In the News

Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s paper trail on the environment is slim, but one decision has drawn praise from environmentalists, and some concerns from business. In Riverkeeper v. EPA, Sotomayor wrote the opinion for the court of appeals. She found that the Clean Water Act prohibited EPA from conducting cost-benefit analysis when deciding whether to impose regulations at power plants that would protect fish, but have high costs for utility companies.

Obama is going to start facing many more similar choices. Because the Mass. v. EPA ruling dealt with cars and light trucks, regulating those sources was naturally the first on the list. But this is only the first step. There are petitions on aircrafts, marine vessels, and fuels collecting dust that will need to be wrestled with. The President’s legal obligation to deal with these petitions will likely force additional greenhouse gas regulations into the pipeline in the near future.

Is the increased spending working, though? Michael A. Livermore, executive director of the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University, says in TNR that by comparison to say, utilities, big oil is left out in the cold:

But there is one major industry that Waxman and Markey have left out in the cold: Big Oil. Lobbyists for the oil industry are now running around Capitol Hill in panic because the bill hands out big subsidies to keep electricity prices down, but does nothing to subsidize gasoline consumption. Combine that with the Obama administration’s plans for tighter vehicle fuel-economy standards, and Big Oil appears to be on the ropes.

OMB and its regulatory review office are walking a fine line on transparency, said Michael Livermore, executive director of New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity. “It’s a good thing to have the public being able to be responsive to these kinds of interagency discussions,” Livermore said. But if agencies had to take full responsibility for anything they said, it could have a “chilling effect,” he added.

Sunstein is well known for his academic writings, which touch on everything from constitutional law to behavioral economics. His appointment to director of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) is a harbinger of the administration’s commitments—yes, we need to grow the economy, but sound economics need not conflict with smart regulation.

The Institute for Policy Integrity, on the other hand, endorses Professor Sunstein to head OIRA, arguing that cost-benefit analysis, if done in an unbiased way, could be used to support progressive environmental and public safety regulations.

The question of the cost of climate change legislation has rightly emerged as a major theme of the debate on the Hill. Most recently, Charlie Rangel, Chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee announced last week that he would insist on using auction revenues to reimburse American families for increases in energy prices.

According to new analysis from the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University School of Law, when the EPA issues its final declaration on global warming being an endangerment to human health, the Obama administration could press forward with a cap-and-trade program without having to go through Congress: