In the News

Valuing the cost of climate pollution is tremendously useful for policymakers as they weigh the benefits and drawbacks of potential strategies to mitigate climate change. Earlier this year, Canada update its climate-damage valuations for the first time since 2016. While some politicians have mischaracterized the update for political gain, in reality this commonsense update reflects the latest advances in science and economics.

A proposed update to decades-old White House guidance on regulatory cost-benefit analysis is sparking competing views, as regulated industries and other critics argue the plan is too sweeping and would enable overly aggressive rules but environmentalists broadly embrace the proposal while seeking further changes. The Center for Climate and Energy Solutions and a coalition of over a dozen other environmental groups, including the Institute for Policy Integrity, tout the proposal for reflecting the “evolving state of economic and scientific knowledge [that] marks a substantial improvement over the existing and outdated Circular A-4.”

Rising sea levels, hotter temperatures, more disease and illnesses, and damage from more intense storms are all on the horizon. Right now, New Yorkers are on the hook for all of those costs. Despite the governor’s rightful efforts to protect the public last week, it was her Administration that earlier this year blocked a Senate plan in the state budget that would have shifted those costs onto the fabulously profitable biggest oil companies. The bill builds in protections so these costs wouldn’t fall back on consumers, according to an analysis from the think tank Institute for Policy Integrity at NYU Law.

A natural gas pipeline could face legal hurdles because the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission declined to respond to critiques about its greenhouse gas analysis, Republican members of the panel said Thursday. Jennifer Danis, federal energy policy director at the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University School of Law, said FERC’s action on the rehearing request “provides a great opportunity” for the court to “reaffirm” that the agency must consider greenhouse gas emissions before signing off on new natural gas pipelines.

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law strengthened the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s authority to site interstate transmission projects that have been rejected or not acted upon by states. Used appropriately, this authority can help the United States build the transmission infrastructure necessary to achieve President Joe Biden’s goal of fully decarbonizing the electricity grid by 2035.

Questions remain regarding whether DOE’s and FERC’s recently expanded authority under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (“IIJA”) is enough to override historical state jurisdiction over the transmission siting processes, and whether the implementation of this federal authority can withstand judicial review. While it will likely be years before the new promulgation of this authority is tested in practice, in the short-term there are plenty of opportunities for interested entities to help shape these processes going forward. The Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University School of Law further suggest expanding the definition of environmental justice communities beyond those “overburdened by pollution” to include historically marginalized communities bearing any type of disproportionate environmental burden. Expanding these definitions would result in broadened environmental reviews and increased public participation in FERC’s review processes.

A bill to raise the national debt ceiling would greenlight all permits needed for the Mountain Valley pipeline’s “construction and initial operation at full capacity,” according to text released Sunday. If the bill is approved by congress, "MVP's approvals would be virtually unassailable, unless someone were to challenge the legislative provision itself," said Jennifer Danis, federal energy policy director at New York University's Institute for Policy Integrity.

Richard Revesz is changing the way the government calculates the cost and benefits of regulation, with far-reaching implications for climate change. He co-founded an N.Y.U.-affiliated think tank, the Institute for Policy Integrity, which devised the approach to analyzing the costs and benefits of environmental regulations that Mr. Revesz has brought to the White House.

The D.C. Circuit recently endorsed the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's climate change review of a massive liquefied natural gas export project, but agency watchers question how much the decision will crack a current commissioner stalemate over weaving climate into FERC's gas infrastructure approval policies. Jennifer Danis, federal energy policy director at the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University School of Law, discussed the implications of the case.

Last year, the Supreme Court sided with West Virginia in rejecting a different (Obama-era) EPA plan. “The West Virginia decision left intact EPA’s obligations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that endanger public health from the power sector,” says Dena Adler, an attorney at the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University School of Law, in an emailed statement. The 2022 ruling left pathways available to the EPA, she says, and “the agency has carefully walked those lines in this proposal.”