Environmental laws protect the air we breathe, water we drink, and land we inhabit. While significant progress has been made since the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was established 50 years ago, federal, state, and local officials face daunting challenges in enforcing the nation’s environmental laws. Despite improvements, serious violations are widespread across all programs and industry types -- and current monitoring relies largely on self-reporting. As a result, tens of millions of Americans are exposed to pollution hotspots and unsafe drinking water. But the risks to people aren’t equally shared. For example, the California State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) estimated in 2013 that over a quarter of the waters supplying the state’s community groundwater systems are contaminated, disproportionately affecting poorer, rural, and communities of color. The Regulation, Evaluation, and Governance Lab (RegLab) is working with federal and state EPA agencies to build a program for clean water and environmental compliance. Together, they hope to transform a fifty-year-old regulatory system with data-driven insights and to create environmental protection for all.
Our team:
Daniel E. Ho, PI, Law, Political Science, SIEPR, HAI, Director of the RegLab
Brandon Anderson, RegLab Head of Data Science
Elinor Benami, Co-PI, Virginia Tech, Agricultural and Applied Economics
Colleen Honigsberg, Co-PI, Law, SIEPR
Rosemary Knight, Co-PI, Geophysics, Woods Institute
Nicole Lin, RegLab Research Fellow
Deborah A. Sivas, Law, Director, Environmental and Natural Resources Law and Policy Program, Director, Environmental Law Clinic, Woods Institute
Jenny Suckale, Co-PI, Geophysics, Woods Institute
Christine Tsang, RegLab Executive Director
Reid Whitaker, RegLab Graduate Student Fellow
Dan Palmer, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
