Cost-Nothing Analysis: Environmental Economics in the Age of Trump
Professor Lisa Heinzerling, Georgetown Law
The annual Distinguished Lecture Series is a cooperative venture between the Getches-Wilkinson Center (GWC) and the Colorado Natural Resources, Energy, & Environmental Law Review to host a distinguished figure in the fields of natural resource, energy, and environmental law and policy. The Distinguished Lecture series provides a public forum for thought-leadership, allowing the speakers to reflect on their experiences and provide insights on the current challenges facing natural resources, energy, and the environment. The articles and transcripts resulting from these lectures are published in the Law Review.
Now in its fifth year, Colorado Law is excited to announce a new endowment to bolster support of the Distinguished Lecture series so that we will be able to bring this free event to our community for years to come. Thanks to a generous gift by the Wright Family Foundation to the GWC, we are thrilled to launch the Ruth Wright Distinguished Lecture in Natural Resources to honor her inspiring legacy as a leader in western natural resources, land conservation, and environmental policy and advocacy.
Cost-Nothing Analysis: Environmental Economics in the Age of Trump
Cost-benefit analysis has always resisted environmental protection. For this reason, presidents since Nixon have used cost-benefit analysis to stifle environmentally protective regulation. The present administration has taken this practice one step further by ignoring or eliminating benefits entirely in many instances — thus ushering in an era of cost-nothing analysis. Cost-nothing analysis assumes it costs us nothing to degrade the environment, even as the evidence grows that it may cost us everything.