In the News

The agency last year also withdrew the Trump EPA’s other last-minute denials of petitions that sought a more expansive Clean Air Act to battle climate change. Environmental and public interest groups behind those petitions, however, remain in limbo. “We have not heard anything more on this since we received the withdrawal of the denial,” said Derek Sylvan, a spokesperson for the Institute for Policy Integrity, based at the New York University School of Law. The institute petitioned EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under Section 115 of the Clean Air Act.

In its Phase 2 rulemaking, CEQ can better clarify agencies’ existing responsibilities under NEPA to consider climate change impacts. The six recommendations in our “Ensuring Robust Consideration of Climate Change Under NEPA” policy brief are summarized in this post.

Environmental lawyers are urging federal officials to do more to protect the public from gas stoves' emissions, saying the pollution is dangerous and not adequately regulated. In a new report, researchers at the Institute for Policy Integrity said the stoves should be sold with warning labels similar to those on portable generators warning of carbon monoxide poisoning, the authors said. The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) should also start public education campaigns about the dangers of stove emissions, they added. "Something needs to be done. We know that [gas stoves] are dangerous. You can't just ignore it," said Laura Figueroa, a co-author of the report and a legal fellow at the institute. "The CPSC ... is in a position to address these dangers, and we think they should take action," she added.

In February, U.S. District Judge James D. Cain Jr. of the Western District of Louisiana, agreed with Louisiana and nine other states, issuing an order blocking the use of the interim metric. The states told Cain, who was appointed by Trump, that the metric was arbitrary and would boost the cost of producing energy and hike regulatory costs for states. At the time, Max Sarinsky, an attorney at the Institute for Policy Integrity at NYU Law School, said Cain’s injunction might not survive.

Because the mining project’s [GHG] emissions comprised 0.44% of the annual global total, Interior concluded that the project would have “no significant impact” on the climate. In doing so, Interior rejected established methodologies such as the social cost of greenhouse gases that would allow for a more precise assessment of climate damage from the mine expansion. This week, the Ninth Circuit held that Interior’s analysis was insufficient.

The court is considering West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency, a case brought by 18 Republican attorneys general, backed by some of the nation’s largest coal companies, who want to sharply limit, if not eliminate, the agency’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas pollution from power plants. “This is a serious threat to regulations,” said Richard Revesz, who teaches environmental law at New York University and filed a legal brief in the case in support of the administration.

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.”

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.

Rachel Rothschild, legal fellow at the Institute for Policy Integrity, joins Kate and Melissa to recap oral argument in West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency. They also recap cases about prescription drugs, tribal casinos, outpatient dialysis, and what happens when a state wants to enforce a law that’s no longer in effect.

Max Sarinsky, a senior attorney with the Institute for Policy Integrity (IPI) at New York University, argues “the district court’s injunction does not require the Department of Energy to scrap its regulations or return to the drawing board. Instead, if this injunction is not quickly lifted, the agency should look at each regulation on a case-by-case basis and determine how to proceed.”