In the News

Jason Schwartz, legal director of the Institute for Policy Integrity, says the president’s remarks signaled that the regulations on existing power plants to be produced by the EPA will allow these states to comply using their efficient market mechanisms that produce GHG emissions at lower costs. “The single word we were most excited to hear in the president’s speech and his plan was flexibility,” he says.

“In an ideal world, the standards for new and existing would be proposed together, having been developed together in a way that maximizes total net benefits,” said Richard Revesz, director of the Institute for Policy Integrity and dean emeritus of New York University School of Law.

Such assertions are “wildly overstated,” said Richard Revesz, the director of the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University. He framed Boehner’s remark as the latest iteration of a “job-killer meme” that has surfaced frequently in recent years as Republicans have sought to drum up fears about Obama’s environmental efforts.

Jason Schwartz, legal director for the New York University Institute for Policy Integrity, said the regulation of existing power plants would require EPA to work closely in partnership with the states, which would ultimately slow the regulation’s development.

The Clean Air Act “authorizes EPA to do a lot with respect to greenhouse gases” and also demands a great deal of the agency, said Jason Schwartz, the legal director at New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity, the law school’s advocacy arm. Schwartz’s group is going to be looking for so-called market mechanisms that allow power plants to trade or borrow emission credits, for example.

The Clean Air Act “authorizes EPA to do a lot with respect to greenhouse gases” and also demands a great deal of the agency, said Jason Schwartz, the legal director at New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity, the law school’s advocacy arm. Schwartz’s group is going to be looking for so-called market mechanisms that allow power plants to trade or borrow emission credits, for example.

According to Michael Livermore, executive director of the Institute for Policy Integrity, the legal requirement for cost-benefit analysis is at the heart of the issue. Beginning under the Reagan administration, proposed government regulations must be submitted to review by a little-known office called the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.

Environmentalists are launching an effort they hope will pressure the Obama administration to raise its default estimate of the social cost of carbon (SCC), believing it will strengthen the case for strict greenhouse gas (GHG) rules and other emission controls just as concerns about irreversible climate change due to the emissions are mounting.

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Environmental Defense Fund and the Institute for Policy Integrity, a think tank based at the New York University School of Law, are developing a web-based platform to foster sharing of data between climate scientists and economists in an effort that proponents believe will help put pressure on the administration to raise its SCC estimate.

We need to pay to repair our roads and bridges; but there is no reason, in principle, for funding to be linked to gas taxes. The government can use income taxes, tolls and other revenue-raising mechanisms to cover the costs.

One advantage of using gas taxes to pay for our roadways is that gas taxes help to “internalize” the price of pollution into a gallon of gas. Without some kind of price signal, gas is cheaper than it should be because no one is paying for the harm caused by emissions of greenhouse gases and other air pollutants.

On the eve of Gina McCarthy’s first Senate committee hearing towards her confirmation, we find our work a potential topic of conversation between certain senators and the candidate for EPA Administrator.

Four senators on the Environment and Public Works Committee, including James Inhofe and David Vitter, sent a letter to Ms. McCarthy asking for her take on a petition the Institute for Policy Integrity, which we direct, submitted to the EPA in 2009. There are now reports that they plan to raise the question during tomorrow’s hearing.