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  • Biden Agency Rules Must Consider Income Levels, Child Health

    The Biden administration directed agency policymakers on Thursday to more heavily weigh how their economic regulations will help or hurt worker safety, children’s health, and consumer prices decades into the future. The 93-page memo instructs agencies to pay more attention to how the costs and benefits of their regulations vary by person… “Costs accrue for the most part in the short term,” said Max Sarinsky, an attorney that studies regulation at New York University School of Law. “But the benefits accrue decades or more into the future.”

  • Biden GHG Cost Estimates Face Uncertain Fate In Court

    Max Sarinsky, a senior attorney at New York University School of Law's Institute for Policy Integrity, said there will be some factors on an agency's side as well during future litigation. He said that for one thing, the estimates, which have already been used in many rules and other decisions, go through an extensive process before finalization that incorporates a public comment period, a peer review process and the best available science at the time. "To win an argument that the standard is high, you have to show that it's arbitrary and capricious to use these numbers," Sarinsky said. "So to say that it's arbitrary and capricious to use Nobel Prize-winning work seems a little difficult to me."

  • White House Overhaul Paves Way for Stricter Regulations

    The White House on Thursday revised the way agencies weigh regulatory costs and benefits for the first time in 20 years. It resulted in new guidance that experts say will make it tougher for industries to challenge rules on the basis of their economic costs, and easier for agencies to justify stronger safeguards for public health and the environment... “This update certainly supports higher valuations of the social cost of carbon because it is broadly consistent with the approach that EPA is taking,” said [Max] Sarinsky of NYU.

  • OMB Finalizes Cost Benefit Changes Likely To Bolster GHG, EJ Focus

    Burcin Ünel, executive director of the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University School of Law, says the new guidance “will help government agencies catch up to best practices in economics [and] guidance will help ensure that regulators do not ignore equity concerns, which have long been a blind spot in most rulemakings.

  • White House Regulation Plan Sets Path for Tougher Climate Rules

    The change is consistent with voluminous academic research into discounting, and is “actually a conservative estimate,” said Peter Howard, economics director at the New York University School of Law’s Institute for Policy Integrity. A future administration could raise the discount rate again, but would “have to provide a rational justification” for doing so, Howard said.

  • Much of Eastern U.S. At Risk of Winter Power Failures: Grid Watchdog

    Large parts of the eastern United States are at an elevated risk of electricity outages if extreme storms cripple power grids this winter, according to the U.S. grid monitor. The FERC/NERC report suggests an independent research group analyze whether more natural gas pipelines and gas storage facilities are needed to improve grid reliability and the gas heating system. A study about pipeline needs should account for the fact that other less-expensive infrastructure could be used instead, said Jennifer Danis, federal energy policy director at the Institute for Policy Integrity, a think tank at NYU School of Law.

  • New Resource For NY And NJ Organizations Seeking Federal Funding For Environmental Justice

    Environmental justice organizations and local municipalities had an opportunity to learn about a new resource designed to help them identify, navigate, and pursue federal funding for environmental justice by attending a webinar on Monday. This webinar introduced attendees to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Environmental Justice Thriving Communities Technical Assistance Center (TCTAC) for EPA Region 2, from Harlem to Newark. Among the speakers was Al Huang, Environmental Justice Director at the New York University School of Law Institute for Policy Integrity

  • U.S. Banking Regulators Issue New Guidance for Climate Risk Management

    Three agencies that are the backbone of U.S. banking regulation have developed joint guidance, released today, on how banks should manage the monetary risks of the climate crisis. Previously, EDF partnered with NYU School of Law’s Institute for Policy Integrity to submit joint comments to all three agencies – the FDIC, the Federal Reserve Board and the OCC. 

  • Biden Administration Continues Campaign to Crack Down on Junk Fees

    On October 11, 2023, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) published a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) for a sweeping prohibition of “hidden” and “misleading” fees across all industries. This “Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees” can be traced back to the FTC publishing a petition (86 FR 73207) for rulemaking from the Institute for Policy Integrity on “drip pricing” on December 27, 2021. The petition defined drip pricing as “the practice of advertising only a part of a product’s price upfront and revealing additional charges later as consumers go through the buying process.”

  • Nine Justices Should—and Now Can—Decide the Fate of Chevron Deference

    As the Supreme Court prepares to decide the fate of one of its most cited precedents, it will do so without a full slate of Justices. There’s a simple solution sitting in the current batch of petitions at the Court.