In the News

Jayni Foley Hein, the policy director at the Institute for Policy Integrity at NYU School of Law, told me that not all companies oppose SCC, and that some, like Microsoft, actually have an internal social cost of carbon.

The Institute for Policy Integrity said the ruling is significant for including climate change in cost-benefit analyses. “This ruling provides significant support for the social cost of carbon as a regulatory policy tool,” Denise Grab, a senior attorney with the institute, said in a statement.

“The document is meant to harmonize practices across federal agencies,” Jayni Hein, policy director for the Institute for Policy Integrity, told Scientific American. “The guidelines are not legally binding, but they will be persuasive to agencies, most importantly.”

“The guidelines are not legally binding, but they will be persuasive to agencies, most importantly,” according to Jayni Hein, policy director for the Institute for Policy Integrity.

During a hearing before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in June, UARG attorney Allison Wood sparred with Richard Revesz, director of the New York University School of Law’s Institute for Policy Integrity, over whether UARG v. EPA was a boon for the power industry. Wood noted that she was speaking in her own capacity, but said she represents several utility clients in the litigation involving the Clean Power Plan, including some that launched a successful bid for a stay of the rule from the Supreme Court.

Revesz defended the EPA’s record before the Supreme Court, characterizing the UARG v. EPA ruling as a win for both sides. But Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, said the EPA “lost that big time.”

Richard Revesz, a witness for the Democrats, told lawmakers it was both “legal and appropriate” for EPA to continue working on regulatory matters related to the Clean Power Plan such as the model trading rules.

There are some basic adaptation measures that countries might consider at the beginning of the supply chain as well, said Peter Howard, the economics director at the New York University School of Law’s Institute for Policy Integrity. These could include increases in air conditioning or other technological advances designed to help laborers cope with changes in the climate. One important point to consider, he added, is that under future warming scenarios, some parts of the world may reach a threshold in which outdoor labor actually becomes physically impossible. Some past research has suggested that under extreme future warming conditions, some temperature spikes could actually exceed the limits of the human respiratory system — an idea that underscores the importance of thinking about adaptation strategies now.

Richard Revesz discusses how states may respond during the Supreme Court’s stay of the Clean Power Plan.

“Why are you picking on the Clean Air Act?” That’s a question we’ve heard more than once while traveling the country to talk about our new book, Struggling for Air: Power Plants and the “War on Coal.”

A non-partisan think tank is forewarning the electorate to disregard the political rhetoric and to ask hard questions. New York University School of Law’s Institute for Policy Integrity says that when candidates discuss the economics of regulations, voters need to wear their thinking caps. The variables used to arrive at calculations are glossed over while the “bottom lines” are publicized.