Carbon Offsets

Voluntary Carbon Offset Information Portal provides information about buying carbon offsets to neutralize carbon dioxide emissions created by individual air travel. It features a consumer handout on "flying green,"a report on voluntary offsets for air travel carbon emissions, a paper with an overview of international climate change policies and the current carbon market, description of offset project types, a list of carbon offset companies, a glossary, and more. The portal is a joint project of the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) and Tufts Climate Initiative (TCI).

ALEC Report Card on American Education

2007 Report Card on American Education from the American Legislative Exchange Council (the 14th edition) gathers and presents in a quick-glance format helpful data for reviewing the condition of education among the states. The “snapshot” pages reveal states’ “inputs” and “outputs,” as well as demographic information. Policymakers and parents will be able to easily reference per-pupil spending, for example, as well as class size and achievement scores. By compiling this data from its sources, the Report Card aims to contribute to a well-informed community of parents and leaders.

The Report Card also reviews the data across states to identify any promising relationships among “inputs” and “outputs” in an effort to help answer the question: What works?
The results show that we are not doing enough to prepare America’s children for global competitiveness. International data and trends cannot be ignored. The latest results of comparison among participating nations of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development peg American students’ achievement levels in science below dozens of other countries including Croatia, Latvia, and mainland China. In fact, the United States scores below the combined average of all countries observed. These results come on the heels of a Wall Street Journal editorial warning that America’s output of American-born Ph.D. students is losing ground to foreign-born students with temporary visas.

Individual state reports also are available.

Subprime Mortgages

Subprime Outcomes: Risky Mortgages, Homeownership Experiences, and Foreclosures provides the first rigorous assessment of the homeownership experiences of subprime borrowers. It considers homeowners who used subprime mortgages to buy their homes, and estimates how often these borrowers end up in foreclosure. In order to evaluate these issues, homeownership experiences in Massachusetts over the 1989–2007 period are analyzed, using a competing risks/ proportional hazard framework. Two findings are presented: first, homeownerships that begin with a subprime purchase mortgage end up in foreclosure almost 20 percent of the time, or more than 6 times as often as experiences that begin with prime purchase mortgages; second, house price appreciation plays a dominant role in generating foreclosures. In fact, most of the dramatic rise in Massachusetts foreclosures during 2006 and 2007 were due to the decline in house prices that began in the summer of 2005.

Source: Federal Reserve of Boston

Transportation and Climate Change

Climate change will have a significant impact on transportation infrastructure and operations : While every mode of transportation in the U.S. will be affected as the climate changes, potentially the greatest impact on transportation systems will be flooding of roads, railways, transit systems, and airport runways in coastal areas because of rising sea levels and surges brought on by more intense storms, says a new report from the National Research Council. Though the impacts of climate change will vary by region, it is certain they will be widespread and costly in human and economic terms, and will require significant changes in the planning, design, construction, operation, and maintenance of transportation systems.


Source: National Research Council/National Academies Press

Ozone Layer

Each year, the depleted region in Earth's protective ozone layer over the Antarctic, or "ozone hole," reaches its largest size during a period in September. Data from a NASA satellite are now in, and images created from the data reveal the extent of the hole in 2007 was about average when compared to measurements from the last few decades.

NASA studies ozone to better understand its relation to air quality and climate." Learn about the "depleted region in Earth's protective ozone layer over the Antarctic," how plants are "used to study air quality from the ground by seeing how ozone ... damages the leaves," and more.

From the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
URL: http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/ozone_resource_page.html

Water Infrastructure

Policymakers are giving increased attention to issues associated with financing and investing in the nation’s drinking water and wastewater treatment systems, which take in water, treat it, and distribute it to households and other customers, and later collect, treat, and discharge water after use. The renewed attention is due to a combination of factors. These include financial impacts on communities of meeting existing and anticipated regulatory requirements, the need to repair and replace existing infrastructure, and concerns about paying for security-related projects.

The federal government has a long history of involvement with wastewater and drinking water systems, with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) having the most significant role, both in terms of regulation and funding. The U.S. Department of Agriculture also plays an important role in rural communities through its water and wastewater loan and grant programs. These programs have been popular; however, states, local communities, and others have asserted that various program gaps and limitations may be diminishing their potential effectiveness. They also point to the emergence of new infrastructure needs and issues.

Congressional interest in these issues has grown for some time and is continuing in the 110th Congress. In each of the past three Congresses, House and Senate committees acted on legislation to reauthorize and modify infrastructure financing programs in the Clean Water Act and Safe Drinking Water Act, but no bills were enacted. The Bush Administration has addressed water infrastructure in a number of general ways, but has not offered legislative proposals of its own. EPA’s principal initiative has been to support strategies intended to ensure that infrastructure investment needs are met in an efficient, timely, and equitable manner.

A Congressional Research Service report (Water Infrastructure Needs and Investment: Review and Analysis of Key Issues ), released on February 29, 2008, identifies a number of issues that have received attention in connection with water infrastructure investment. It begins with a review of federal involvement, describes the debate about needs, and then examines key issues, including what is the nature of the problems to be solved; who will pay, and what is the federal role; and questions about mechanisms for delivering federal support, including state-by-state allotment of federal funds. Congressional and Administration activity on these issues from the 107th to the 109th Congresses also is reviewed.

Source: Congressional Research Service (via Federation of American Scientists)

Medicare Part D

AARP Report Finds Brand Name Drug Prices Continue to Soar: According to a report released today by AARP, pharmaceutical companies have substantially raised prices on 220 brand name prescription drugs most commonly used by people in Medicare Part D since the implementation of the drug benefit in 2006. AARP has studied drug prices since 2002 and reported the findings in a series of Watchdog reports. Today’s report expands on the series by focusing its analysis on those brand prescription drugs most widely used by people enrolled in Medicare Part D.

The Watchdog report, which was produced by AARP’s Public Policy Institute (PPI), found that prices of brand name drugs most commonly used by people in Medicare Part D rose by an average of 7.4 percent in 2007 – nearly two and a half times the rate of general inflation. The report concludes that rising prices threaten consumers by increasing the likelihood of higher insurance premiums and the chance that people will fall into the Medicare coverage gap, and increasing the out-of-pocket expenses of those who find themselves in this “donut hole.”