In the News

The Institute for Policy Integrity, a New York University-based think tank and advocacy group that is often involved in the nation’s regulatory debates, is losing Executive Director Michael Livermore this summer to a faculty position at the University of Virginia School of Law.

Livermore co-authored the book “The Globalization of Cost-Benefit Analysis in Environmental Policy” with NYU School of Law Dean Richard Revesz before the two founded the institute in 2008. In his new role, Livermore will still be affiliated with the institute, but Revesz will be taking on a larger role as the group’s faculty director.

Michael A. Livermore, an expert who has offered a fresh take on using cost-benefit analysis in environmental and administrative policymaking, will join the University of Virginia law faculty in July.

Livermore is currently the executive director of the Institute for Policy Integrity and an adjunct professor at New York University School of Law.

Michael Livermore ’06, executive director of NYU Law’s Institute for Policy Integrity, is joining the faculty of the University of Virginia School of Law this July.

Livermore is the co-author with Dean Richard Revesz of Retaking Rationality: How Cost-Benefit Analysis Can Better Protect the Environment and Our Health, which they began working on while Livermore was a student in Dean Revesz’s Environmental Law class. Soon after their book was published, Livermore and Revesz founded the Institute for Policy Integrity, where they served as executive director and faculty director, respectively. Under Livermore’s leadership, the Institute for Policy Integrity has initiated a large number of successful research, educational, and advocacy efforts, in the process becoming a respected voice in often contentious debates over environmental, public health, and consumer regulation.

Michael Livermore, executive director of New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity, praised the selection of Shelanski, saying he brings to the job more real-world experience at a regulatory agency than any previous OIRA administrator.

Livermore also called Shelanski a “technocrat in orientation and pragmatic. I don’t think he’s going to come to the position with a lot of ideological baggage or a particular axe to grind.”

President Obama announced yesterday his selection of Howard Shelanski as the next Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the White House. OIRA, although not widely known, reviews the regulations that are adopted by nearly all federal agencies: everything from EPA rules to limit mercury pollution from power plants to TSA rules governing airport screening procedures. This will give Shelanski enormous power to shape the remainder of the Obama administration’s regulatory agenda.

“It’s a kind of a thankless job,” said Michael Livermore, executive director of the Institute for Policy Integrity at the New York University School of Law.

“You’re almost guaranteed to have a lot of forces aligned against you and unhappy with you,” said Livermore, who called Shelanski a “balanced thinker” who understands the complex regulatory process.

“He is a sophisticated legal scholar who is up to date on the most recent research on regulatory economics, but also someone who has an inside view on the real challenges that agencies face,” said Michael Livermore, executive director of the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University.

“The Globalization of Cost-Benefit Analysis in Environmental Policy,” a new book by Michael Livermore and Richard Revesz, discusses what they consider the growing use of CBA outside of the United States, where it got its start as a tool for assessing regulations. Perhaps the most interesting part of the book concerns developing countries.

We need to pay to repair our roads and bridges; but there is no reason, in principle, for funding to be linked to gas taxes. The government can use income taxes, tolls and other revenue-raising mechanisms to cover the costs.

One advantage of using gas taxes to pay for our roadways is that gas taxes help to “internalize” the price of pollution into a gallon of gas. Without some kind of price signal, gas is cheaper than it should be because no one is paying for the harm caused by emissions of greenhouse gases and other air pollutants.

On the eve of Gina McCarthy’s first Senate committee hearing towards her confirmation, we find our work a potential topic of conversation between certain senators and the candidate for EPA Administrator.

Four senators on the Environment and Public Works Committee, including James Inhofe and David Vitter, sent a letter to Ms. McCarthy asking for her take on a petition the Institute for Policy Integrity, which we direct, submitted to the EPA in 2009. There are now reports that they plan to raise the question during tomorrow’s hearing.