The focus of the Environmental and Regulatory Policy track is on whether and how government regulation can improve public welfare. Federal, state, and local regulations of technology, energy, transportation, telecommunication, and the environment affect all of us. According to the Office of Management and Budget, on just the federal level, major regulations accounted for between $99 billion and $484 billion in benefits and between $40 billion and $46 billion in costs over the last 10 years. Environmental and regulatory policy is a complex field that transcends a single academic discipline. One must be knowledgeable about economic tradeoffs, the values and ethics associated with these tradeoffs, the political and administrative process of making regulatory decisions, the legal framework of regulations, and the science underlying applications of regulations towards health risks.

The track applies these tools in a number of classes that examine policies concerning the environment, antitrust, energy, telecommunications, urban sprawl, technology, drug regulation, homeland security, and others. Given its interdisciplinary nature, students in this track are able to benefit from, and are encouraged to pursue, classes from other Georgetown departments including the Law Center; McDonough School of Business; Science, Technology & International Affairs; Communication, Culture, and Technology Program, and occasionally the School of Foreign Service.

Recent graduates of GPPI who have specialized in environmental and regulatory policy found employment at Booz Allen Hamilton, Castalia, Concentric Energy Advisors, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Geomatrix Inc., Luntz Research Companies, National Environmental Trust, New York Restoration Project, Pew Center on Global Climate Change, Philadelphia Office to the Mayor, SAIC, U.S. Congress, U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Government Accountability Office, The World Bank, World Resources Institute, and many other government, nonprofit, and private organizations.