In the News

EPA is planning major changes to its stormwater regulations. These would be the most significant changes since the federal stormwater regulations were enacted nearly a quarter century ago.

A price on carbon emission is necessary to make real headway in addressing global warming. Without it the public picks up the bill for the costs of carbon that include destructive changes in climate patterns. And though carbon pricing remains politically contentious, it can be a viable solution if revenue is paid out as a rebate to energy ratepayers.

The judges’ decision could even apply to rules besides the landmark greenhouse gas regulations, said Jason Schwartz, legal director for the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University. For example, a recently proposed rule on pollution from nitric acid plants could include nitrous oxide, a powerful greenhouse gas with close to 300 times the heat-trapping properties of carbon dioxide.

“This does not appear to be any kind of legal violation. A regulated industry is always going to be part of this process,” said Michael Livermore, executive director of the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University School of Law. The institute helps not-for-profit groups use cost-benefit analysis to advocate for effective government regulations.

“But this is a bad thing for a couple of reasons,” Livermore said. “Why did the DEC only talk to industry and not environmental groups and the impacted communities? If only industry is part of the shaping of the draft regulations, that imbalance has the potential to skew the rules toward industry.”

Today’s lapse drew some criticism. Instead of proposing a rule, EPA “moved the goal post for a fourth time since September,” Edna Ishayik, communications director for the Institute for Policy Integrity at the New York University School of Law, wrote in an email.

The institute sent a letter to EPA today outlining several recommendations on how the rule should be shaped.

“It’s a win for the environment, it’s a win for the natural gas sector, it’s definitely a win for the public,” said Jason Schwartz, legal director for the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University. It is still relatively unclear how to measure the benefits, said Schwartz. Less work has been done on the costs of methane emissions to society.

Michael Livermore, who directs the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University’s School of Law, said EPA has a statutory obligation to write existing-source rules for greenhouse gases. He suggested the agency might want to avoid heightened speculation about what form those rules will take so early in the rulemaking process.

“They’re trying to keep the focus on this rule, rather than on the rules that are on the horizon,” he said. Existing-source rules, he said, could take months or years to write.

The EPA’s first ever greenhouse gas standards for new power plants have already prompted a backlash from some in industry. But rather than bow to pressure, the agency should work to increase the net benefits of the rules while lowering compliance costs for businesses. They can achieve this by barring old, dirty coal-fired plants from slipping by the rules and by increasing businesses’ flexibility in adhering to the standards.

THE Environmental Protection Agency’s proposal earlier this week to reduce greenhouse gases from new power plants was hailed by many environmentalists, but unless steps are taken quickly to bring existing plants under the rule, it will create a perverse incentive for companies to keep running older, more heavily polluting power plants. That’s bad economics that could lead to dirtier air.

The proposal would regulate carbon emissions from future power plants but leave existing sources untouched. This is yet another instance in a more than 40-year pattern under the Clean Air Act in which old and outdated technology has avoided new environmental standards. The result is continuing unhealthy levels of pollution.

“To get CCS going, you’d have to have a rule that was so strict you couldn’t even build a natural gas plant, you’d have to move to CCS,” said Michael Livermore, executive director of the Institute for Policy Integrity at the New York University School of Law. “You’d have to make CCS plants cleaner than natural gas.”