In the News

“Particulate matter is extremely harmful and it leads to a large number of premature deaths,” said Richard L. Revesz, an expert in environmental law at New York University. He called the expected change a “monumental departure” from the approach both Republican and Democratic E.P.A. leaders have used over the past several decades and predicted that it would lay the groundwork for weakening more environmental regulations.

“What this decision says is, in evaluating the environmental consequences of the lease, an agency has to look not just at the consequences of the impacts immediately surrounding the lease but also the consequences down the road of burning the fuel once it’s extracted,” said Richard L. Revesz, an expert on environmental law at New York University. “That’s enormously important.”

Two-thirds of the cases accuse the Trump administration of violating the Administrative Procedure Act, a nearly 73-year-old law that forms the primary bulwark against arbitrary rule. The normal “win rate” for the government in such cases is about 70 percent, according to analysts and studies. But as of mid-January, a database maintained by the Institute for Policy Integrity at the New York University School of Law shows Trump’s win rate at about 6 percent.

Andrew Wheeler’s EPA may not be as dramatic as Scott Pruitt’s, but it still suffers the pathologies that make its work poor quality—and unlikely to hold up in court.

By using data from 1999, the administration ignored any savings those business provided developers, according to Jason Schwartz, legal director at the New York University School of Law’s Institute for Policy Integrity. The lacking analysis underscores how the Trump administration’s pro-industry rhetoric ignores the ecological restoration business, he said.

The administration’s so-called accomplishments, which include rolling back hazardous waste regulations and consumer protection rules, will inflict great harms on the American people, resulting in additional deaths, illnesses, and bankruptcies. The damages done by these heedless regulatory rollbacks significantly exceed the cost savings for regulated industries.

An industry-friendly replacement for Obama-era chemical facility safety rules is moving forward despite a court decision in August that questioned the agency’s basis for making changes. The agency could have a stronger case if it let the original rule take effect and proposed changes down the line based on real data developed during the implementation, Bethany Davis Noll said.

EPA calls its Affordable Clean Energy proposal “a new rule to reduce greenhouse gas emissions” from coal-fired power plants. There are just two problems with that characterization: ACE won’t do much of anything to reduce coal plants’ CO2 emissions, and the rule isn’t really new at all.

Bucking the science on particulate matter’s health impacts could carry a legal risk, Michael Livermore told Bloomberg Environment. “Courts like deferring to agencies, but if they think the agency is untrustworthy on fundamental science, that is a huge problem for the agency,” he said. The EPA might have some discretion to adjust its co-benefit treatment, “but they might also threaten their ability to get deference in general by risking their scientific credibility.”

Environmentalists should question any move by this Administration’s EPA to reform its cost-benefit analysis.