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New York University Law professor Richard Revesz said the new rule will likely be overturned by the courts, Congress or by the incoming Biden administration, but cautioned the damage in the near term is significant. “I would be very surprised if this rule is in effect in two years, but it will create burdens and difficulties in the meantime,” he said.

The Trump administration gutted protections for migratory birds on Tuesday, delivering the second of two parting gifts to the oil and gas industry. “These are definitely midnight regulations,” said Richard Revesz, an environmental law professor at New York University. “They’re 11:59 and 59 seconds regulations.”

The Trump EPA estimated that enforcement delays would save utilities about $26.1 million a year. But the EPA didn’t look at the cost of environmental damage or health risks associated with delays in cleaning up the coal ash ponds. Isabel Carey and Jason Schwartz at the Institute for Policy Integrity said the EPA’s failure to consider those costs meant the rule violates the Administrative Procedure Act.

Richard Revesz, who directs the New York University School of Law’s Institute for Policy Integrity, noted that the administration’s approach is “inconsistent” with existing federal guidance, which states that “in performing a cost-benefit analysis all costs and benefits should be taken into account, whether they’re direct or indirect.” “They’re basically saying that the indirect consequences of regulation must be taken into account if they’re negative, and should be ignored if they are positive.”

Although president-elect Joe Biden is planning to reinstate many environmental laws rolled back by President Donald Trump, when asked if Biden’s administration will strengthen current standards for soot emissions, a spokesman declined to answer. “Given the deadly nature of this pollutant, my advice to the new administration would be to very quickly embark on the process to make the standard more stringent,” said Richard Revesz, an expert on environmental law at New York University.

The cost-benefit rule, which changes the way the E.P.A. shifts economic analyses of Clean Air Act regulations to limit future air pollution controls, is not expected to survive the incoming Biden administration. “It’s like breaking all the calculators on the way out the door,” said Jack Lienke of New York University School of Law’s Institute for Policy Integrity. “The people coming in can buy new calculators. It’s just a hurdle and takes some time. It’s just another annoyance for the incoming administration to deal with. ”

Over 100 environmental safeguards were removed across the past four years. Biden plans to impose stricter environmental standards on industry, a job that would be overseen by his next EPA administrator. Possible picks include Richard Revesz, an NYU Law professor who is considered one of the foremost legal minds in environmental law. Originally from Argentina, he has spent most of his career in academia. But he has managing experience, having served as dean of the NYU law school from 2002 to 2013.

Environmentalists acknowledge a Trump re-election victory would mean new threats to regulation but might not guarantee success of poorly crafted deregulatory efforts. “The Trump administration’s record in defending these rollbacks has been really atrocious thus far,” Environmental Defense Fund attorney Tomás Carbonell said during the environmental law conference, citing a statistic from New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity that the administration has lost 83 percent of its legal fights to date with respect to deregulatory efforts across multiple federal agencies.

According to prominent medical doctors, we are in the midst of “the biggest public health challenge of the 21st century.” But it’s not the one you think. The toll of the COVID-19 pandemic is enormous and devastating. But the public health impacts of climate change could be vastly greater. The medical profession is demanding that we recognize climate change for the health crisis that it already is, rather than the environmental catastrophe that it threatens to become. 

New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity non-partisan think tank met with OMB officials Aug. 28 to reiterate its concerns about the proposed rule’s cost-benefit analysis. Former EPA officials, state drinking water regulators and water utilities have also raised concerns about the complexity of the proposed rule and whether it can be implemented well.