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Public Comments
Comments on Regulatory Impacts Draft Report to Congress
The Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB’s) annual reports to Congress not only compile all the significant benefits and costs of federal regulations, but they also offer federal agencies and academics an up-to-date summary of the literature on key practices in regulatory impact analysis. As such, OMB’s annual reports should reflect the most comprehensive syntheses of the legal and economic literature on these analytical practices. Our comments on OMB’s draft report for 2017 propose two additions to its summaries of the literature on job impact analysis and on co-benefits analysis
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Court Filings
Brief to Forest Service on Expansion of Colorado’s West Elk Coal Mine
The U.S. Forest Service continues to ignore climate damages in its final approval of a coal mine expansion in Colorado, despite a court ruling that asked the Forest Service to disclose the effects of greenhouse gas emissions from the expansion. In its final environmental impact statement (EIS) on the project, Forest Service quantifies how much the expansion will increase greenhouse gases emissions but only gives a generic description of climate change and its effects. By not quantifying and monetizing the effects of this increase in emissions, the EIS obscures information necessary for the public to appreciate how the expansion will result in hundreds of millions of dollars in climate damages. Our brief to the District Court of Colorado argues that Forest Service’s failure to monetize climate impacts was arbitrary and is still in violation of the National Environmental Policy Act.
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Court Filings
Brief on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program
In September 2017, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a memorandum rescinding the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA), which had protected certain young people who were brought to the U.S. as children from deportation. A variety of plaintiffs—including the Regents of the University of California; several states, counties, and municipalities; and individual program participants—promptly challenged DHS’s decision in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California and secured a preliminary injunction blocking DHS from carrying out the rescission. DHS has now appealed that injunction to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Our brief, which urges the court to affirm the district court’s injunction, addresses only one issue in the case: DHS’s contention that it had a reasonable basis for rescinding DACA based on the “evident risk” that the program “would at a minimum be the subject of protracted litigation, and very likely be enjoined nationwide.”
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Court Filings
Brief Challenging Suspension of NHTSA Rule on Fuel Economy Penalties
In 2017, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) suspended its 2016 Civil Penalties Rule, which adjusted the penalties for automobile manufacturer non-compliance with fuel economy standards for the first time in decades to reflect inflation. In issuing its suspension, NHTSA claimed that it was causing no harm. Our brief in the case challenging this suspension shows that NHTSA’s claim of no harm was inaccurate.
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Public Comments
Comments on Use of the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases in Environmental Impact Statements
We recently submitted joint comments to advocate for the proper use of the social cost of greenhouse gases in multiple environmental impact statements. Our comments to the Office of Surface Mining and Reclamation (OSMRE) and our comments to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) focused on the agencies’ failure to use the social cost of greenhouse gases metric to account for the climate effects of anticipated project emissions. In our comments on the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM)’s 5-year scoping plan for offshore oil and gas leasing, we emphasized that if and when BOEM decides to monetize greenhouse gas emissions, it should use the 2016 IWG estimates, as it has done in the past.
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Public Comments
Comments on Interior’s Offshore Oil and Gas Leasing 2019-2024 Draft Proposed Program
The Department of the Interior’s offshore leasing program must analyze and account for the potential for environmental damage, the potential for the discovery of oil and gas, and the potential for adverse impact on the coastal zone. In addition, offshore oil and gas leases must provide fair market value for private use and development of these publicly-owned oil and gas resources. Our comments to the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) explain why its Draft Proposed Program for 2019-2024, which would replace BOEM’s existing Program for 2017-2022, fails to meet its statutory mandates under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA).
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Public Comments
Comments to Interior on Offshore Drilling Safety Requirements
The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) within the Department of the Interior is tasked with setting safety and environmental standards for offshore oil and gas production and exploration in federal waters. While BSEE updated its safety requirements in 2016, it now proposes to weaken and repeal some of these safety requirements in order to encourage more oil and gas production. In our comments on the proposed rule, we argue that the agency has failed to provide a reasoned explanation for repealing these requirements, which were part of a comprehensive update to safety regulations that had not been revised since 1988.
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Comments to EPA on Grandfathering and Glider Trucks
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed to grandfather glider trucks, which have new truck bodies but old powertrains, into older emissions requirements. Our comments to EPA argue that the Agency improperly disregarded the effects that this exemption would have on air pollution, public health, and environmental quality, in violation of both the Clean Air Act and applicable executive orders on cost-benefit analysis. In particular, EPA failed to consider the extent to which its action will increase air pollution (and attendant environmental harms) by extending the useful economic life of older, dirtier powertrains.
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Court Filings
Briefs and Comments on Department of Education’s Borrower Defense Rule
Under Secretary Betsy DeVos, the Department of Education has twice delayed implementation of the Borrower Defense Rule, a 2016 regulation designed to help students who have been defrauded by for-profit educational institutions discharge their federal student loans. In our amicus brief supporting borrower and state challenges to the delay, we argue that the Department violated the Administrative Procedure Act by arbitrarily disregarding the harms that the delays impose on student borrowers. We also submitted a comment letter to the agency regarding the second delay.
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Public Comments
Public Comments on Regulatory Review (SBA, NCUA, FDA, DOT and USCBP)
Federal agencies continue to request the public’s suggestions for rules to repeal or reform, tacitly implying that most regulations stifle economic growth. In comments to several agencies, we argue that regulatory review should consider the public benefits of regulation, not just the costs to regulated industries, and should prioritize review of rules for which actual costs and benefits diverge significantly from predicted costs and benefits. We also recommend that agencies develop prospective plans for regulatory review going forward. The agencies for which we recently filed comments include Small Business Administration, Department of Transportation, National Credit Union Administration, Food and Drug Administration, and Customs and Border Control Bureau.
