In the News

Cass Sunstein recently announced his departure from the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), and an acting director will occupy the post most likely until after Election Day. Whether President Obama gets another bite at the apple or Governor Romney gets a shot at the next appointment, there are certain tenets that should be adhered to when looking for a new OIRA director.

Within a few months of Inauguration Day, the next president will need to decide on how to deal with serious risks to the Internet’s innovation machine. If it goes the wrong way, online startups could be threatened and users could be in for less high-quality content on the Web. Clearly, that would be a downer, but it would also have significant financial implications, as the online sector powers economic growth with investment dollars. By 2016, US e-commerce retail sales will reach $362 billion dollars, and that’s only a fraction of the value of the Web.

A price on carbon emission is necessary to make real headway in addressing global warming. Without it the public picks up the bill for the costs of carbon that include destructive changes in climate patterns. And though carbon pricing remains politically contentious, it can be a viable solution if revenue is paid out as a rebate to energy ratepayers.

A study from NYU’s Institute for Policy Integrity similarly found that newspapers’ use of the phrase “job-killing regulation” increased 17,550% between 2007 and 2011.

NYU Law School’s Institute for Policy Integrity has put out a tip sheet for reporters to get to the bottom of assertions that government regulations, such as ones by EPA, are killing jobs. And also to check on claims to the opposite – that regulations are creating jobs.

The potential of the retrospective review of rules adopted by federal agencies has been hailed by both the right and the left as a way to improve regulation and increase efficiency: by collecting information on what works and what does not, we can make better choices in the future. The Obama Administration has embraced this vision of retrospective review, but unfortunately, by focusing almost exclusively on cutting costs, it is walking back its commitment to use this tool in a balanced fashion.

President Obama has placed streamlining government bureaucracy among his priorities, saying he wants to “hunt down and eliminate misspent tax dollars in every agency and department across the Federal Government.” That could be like shooting fish in a barrel, if his administration takes a few major steps to facilitate better coordination between agencies.

The judges’ decision could even apply to rules besides the landmark greenhouse gas regulations, said Jason Schwartz, legal director for the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University. For example, a recently proposed rule on pollution from nitric acid plants could include nitrous oxide, a powerful greenhouse gas with close to 300 times the heat-trapping properties of carbon dioxide.

“This does not appear to be any kind of legal violation. A regulated industry is always going to be part of this process,” said Michael Livermore, executive director of the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University School of Law. The institute helps not-for-profit groups use cost-benefit analysis to advocate for effective government regulations.

“But this is a bad thing for a couple of reasons,” Livermore said. “Why did the DEC only talk to industry and not environmental groups and the impacted communities? If only industry is part of the shaping of the draft regulations, that imbalance has the potential to skew the rules toward industry.”

Pollution saved with conversion also saves lives, estimates a 2010 study by the Institute for Policy Integrity at NYU School of Law titled “Residual Risks, The Unseen Costs of Using Dirty Oil in New York City Boilers.”

Estimated annual health benefits from conversion include a decrease in childhood acute bronchitis by about 115 cases, a significant reduction of nonfatal heart attacks, the prevention of thousands of lost work days, and an estimated 73 to 188 lives saved.