In the News

After the Supreme Court handed down its decision in West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) earlier this year, many speculated on what it does—and does not—mean for future power plant rules. One key point is clear: the decision will shape, but not stop, power plant regulation, writes Attorney Dena Adler.

The major questions doctrine boils down to the following: under rare circumstances that would transform the underlying statute, the Court may depart from its normal approach to agency deference and look more skeptically on agency authority in the absence of clear congressional authorization. Many have noted the ill-defined parameters of this interpretive principle,1 but one key feature is not reasonably in dispute: it remains the exception, not the rule.

President Biden’s pick for “the most important job in Washington that no one ever heard of” testified on Thursday, underscoring his support for cost-benefit analysis in the rulemaking process. He also told lawmakers on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that if confirmed, he would lean into the effort to modernize regulatory reviews that the president launched upon coming into office. 

EPA got more than $40 billion from the Inflation Reduction Act, including to implement the methane fee and stand up a national green bank. "EPA has never administered anything at this scale,” Michael Gergen, a Latham & Watkins LLP attorney, said on a recent Institute for Policy Integrity panel. “I assume folks at EPA are kind of freaking out about this.”

During his confirmation hearing Thursday, Richard Revesz addressed how the Supreme Court ruling on EPA's authority could affect federal rulemaking.

A Senate committee on Thursday will question environmental policy expert Richard Revesz, President Joe Biden's nominee to lead the White House regulatory office.

The White House has chosen a regulatory review chief who has spent decades analyzing the real-world impacts of executive rulemaking. Richard Revesz, who was nominated this month to head the White House’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, has published multiple volumes on how the government can measure the costs and benefits of its rulemakings. The New York University law professor and founder of the Institute for Policy Integrity also is an expert on environmental litigation — an important attribute given the role a conservative Supreme Court now plays in shaping regulatory policy.

There is “deep thinking going on in the community about what information needs to be before the agency” in light of the importance major questions took in West Virginia v. EPA, Earthjustice attorney Kirtki Datla told a Sept. 20 Institute for Policy Integrity event.

FERC's Willie Phillips joined the Institute for Policy Integrity to discuss a shifting U.S. energy landscape and how FERC is aiding the clean power transition.

FERC’s latest decision “should be the final nail in the MOPR’s coffin,” Sarah Ladin, senior attorney at the Institute for Policy Integrity at NYU School of Law, said in a statement Friday. “By rejecting the request to expand NYISO’s previous rule to the rest of the state, the commission closes a chapter on overly expansive rules that undermine state authority and harm wholesale market competition.”