India's coal-fired generating capacity doubled between 1990 and 2010 and currently accounts for 70 percent of electricity produced. Despite this, thermal efficiency at state-owned coal-fired power plants in India is significantly lower than at plants in the United States. When matched on age and capacity, heat input per kWh was 8 percent higher at Indian plants between 1997 and 2009. This can only partly be explained by the lower heat content of Indian coal. Electricity sector restructuring in the United States improved thermal efficiency at investor-owned plants; however, electricity sector restructuring in India has yet to improve thermal efficiency at state-owned coal-fired power plants.

The federal tax code provides preferential treatment for the production and use of renewable energy. We report estimates of the subsidies' effects on greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions developed in a recent National Research Council (NRC) Report. Due to lack of estimates of the impact of tax provisions on GHG emissions, new modeling studies were commissioned. The studies found, at best, a small impact of subsidies in reducing GHG emissions; in some cases, emissions increased. The NRC report also identified the need to capture the complex interactions among subsidies, pre-existing regulations, and commodity markets.

We ask whether the US government should replace its current discounting practices with a declining discount rate schedule, as the United Kingdom and France have done, or continue to discount the future at a constant exponential rate. We present the theoretical basis for a declining discount rate (DDR) schedule, but focus on how, in practice, a DDR could be estimated for use by policy analysts. We discuss the empirical approaches in the literature and review how the United Kingdom and France estimated their DDR schedules. We conclude with advice on how the United States might proceed to consider modifying its current discounting practices.