In the News

“Obviously it’s clear that we need to keep moving on climate change,” said Michael Livermore, director of the Institute for Policy Integrity, which is threatening the lawsuit.

“Hurricane Sandy and the discussion in the media in its aftermath raised the profile of the issue and delivered a stark reminder that climate change is not going away – the political dynamics of the US Congress not withstanding.”

The Institute for Policy Integrity, a part of New York University’s Law School, said it is acting because U.S. fuel efficiency standards are not stringent enough.

The group sent the formal petition to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, requesting that she “propose and adopt regulations” that would set up an emissions trading system to curb carbon
output from fuel used in vehicles and aircraft.

“These are serious numbers,” said Michael Livermore, the executive director of the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University Law School. “We’re not talking about a few million dollars here, a little submerged land over there. We are talking about major metropolitan areas that are at risk. We’re talking about agriculture that’s at risk.”

The Institute for Policy Integrity at NYU Law School has been pushing the Environmental Protection Agency to act, in part by capping vehicle emissions. Wednesday, the group will initiate litigation against the EPA. Its goal is to establish a cap and trade system on fuel.

But Michael Livermore, executive director of the New York University Institute for Policy Integrity, told BNA Nov. 19 that even if sequestration is triggered, Jan. 2 is not likely to have drastic, immediate impacts on agencies, because most of them “have tricks up their sleeves to deal with short-term budget shortfalls,” such as shifting funds from one program area to another.

For that reason, Jan. 2 does not necessarily represent doomsday for most agencies, according to Livermore.

There is evidence to support the view that the government is actually encouraging citizens to live in areas most in danger of flood damage. According to a 2010 report issued by the Institute for Policy Integrity, Congress has historically set the premium rate too low for flood insurance — effectively subsidizing building in flood-prone areas at the expense of taxpayers at large. This practice has helped drive the fund $19 billion in debt, caused mostly by the unusually severe damage caused by Hurricane Katrina. In addition, the report argued that the environmental effects of the federal government’s flood-insurance policy may be more severe than the financial effects.

In fact, the most up-to-date figures show about 8.5 percent fewer regulations in Obama’s first 46 months than in the same time frame for Bush. That tally comes from the Office of Management and Budget.

“The story is much more of continuity than radical change,” said Michael Livermore, executive director of the Institute for Policy Integrity at the New York University School of Law.

Opinions on climate change were examined in a 2009 survey of economists who had written at least one academic paper on the subject. Out of the 144 respondents, more than 94 per cent believed that the United States should sign a global treaty committing to greenhouse gas reductions. Only 2 per cent of the respondents believe that the U.S. should not seek to reduce GHG emissions.

EPA is planning major changes to its stormwater regulations. These would be the most significant changes since the federal stormwater regulations were enacted nearly a quarter century ago.

For its part, the S.E.C. has hired additional economists to scrutinize rules and published guidelines for evaluating regulations. “The S.E.C. is finally starting to figure it out,” said Michael Livermore, executive director of the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University Law School. “The new approach just might save Dodd-Frank.”

On Tuesday, a three-judge panel threw out an EPA rule that would have dramatically decreased interstate air pollution. The EPA’s rule had enormous benefits, estimated between $120 and $280 billion per year, with low costs that total less than $2.5 billion. The rule was anticipated to save tens of thousands of lives and prevent over a million missed days of work or school per year.