In the News

The Trump administration said the decision to exit the Paris agreement was made because of its “unfair economic burden” on the U.S. economy. These dire predictions about the costs of addressing climate change have been a mainstay of the administration’s rhetoric since its beginning. Yet at times when it was convenient to take the opposite position, the administration has argued that climate regulations in fact impose no costs on the economy. These contradictory efforts have been used to protect the coal industry at the expense of the American people

Policy makers and regulators around the country are trying to figure out how to rapidly decarbonize the electricity sector. There are debates about what renewable goals states should have, by when, what should count as clean energy, and how much energy efficiency states should invest in. These debates overlook the most important tool we can rely on to achieve our clean-energy goals: markets and price signals.

New York’s economy could stand to gain more than $3 billion if the state’s electric grid operator adopts a simple policy change: putting a price on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. This is the conclusion of a new study released by the New York Independent System Operator, which manages the state’s electricity grid.

When companies produce and sell harmful products, even if the full extent of the danger isn’t initially clear, they should pay to help remedy the damage done. Whatever challenges are involved in arriving at those solutions shouldn’t be mistaken for reasons to let fossil-fuel companies off the hook.

“The Trump administration is on very weak footing in its attempt to revoke the waiver,” said Richard L. Revesz, an environmental and regulatory law expert at New York University’s law school. He added that the “action is unprecedented” and that the Clean Air Act “does not contemplate the possibility that the federal government would revoke a waiver that had already been granted.”

“It would have a chilling effect on anything California would do,” said Richard L. Revesz, a professor of environmental law at New York University. “Any state that does something significant is going to have to worry about finding itself in the cross hairs of federal litigation.”

Just as there is a danger of climatic feedback loops, there is a danger of what Peter Howard and Michael Livermore (of NYU and UVA Law Schools respectively) call, in a recent Harvard Law Review paper, “sociopolitical feedbacks.” Prudence suggests acting aggressively while coordinated action is still possible.

“This court decision is very good news for public health in many parts of the country,” Richard Revesz, director of the Institute for Policy Integrity at NYU School of Law, said in a statement. Revesz said the Trump administration “has consistently flouted” a core obligation of the Clean Air Act, to protect the air quality of downwind states that suffer from excessive upwind pollution. “A number of related cases are pending and this decision may be the harbinger of further defeats for the EPA,” he said.

Jayni Foley Hein, the Natural Resources Director for the Institute for Policy Integrity at NYU School of Law, told Newsweek, “The analysis here is a disservice to the American people, who deserve to understand the full environmental and economic implications of drilling in ANWR for an estimated 70 years.” Hein says this move from the Trump White House Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is a 180-degree turn on previous administrations, who have sought to protect the Refuge since its inception in 1960.

Environmental groups, along with several Democratic attorneys general, have filed more than 100 lawsuits challenging environmental rollbacks under the Trump administration. While many cases are ongoing, many have led to rulings favorable to environmentalists. Of 28 cases that have been resolved, according to a tracker from the New York University Law School’s Institute for Policy Integrity, the administration has prevailed only twice.