In the News

“EPA’s thorough analysis also offers a critical roadmap for Department of Justice litigators who will soon brief this issue. Other agencies should study EPA’s approach and follow suit,” argues Max Sarinsky, the regulatory policy director at New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity (IPI), in a March 25 blog post on the Yale Journal on Regulation.

“EPA’s thorough analysis also offers a critical roadmap for Department of Justice litigators who will soon brief this issue. Other agencies should study EPA’s approach and follow suit,” argues Max Sarinsky, the regulatory policy director at New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity (IPI), in a March 25 blog post on the Yale Journal on Regulation. ... “Far from being transformative or extraordinary, the SEC’s . . . rule is a run-of-the-mill use of the SEC’s authority with ample precedent,” argues IPI legal fellow Bridget Pals, in a July 2022 Medium article about the then-proposed version of the measure.

New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity hosts an April 4 event about federal regulation of voluntary carbon markets.

A March 26 amicus brief from New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity (IPI) further stresses language from West Virginia that for a rule to trigger major questions, it must be “extraordinary.” “True, economic and political significance may be necessary conditions for triggering the major questions doctrine. But they have never been sufficient,” IPI writes, adding that an action must also be “extraordinary” in the context of historical actions by the agency.

Earlier this week, Max Sarinsky published an excellent piece about how agencies could get ahead of major questions doctrine (MQD) challenges to new rules... In the same spirit as Sarinsky’s blog post, we articulate another way to rebut MQD challenges to new agency actions. 

In a forthcoming law review article, Richard Revesz and I contend that agencies should preemptively rebut challenges under the major questions doctrine by drawing parallels to past agency actions. A recent federal regulation offers a template for this analysis. In its pollution standards for new vehicles issued last week, the Environmental Protection Agency extensively responded to claims that the rule triggers the major questions doctrine. EPA’s analysis is comprehensive and well-researched.

Max Sarinsky, senior attorney at the Institute for Policy Integrity, said both the EPA’s $190 figure and the $51 interim figure from the interagency working group were developed through a rigorous process, so other agencies should be able to use either number without worrying about their trustworthiness. The EPA’s numbers are “the better choice moving forward,” Sarinsky said, because they draw on newer evidence than the working group’s.

No amount of hoarded wealth will save corporations from facing the disastrous consequences of climate change. The same is true for state legislators. New Yorkers have nothing to fear from the Climate Change Superfund Act. According to an analysis by the Institute for Policy Integrity at NYU Law, these fees would not increase consumer gas prices. This is due to the fact that they are a fixed cost, rather than a current variable cost of production. Market forces of supply and demand discourage cost increase, which would lead consumers to bring their business elsewhere.

The Institute for Policy Integrity issued a letter in support of the rule proposal in June 2022 in response to criticism that they SEC rules are overrreaching. “Throughout its history, the SEC has repeatedly required disclosure of information that, while not financial on its face, is nevertheless relevant to investors’ assessment of a registrant’s future financial prospects,” the letter said.

Roughly 1,800 regulators and other energy professionals gathered for the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners’ Winter Policy Summit last week where state and federal regulators had a lot to say about the clean energy transition, grid reliability and new EPA rules. On a panel with state public utility commissioners, EPA’s Air Office lead, Joseph Goffman, discussed how to navigate greenhouse gas pollution-reduction rules while maintaining adequate energy resources during the energy transition. He also listened to their concerns about the transition’s pace and scope.