In the News

A quartet of economists has written FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski with a shout-out for his “third way” Title II reclassification of broadband, in part because they say it would help preserve what is currently a de facto network neutrality regime in which most service providers “do not currently engage in prioritization or price discrimination tactics that would be restricted under the proposed rules.”

WASHINGTON, July 9, 2010 – Four economists argued in a letter to the FCC sent Wednesday that the question before the agency was “not whether to impose network neutrality, but whether to eliminate it.” They responded to a letter also sent to the FCC that was drafted by 74 Democratic lawmakers who said the FCC’s plan to impose new regulations on the internet would violate a standing bipartisan consensus about leaving the internet unregulated.

For a cost-benefit analysis of just focusing on US legislation, New York University School of Law’s Institute for Policy Integrity demonstrated last year that the Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act (H.R. 2454) is “cost‐benefit justified under most reasonable assumptions about the likely social cost of carbon.’”

The EPA announced a proposal today that will cut power-plant pollution in 31 states, replacing a Bush administration cap-and-trade system overturned by the courts. The announcement comes as the chatter on Capitol Hill has turned to a utility-only approach to cap-and-trade. The targets of EPA’s proposed rule are not greenhouse gases, but two unhealthy toxins released into air when coal is burned — sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx). The substances are dangerous thanks in part to the tiny particles that can wreak havoc on our respiratory systems. The consequences: asthma, heart disease, and cancer.

“The program is in considerable debt and there is no way to get out of it. Instead of dealing with the debt and the structural deficit the program has, Congress keeps kicking the can down the road,” says Scott Holladay, an economics fellow the Institute for Policy Integrity at NYU Law School. He says the program is running a $19 billion deficit since 2005’s record hurricane season.

Jason Schwartz, legal fellow at the Institute for Policy Integrity, a nonpartisan research organization at the New York University School of Law, published a report last month that found that up to 259 lives could be saved every year in New York City if it disallowed the use of residual oils for heating. He said that the current bill was a great accomplishment on the state level, but more action needs to be seen here in the city to clean the air. “This bill is doing a lot,” he said. “But it’s focused on number two heating oil, so we still need action at the city level to transition New York City customers from the dirtiest heating oil to cleaner types.”

The EPA can and must proceed with new rules — but it must do so using market-based mechanisms that will not clash with possible future congressional actions.

New York City has some of the dirtiest air in the country, but now there is a move to cut down on one especially potent source of pollution.

The CLEAR Act would spur green energy investment while avoiding regional disparities, according to a new study by the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University School of Law. The legislation would cap national greenhouse gas emissions, auctioning off all allowances for emissions and then refunding 75 percent of federal revenues to taxpayers, using the other 25 percent to invest in green technologies.

Indeed, as an April 2010 studyfrom the Institute for Policy Integrity at the New York University School of Law found, “It would take more than ten consecutive years without a single flood claim for the median premium payments to cover the deficit,” assuming the U.S. Treasury doesn’t charge the program interest on the debt. “Assuming median losses and a 5% interest on the program’s debt,” authors J. Scott Holladay and Jason A. Schwartz continue, “the repayment window rises to over 100 years. The program, as currently structured, will never repay its debt.”