In the News

Policy Integrity research helped spur a novel climate bill introduced by New York state lawmakers: the Climate Change Superfund Act. The Act would establish a climate change adaptation fund by requiring the fossil-fuel companies most responsible for climate damages to pay $30 billion to the state over 10 years. This blog post highlights the key takeaways from Policy Integrity's legal and economic research on the Act, establishing its legal basis and economic viability.

“Many anticipated actions have been delayed amid an evolving judicial landscape and legislative developments that bear influence on regulatory design," said Dena Adler. "The administration recently rolled out an updated regulatory agenda with many actions scheduled for release over the next year, which we have not yet had the chance to evaluate. This year will be a critical period for the administration to propose and finalize regulations as well as implement the IRA.”

A study released by New York University in 2021 found carbon trading would lead to deeper cuts in greenhouse gas emissions and lower the cost of complying with the law.

The Institute for Policy Integrity is urging officials to create granular assessments of emissions tied to grid electricity used to generate hydrogen, while also placing robust requirements on the use of renewable energy credits to offset emissions from such power.

The government has consistently undercounted the societal benefits of reducing climate pollution when assessing regulations and other policies, tipping the scales toward polluters over people. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) took a critical step to correct this problem by proposing a comprehensive update to the social cost of carbon. Consistent with the scientific and economics literature from independent researchers, the update would raise the metric’s central value from $51 to $190 for each ton of carbon-dioxide emissions in 2020.

Key U.S. authorities have acknowledged the urgent need to act on climate risks to the banking system. Recent actions and remarks are beginning to shed light on what the next wave of policies to address these risks might entail. They’re likely to look a lot like many other, existing financial risk regulations.

EPA has led the way in crafting these types of metrics in the past, said Max Sarinsky, a senior attorney at the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University. The agency began working on the social cost of methane and integrated it into some rulemakings before the Interagency Working Group undertook its own work. "The approaches that EPA took and that of the Interagency Working Group ultimately were consistent with each other — if that's any indication of what might be happening here," Sarinsky said.

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act allocated billions of dollars toward “clean” hydrogen. Now federal agencies need to specify what counts as clean. Matt Lifson explains why a marginal-emissions approach is essential.

After the Supreme Court handed down its decision in West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) earlier this year, many speculated on what it does—and does not—mean for future power plant rules. One key point is clear: the decision will shape, but not stop, power plant regulation, writes Attorney Dena Adler.

The major questions doctrine boils down to the following: under rare circumstances that would transform the underlying statute, the Court may depart from its normal approach to agency deference and look more skeptically on agency authority in the absence of clear congressional authorization. Many have noted the ill-defined parameters of this interpretive principle,1 but one key feature is not reasonably in dispute: it remains the exception, not the rule.