In the News

Michael Livermore, a law professor at New York University and a close observer of the regulatory process, said their involvement suggests the White House is keeping tabs on a proposal with broad impacts — both costs for utilities and health benefits for the public.

“These are not the kinds of folks who spend their time on run-of-the-mill permit applications,” said Livermore, who is executive director of NYU’s Institute for Policy Integrity.

PA released revised regulations for industrial and commercial boilers and incinerators this week. Implemented under the Clean Air Act, the move is a step in the right direction for reducing air pollution. But it misses out on opportunities to maximize net economic benefits for the American public.

As expected, deficit reduction plays a large part in President Obama’s budget proposal, released earlier in the week. In line with predictions, this includes slashing the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program’s (LIHEAP) funding nearly in half, from $5.1 billion to $2.57 billion.

This is a real negative for many people who are struggling to make ends meet, and who will have one less source of support. But another downside is that this move passes up on an opportunity to implement a long-term strategy for more sustainable energy use that will also benefit the low-income recipients of LIHEAP aid.

EPA is stuck between a rock and a hard place, said Michael Livermore, executive director of the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University School of Law. Even if the agency has qualms about the proposed rules, it can’t make any changes that weren’t subjected to public comment last year. Whether the agency’s final rule is similar to the proposed rule or makes substantial changes, it’s bound to face lawsuits, Livermore said.

A mini-firestorm erupted recently in response to the EPA’s attempt to stall on a regulation to clean up mercury pollution from industrial plants; environmentalists see the move as a political cave in the face of a newly empowered congressional opposition.

There is a much stronger economic case for curtailing highly toxic air pollution from old and outdated industrial boilers than there is for allowing the emissions to continue.

Phasing out dirty oil over a 20 year period would generate $5.3 million worth of health benefits and avoid 600 mortalities, according to a study from the New York University School of Law’s Institute for Policy Integrity. The DEP received roughly 2,200 311 complaints about buildings’ chimney smoke in Fiscal Year 2009 and issued 500 violations. Boilers using the heavy No. 6 or No. 4 are more difficult to maintain than No. 2 oil or natural gas, causing problems with incomplete combustion, officials said.

Michael Livermore, a law professor at New York University and a leading proponent of cost-benefit analysis in environmental regulation, said estimating the value of mercury reductions would help inform the public about the new rules. But because EPA isn’t allowed to consider costs when it sets the toxic pollution standards, he said, “it doesn’t make sense for the agency to pull its hair out estimating the benefits of a rule that’s already cost-benefit justified” by the particulate matter reductions.

“Heart disease rates will go down, asthma cases will recede and it will literally become easier for New Yorkers to breathe,” said Jason Schwartz, legal fellow at the Institute for Policy Integrity.

An updated analysis released in the spring found that up to 259 lives per year could be saved by using cleaner fuels in the boilers of the 9000 or so large buildings that currently burn dirty oil. The Institute for Policy Integrity report showed that a transition to less toxic fuel options would reduce the number of New Yorkers suffering fatal heart attacks, chronic bronchitis, and asthma—saving billions of dollars in health benefits.