In the News

“This report will be used in court in significant ways,” said Richard L. Revesz, an expert in environmental law at New York University. “I can imagine a lawyer for the Trump administration being asked by a federal judge, ‘How can the federal government acknowledge the seriousness of the problem, and then set aside the rules that protect the American people from the problem?’ And they might squirm around coming up with an answer.”

The largest expanse of pristine wilderness in the United States, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), is at risk of becoming a staging ground for heavy machinery, with oil drilling projects threatening to displace and damage wildlife and natural ecosystems.

Richard Revesz, director of the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University, said plaintiffs would likely employ a two-pronged argument to defend the waiver from the Trump administration’s attack.

“Our state has spoken loud and clear that we recognize the importance of the industry to the state’s economic well-being,” said Colorado Petroleum Council Executive Director Tracee Bentley, in a statement. The council claimed that passage of the “setback” rule would effectively outlaw new drilling in the state and cost some 150,000 jobs. (Such industry job estimates are almost invariably excessive, an Institute for Policy Integrity study showed in 2012.)

“It’s significant that Democrats now have this power,” said Richard Revesz. “A lot of the efforts to roll back Obama administration regulations are on weak legal footing. There are glaring legal or analytical weaknesses. Bringing attention to them can be a good strategy.”

The administration’s so-called accomplishments, which include rolling back hazardous waste regulations and consumer protection rules, will inflict great harms on the American people, resulting in additional deaths, illnesses, and bankruptcies. The damages done by these heedless regulatory rollbacks significantly exceed the cost savings for regulated industries.

An industry-friendly replacement for Obama-era chemical facility safety rules is moving forward despite a court decision in August that questioned the agency’s basis for making changes. The agency could have a stronger case if it let the original rule take effect and proposed changes down the line based on real data developed during the implementation, Bethany Davis Noll said.

The Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University School of Law found: “There are no well-established studies that, relying on realistic assumptions, show that increasing the availability of generators with ‘fuel security’ attributes will enhance the resilience of the electric system.” What has been analyzed is the costs of forcing the purchase of power from coal and nuclear plants. And it is substantial.

“If designed properly, a carbon market or carbon price would always be looking for the cheapest carbon, whether it was energy efficiency or whatever the cheapest fuel source was, that’s what the carbon price would find,” Commissioner Cheryl LaFleur told Law360 at a recent energy and environmental policy conference hosted by New York University School of Law’s Institute for Policy Integrity.

Every institution, no matter how much good it brings to the American people, has room for improvement. But opponents of the regulatory state ignore the net benefits of regulation.