In the News

Richard Revesz shares his thoughts on how the transition to a new presidential administration later this month will impact U.S. environmental and climate change policy.

Utilities that address climate risks will see benefits in their bottom lines, said Justin Gundlach, a senior attorney at the New York University School of Law's Institute for Policy Integrity. "The fundamental point here is that it would be cheaper if they just looked at this hard and made prudent investments," he said.

The Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs has issued a paper, in partnership with the New York University School of Law's Institute for Policy Integrity, detailing how the federal government can enable the construction of the transmission infrastructure necessary to decarbonize the country’s power generation.

Ricky Revesz, a New York University professor whose name has been floated as a possible Biden OIRA administrator, said generally the Trump administration's regulatory aggressiveness is "unusual." "It's part of a larger story to get stuff out at the very end where the regulatory initiatives are on the whole extremely harmful," he said. Revesz pointed to a Health and Human Services Department proposal that would force all the agency's regulations to sunset within 10 years, unless a review is completed.

Transmission is an area where DOE watchers say they are hoping Granholm takes the lead. "In the absence of legislation, critical long-distance transmission can be developed by applying existing federal legal authorities," researchers said in a report this month out of NYU Law School's Institute for Policy Integrity and Columbia University's Center on Global Energy Policy. It pointed at a 2005 act establishing DOE's authority to advance "national interest" transmission projects as the critical lever.

"To be clear, I don't read this as signaling that, given the chance, Clements would somehow make FERC into ‘an environmental regulator,'" said Justin Gundlach, senior attorney at the New York University School of Law's Institute for Policy Integrity. "I think her comment reflects a widely held view: climate change bears heavily on the energy sector in numerous ways, so if FERC is doing its job properly it can't ignore climate change."

New York state is home to a nation-leading climate change law. But it is also home to long-standing legal frameworks that enable — and in some cases, encourage — the consumption of fossil fuels. Leaving these legacy frameworks in place could undermine New York's ability to implement its new climate law, and accomplish a safe and just managed transition away from fossil fuels. Other states should take note.

In a December 14 amicus brief submitted in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit case, State of California, et al., v Andrew Wheeler, IPI says EPA’s failure to account for the “environmental cost” of foregone emissions reductions for methane and volatile organic compounds results in a deeply flawed cost-benefit analysis supporting its September 14 rule.

In a move that could blaze a trail to meaningful climate action nationwide, New York’s Public Service Commission, which is responsible for regulating that state’s utilities, is calling on them to disclose the financial risks they face due to climate change. Requiring utilities to develop and present this information would be a potent way to push a critically important sector of the economy to reveal and respond to the consequences of climate change — and to save consumers money along the way.

Policy analysts are urging President-elect Joe Biden's incoming administration to use existing authority to expand the nation's electric grid and to consider boosting the role of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. A study out of Columbia University's Center on Global Energy Policy and New York University's Institute for Policy Integrity focused on the need for more long-distance transmission capacity to ship carbon-free solar and wind power across the country.