radio is a podcast from Resources for the Future. RFF is an independent, nonprofit research institution in Washington, DC. Our mission is to improve environmental energy and natural resource decisions through impartial economic research and policy engagement. Learn more about RFF at rff.org.

The views expressed on this podcast are solely those of the podcast guests and may differ from those of RFF experts, its officers, or its directors. In fact, RFF does not take positions on specific legislative proposals. Resources Radio is produced by Elizabeth Wason, with music by Daniel Raimi. Please join us next week for another episode.