In the News

A growing majority of economists are concerned about the impacts of climate change and support "drastic action" to address the problem, according to a survey released today. The poll from New York University School of Law's Institute for Policy Integrity is based on the responses of more than 700 economists who've published climate-related papers in prestigious economics journals. For the survey, they answered a series of multiple-choice and forecasting questions. "If policymakers look at these findings, it seems pretty clear that economists recommend the idea of spending on clean infrastructure now so we can reduce the risks of climate damages later," said Derek Sylvan, strategy director at the institute and co-author of the research, in an interview.

A growing number of climate economists say the world should take “immediate and drastic action” to tackle climate change, according to a survey published Tuesday. Failing to do so could cost the world some $1.7 trillion a year by the middle of this decade, escalating to about $30 trillion a year by 2075, according to estimates by the 738 economists from around the world surveyed by New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity. “People joke about how economists can’t agree on most things,” said Derek Sylvan, the institute’s strategy director and one of the authors of the survey. “But we seem to find a pretty strong level of consensus” on the economic importance of climate action.

Senate Majority Leader Charles Shumer announced Thursday that Democrats would use the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to overturn two different Trump-era regulations. NYU's Richard Revesz worries that Democrats are too cautious about the CRA language blocking any future regulation that is substantially similar. “I understand that argument floats around, but for this administration it shouldn't be considered a bar even in cases where they actually want to replace a regulation,” he said. “Strengthening something is not substantially the same as weakening something.”

New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity in a new report is arguing the Trump administration failed to adequately consider many health and environmental benefits from strict effluent limits for certain power plant discharges but that simple policy changes would allow EPA to give appropriate weight to climate and other harms. The report, written by Bethany A. Davis Noll and. Rachel Rothschild, comes as the Biden administration is reviewing the Trump EPA’s effluent limitation guidelines (ELGs) for coal-fired power plants for possible changes.

Climate change — already a well-known threat to our weather patterns, infrastructure, electric grids, health and safety — also presents a profound and growing threat to our financial system. Public and private sector economic experts must — and increasingly are starting to — take steps to protect against that threat, including at the highest levels of the federal government.

Emission reductions from a permanent leasing ban would be relatively small. But environmentalists and others who want more aggressive action against climate change say a ban would nudge the economy in a new direction. “The federal government is a huge player here. The government has market power,” said attorney Max Sarinsky with New York University Law School’s Institute for Policy Integrity. “If you restrict the supply (of oil and gas), you alter the market and you create a better environment for more sustainable fuels.”

Many allies of the administration’s climate agenda are using this stakeholder input process to take aim at the process rule itself. “DOE should prioritize repealing and replacing the 2020 revisions to the Process Rule, and the related changes to the procedures for evaluating statutory factors,” argues March 11 comments from New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity. “Many of those revisions -- particularly the establishment of significance thresholds -- were arbitrary and will undercut the efficient setting of future energy conservation standards going forward.”

Environmental attorneys and activists around the country are increasingly holding industry and regulators accountable when environmental agencies fail to protect residents, becoming, in effect, “citizen regulators.” Regulatory apparatuses suffer “longstanding problems” like underfunding, understaffing and under-enforcement, said Richard Revesz, an environmental law professor and dean emeritus at New York University School of Law. But since 2016, the overall problem grew to be much more acute “when combined with the shocking disregard for environmental enforcement that we saw during the Trump administration.”

There has been so much discussion about climate by financial regulators since Biden took office that it has “frankly been difficult to keep up with the steady stream of policy developments in this area,” said Jack Lienke, regulatory policy director at the NYU School of Law’s Institute for Policy Integrity. “Requiring disclosure of potential climate harms is, to be sure, no substitute for seeking to prevent those harms through greenhouse gas reductions, or for taking steps to protect vulnerable communities from climate effects,” Lienke said. “But it can inform those necessary efforts.”

The new rule—which required a quick turnaround from the Biden administration—comes after courts struck down updates from 2016 and 2019 for not providing a full remedy that would help northeast states manage summertime smog. "The Obama administration's 2016 update issued this concededly partial remedy that didn’t actually achieve attainment with the 2008 ozone NAAQS,” said Jack Lienke, Institute for Policy Integrity regulatory policy director.