Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Review of Environmental Economics and Policy (REEP) is a peer-reviewed journal published twice each year by the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists. It is designed to bridge the gap between technical academic research in environmental economics and the general interest press, providing accessible yet scholarly coverage of environmental economics and related policy.
REEP is edited by Spencer Banzhaf at North Carolina State University. Articles are generally commissioned by the editors rather than submitted speculatively, and all contributions are still subjected to anonymous peer review.
REEP is the official accessible journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (AERE). It complements the organisation's more technical publication, the Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (JAERE).
Because REEP requires articles to be written for a non-technical, highly readable audience, there are very few other outlets for a paper in that format if it proves unsuitable for REEP. Writing one speculatively therefore represents an unusually high risk for authors. The editors instead invite proposals for topics and authors before any writing begins.
REEP is indexed by EconLit and the Journal of Economic Literature, the primary bibliographic resources used by economists to track research in the field.
REEP is modelled on the relationship between the Journal of Economic Perspectives and the American Economic Review. Just as the Journal of Economic Perspectives provides accessible synthesis alongside the more technical American Economic Review, REEP fills an analogous role in environmental economics.