In the News

The Securities and Exchange Commission voted Monday 3-1 in favor of a proposed rule that would expand and standardize how public companies disclose business risks related to the climate and greenhouse gas emissions. Jack Lienke, regulatory policy director at the Institute for Policy Integrity, supported the SEC’s proposed rule in a statement Monday, saying the commission “no longer has the luxury of ignoring climate change.” The SEC, he said, must protect investors by demanding the same transparency on climate risk as other financial risks.

But Max Sarinsky, a professor at the New York University School of Law, said accounting for future damages from emissions is key to the administration attempt to weigh climate impacts of actions such as the pending oil and gas lease sale. “These numbers are important,” Sarinsky said. “They provide a useful tool for the government to develop cost effective policies that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

Considering additional information about interactions with climate change means that some reactors’ licenses might not be extended. But this reversal supports the viability and social license of the U.S.’s nuclear fleet, thereby helping to preserve a crucial zero-emissions resource for the power sector.

As the centerpiece of presidential leadership, OIRA serves as both overseer of the quality of agency action and mouthpiece for the President’s policy goals. Professor Richard Revesz has suggested that OIRA itself or another centralized, presidential enforcement body could encourage agencies to take into account the distributional consequences of regulation. His proposal could result in an administrative focus on equitable outcomes similar to the pervasive governmental culture of cost-benefit analysis that OIRA has promoted since the Reagan Administration. 

Should retirement plan managers be able to consider climate change and other financially relevant environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors in their decisions? A recent analysis of public comments found overwhelming support for a proposed rule from the Department of Labor (DOL) affirming their ability to consider these factors. ESG factors, including climate change, can affect risk and return for all types of investments, not just ESG-labeled funds. 

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday handed more fuel to FERC’s Democratic majority for its new policies on natural gas infrastructure, ruling that the commission has to take another shot at reviewing downstream greenhouse gas emissions from a Massachusetts compressor project. “Today’s decision adds to a growing list of cases affirming that FERC is required to consider these climate impacts,” said Sarah Ladin, an attorney at the Institute for Policy Integrity at the New York University School of Law. “More broadly, today’s decision affirms that the commission’s new policy statement is an appropriate action to ensure it properly considers greenhouse gas emissions in assessing pipeline applications,” Ladin wrote in a statement.

Jack Lienke discussed the history of West Virginia v. EPA, whether SCOTUS should have taken it at all, the legal issues involved, and the possible rulings we might expect from the court, ranging from bad to terrible.

Past regulations to deal with cross-state air pollution were "very successful” in cutting NOx releases, said Jack Lienke, regulatory policy director at the Institute for Policy Integrity, a liberal-leaning think tank based at New York University. “The reason that we need a new rule is not because those rules were failures," Lienke said. “It’s because the target has changed.”

You may have noticed quite a few headlines recently about EPA, NHTSA, cars, trucks, waivers, model years, and lawsuits. It’s worth breaking down this flurry of activity, all of which seeks to address vehicle emissions. Here, I’ll clarify the current status of the five separate proceedings happening right now, and offer a preview of what’s to come.

Meredith Hankins, an attorney with the Institute for Policy Integrity (IPI) at New York University law school, says it is noteworthy that the proposal to cut nitrogen oxides (NOx) from heavy-duty trucks includes a first-time assessment of distributional impacts. The distributional considerations in the regulatory impact analysis (RIA) are the first to evaluate existing baseline conditions as well as the results if the more stringent option were implemented, Hankins says.