This volume, Proceedings of the Conference ACID RAIN: Economic Assessment, is meant to present the areas of agreement which economists have established and the uncertainties which they have discovered in their attempts to use the methodology of economics to better understand the nature of the acid rain issue. Scientific articles about acid rain initially appeared in 1972. The public turned its attention to the issue in the mid-1970s. In April 1979, the first acid rain bill was introduced in the Senate, authored by New York's Senator Daniel P. Moynihan. The bill sought to establish a federal research program dedicated to filling the gaps in understanding of the phenomena of long-range transport of air pollutants and their environmental, health and economic impacts. 'The bill was passed into law in 1980. Since then, tens of bills have been proposed to control emissions of S02 and NO , x thought to be the precursors of acid rain. And yet, in contrast with the pattern set by the majority of environmental issues, where legislation followed very quickly on the heels of public anxiety and involvement, by July 1985 not a single federal acid rain control bill had been passed.

Inhalt

Welcoming Remarks.- Acid Rain: An International Perspective.- Keynote Address.- Acid Rain Science: State of the Art.- Synopsis of Scientific Understanding of Acid Deposition and Its Effects.- Confronting the Assumptions and Uncertainties: Assessing Costs.- Cost and Coal Market Effects of Alternative Approaches for Reducing Electric Utility Sulfur Dioxide Emissions.- Response.- Response.- Response.- Confronting the Assumptions and Uncertainties: Assessing Benefits.- Estimates of Acid Deposition Control Benefits: A Bayesian Perspective.- Response.- Response.- Efficiency and Equity: Can Acid Rain Policy Incorporate Both?.- Efficiency and Environmental Policymaking.- Designing Efficient, Equitable Policies to Abate Acid Rain.- Response.- Response.- Response.- Risk Assessment and Decision Criteria.- Can Risk-Benefit Analysis Be Used in Resolving the Acid Rain Problem?.- Risk Assessment and Acid Rain Policy: A Decision Framework That Includes Uncertainty.- Response.- Decisionmaking in the Absence of Scientific Certainty.- Scientific Research, Risk Assessment, and Policy Development.- Response.- Economic Analysis: The National Acid Precipitation Assessment Program.- Response.- Concluding Remarks.- Summing Up: Areas of Agreement and the Need for Further Research.- Dinner Speakers and Greetings.- New York's Strategy for Controlling Acid Rain.- Decisionmaking at EPA.- Acid Rain and Economic Assessment.- Canada's Acid Rain Policy.- Conference Speakers and Participants.