In the News

A federal agency says a ban on gas stoves is on the table amid rising concern about harmful indoor air pollutants emitted by the appliances. The US Consumer Product Safety Commission plans to take action to address the pollution, which can cause health and respiratory problems. Natural gas stoves, which are used in about 40% of homes in the US, emit air pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide and fine particulate matter at levels the EPA and World Health Organization have said are unsafe and linked to respiratory illness, cardiovascular problems, cancer, and other health conditions, according to reports by groups such as the Institute for Policy Integrity and the American Chemical Society.

A federal agency says a ban on gas stoves is on the table amid rising concern about harmful indoor air pollutants emitted by the appliances. The US Consumer Product Safety Commission plans to take action to address the pollution, which can cause health and respiratory problems. Natural gas stoves, which are used in about 40% of homes in the US, emit air pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide and fine particulate matter at levels the EPA and World Health Organization have said are unsafe and linked to respiratory illness, cardiovascular problems, cancer, and other health conditions, according to reports by groups such as the Institute for Policy Integrity and the American Chemical Society.

The White House on Friday released its long-awaited guidance telling agencies how to consider the climate impacts of proposed projects. As a whole, the new instructions could provide a legal backbone to agency permitting decisions, clearing up ambiguity over whether a given agency went far enough in analyzing a proposed project’s effect on the climate. Agencies have too often in the past ignored or downplayed the climate impacts of proposed projects, but the new guidance should force a more meaningful accounting, said Max Sarinsky, senior attorney at New York University School of Law’s Institute for Policy Integrity.

President Joe Biden released his next regulatory to-do list on Wednesday, detailing his ambitions to influence industries, institutions and communities through the government’s rulemaking power. Agencies will have to finish a few tasks before the policies take effect, including drafting rules and collecting feedback. The White House regulations office will sign off on each rule before it is published and takes effect. The Senate in December confirmed Richard Revesz, a lawyer who specializes in regulation and climate change, to lead that team.

Just before adjourning the 117th Congress, the Senate confirmed Richard Revesz to lead the White House’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), giving the office its first permanent leader under President Biden. With a divided Congress, Biden will need OIRA’s help to advance his agenda through regulation and carry out the laws he’s already signed—most notably the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

The White House released a plan on Wednesday for how the Biden administration seeks to foster a more open and accountable government. Other forthcoming actions include plans over the next year to expand coverage of waivers for domestic procurement laws posted on the “Made in America” website, which was launched under Biden, and to bolster community engagement in the rulemaking process. Richard Revesz, the newly confirmed administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, housed within the White House Office of Management and Budget, will likely be very involved in this.

To prevent power outages like those that occurred during Winter Storm Uri, the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT) is considering a fundamental overhaul of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas’s (ERCOT) wholesale electricity market. We urge the PUCT to consider whether incentivizing more generation is needed or whether the key issue is enhancing the resilience of existing generation to extreme weather events. We then explain why any new reliability mechanism should compensate both dispatchable and non-dispatchable resources according to their reliability value, include an efficient penalty structure for non-performance of generation units, reduce uncertainty for market participants, and mitigate the exercise of market power.

The chamber approved Richard Revesz to direct the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. The bureau, which serves as a federal regulations clearinghouse, has been without a confirmed leader for years.

Richard Revesz will take over as the long-awaited head of the Biden administration’s rulemaking review office, a confirmation that gives hope for rule-watchers looking ahead to more stringent environmental standards. Revesz was confirmed by the Senate on Wednesday to lead the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs within the US Office of Management and Budget. He’s likely to be the most progressive director “we’ve ever had in terms of his approach to environmental policies, no question about that,” according to Temple Law School professor Amy Sinden.

While reading Isaiah McKinney’s recent piece on Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, I was struck by how different people can see the exact same facts and yet draw such wildly different conclusions from them. Where McKinney sees a problem with lower courts’ applying Chevron while the Supreme Court has relied on it less in recent years, I see lower courts doing exactly what they should be doing: Following Supreme Court precedent until a majority of the Court overrules it.