In the News

A group of legal scholars have recently drawn attention to a somewhat obscure section of the Clean Air Act that they say could unlock greater executive authority — which even the economy-wide system wonks so fervently desire.The analysis, from the Institute for Policy Integrity, the Sabin Center for Climate Change, and the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, focuses on Section 115 of the Clean Air Act, the provision on “international air pollution.”

In managing federal lands, Interior has the statutory obligation to earn “fair market value” for the American public when developing natural resources, and to balance energy production with environmental preservation. By using modern economic tools, Interior can illuminate coal’s hidden costs and make straightforward reforms to the federal coal program, benefiting the American public.

“The federal government really does have market share,” says Jayni Hein, policy director for New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity and co-author of a recent report, “Illuminating the Hidden Costs of Coal.” While a similar move for oil and gas leases might simply shift more of the production to private land, she says, the coal industry doesn’t have that flexibility.

“This is a major shift that helps modernize the federal coal program,” said Jayni Hein, policy director at the Institute for Policy Integrity. “This planning process will disclose the environmetal and social impacts of coal leasing, which are extensive.”

Any economist will tell you that disagreement is a hallmark of the discipline, but we found a surprisingly high degree of consensus on many critical topics. According to the economists who’ve studied these issues, the economic case for strong, near-term U.S. climate action is compelling

The Institute for Policy Integrity at the New York University (NYU) School of Law recently published a report summarizing a survey of economists with climate expertise. The report was a follow-up and expansion of a similar survey conducted in 2009 by the same institute.

On Jan. 1, 1970, President Richard Nixon signed the National Environmental Policy Act into law. Six months later, he proposed the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, which opened for business in early December. And on Dec. 31, he capped off the year by signing the Clean Air Act, which was then—and still is—our nation’s most important environmental law.

When it comes to climate change, there’s broad consensus among economists that the potential economic impacts will be serious, widespread and more severe than previous estimates have indicated. At least, this is the conclusion of a new survey, published Monday by the New York University School of Law’s Institute for Policy Integrity — and experts say we should be listening to their warnings.

It turns out there have been very few systematic surveys of economists’ opinions on the subject of climate change, and the few that have been done suffer from methodological shortcomings. Now the New York-based Institute for Policy Integrity has tried to remedy that situation with just such a large-scale survey of economists who have published work on climate change.

“There are some things a Republican president might to do try to undermine the CPP, but his discretion might be limited in significant ways,” Revesz tells me.