Keynote Speaker
Gilbert Metcalf is a Professor of Economics at Tufts University and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and MIT’s Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change. Metcalf has taught at Princeton University, the Kennedy School of Government, and MIT. He has frequently testified before Congress, served on expert panels including a recent National Academies of Sciences panel on energy externalities, and served as a consultant to various organizations. During 2011 and 2012, he served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Environment and Energy at the U.S. Department of Treasury. Metcalf’s primary research area is applied public finance with particular interests in taxation, energy, and environmental economics. His current research focuses on policy evaluation and design in the area of energy and climate change. Metcalf received a B.A. in Mathematics from Amherst College, an M.S. in Agricultural and Resource Economics from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and a Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University.
Expert Panelists
Ryan Kellogg is an Associate Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Michigan, earning his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley in 2008. Ryan’s research bridges industrial organization, energy economics, and environmental policy. His projects have examined topics such as the behavior of oil and gas producers, the effectiveness of U.S. pollution abatement programs, factors affecting households’ vehicle demand, and potential impacts from climate change. Prior to earning his Ph.D., Ryan obtained a B.S. in Chemical Engineering and a B.A. in Economics from Rice University, and also worked for BP for four years in Houston, TX and Anchorage, AK.
Charles Mason Charles “Chuck” Mason is the H. A. “Dave” True, Jr. Chair in Petroleum and Natural Gas Economics in the Department of Economics and Finance at the University of Wyoming. He is an internationally-known scholar who specializes in Environmental and Resource Economics. He served as the managing editor of the top international journal in this field, the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, from 2006-2011. His current research interests include modeling prices for crude oil and natural gas, the role of delivery infrastructure in natural gas markets, and motivations to hold stockpiles of oil and gas. Chuck has a BA and Ph.D. in Economics and a B.A. in Mathematics, all from the University of California at Berkeley.
Karen Palmer is a Senior Fellow at Resources for the Future and Associate Director of RFF’s Center for Climate and Electricity Policy. Palmer has been a researcher at RFF for more than 20 years and is the first recipient of the Darius Gaskins Chair. She specializes in the economics of environmental and public utility regulation, particularly on issues at the intersection of air quality regulation and the electricity sector. Her work seeks to improve the design of incentive-based environmental regulations that influence the electric utility sector, including controls of multi-pollutants and carbon emissions from electrical generating plants. Palmer’s work has direct links to debates on the design of a federal cap-and-trade program for greenhouse gas emissions and regional efforts to control releases of CO2 – including the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative in the northeastern United States and the implementation of AB32 legislation in California. Palmer has a B.A. in economics from Brandeis and a Ph.D. in Economics from Boston College.