Cache County and the Wasatch Front, Utah have persistently experienced some of the nation’s worst air quality over the past decade. Elevated PM2.5 concentrations during wintertime “red air day” episodes frequently exceed the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS). We investigate the possible effects of two different economic policies in controlling these regional problems. Adapting a model originally developed to calculate the social investment necessary to control nationwide disease outbreaks, we estimate an optimal preventative capital stock (for example, investment in public transportation) of between $4.1 million and $14.1 million to control red air day episodes in Cache County, and $133 million to $1.6 billion dollars to control such episodes in the Wasatch Front. Further, we find that a seasonal gasoline tax rate of roughly $8 per gallon is necessary for policy makers in the Wasatch Front to impose at the pump if their goal is to maintain concentrations below the NAAQS on average during a typical winter-inversion season. This rate is roughly $2 more than the rate calculated for Cache County in a previously published study.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UTAHS/oai:digitalcommons.usu.edu:etd-8374 |
| Date | 01 August 2018 |
| Creators | Acharya, Ramjee |
| Publisher | DigitalCommons@USU |
| Source Sets | Utah State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | All Graduate Theses and Dissertations |
| Rights | Copyright for this work is held by the author. Transmission or reproduction of materials protected by copyright beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the copyright owners. Works not in the public domain cannot be commercially exploited without permission of the copyright owner. Responsibility for any use rests exclusively with the user. For more information contact digitalcommons@usu.edu. |
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