Hosted by the US EPA
Local, state, and regional authorities are facing many challenges, including those caused by climate change, urbanization, limited natural resources, and aging infrastructure. In developing management strategies, these authorities also have the objectives of promoting economic development, protecting the environment, and providing clean and affordable energy. The result is a complex decision-making landscape. Decision makers would benefit from tools that help them quantify the impacts of potential management strategies, identify the tradeoffs of planning objectives, and develop win-win solutions. EPA has been building two such tools: GLIMPSE and COMET. GLIMPSE is a decision support tool that assists long-term environmental, climate, and energy planning. City-based Optimization Model for Energy Technologies (COMET) is an energy-environment-economic optimization model. This presentation will describe how these frameworks can be used to support state and municipal planning.