In the News

The court’s March 29, 2024, decision in Sierra Club v. FERC held that “FERC enjoys broad discretion” when it considers requests by pipeline companies to extend their timeline to put a project into service. However, the D.C. Circuit has previously offered course corrections to FERC in pipeline cases, and FERC still faces legal vulnerability with its current approach. Al Huang, a panelist at the 2023 Roundtable, recently called on FERC to issue “comprehensive guidance … to aid both FERC and permit applicants, and increase the legal durability of the Commission’s decisions.”

"At FERC’s EJ Roundtable one year ago, we called for the Commission to publish comprehensive guidance on environmental justice. Such guidance would aid both FERC and permit applicants, and increase the legal durability of the Commission’s decisions. It would also make good on commitments from FERC and the Biden Administration to center environmental justice in policy decisionmaking... One year later, however, the Commission has not taken substantial steps towards the goal of integrating environmental justice into its processes and decision making. We continue to see projects that are not in the public interest approved, leaving behind vulnerable communities.” - Al Huang, Director of Environmental Justice, Institute for Policy Integrity at NYU School of Law.

Though prior "good neighbor" regulations, such as CSAPR and its predecessor, the Clean Air Interstate Rule, have focused on power plants, the Clean Air Act does not prevent the agency from looking at other sources that contribute significantly to ozone pollution, said Jason Schwartz, legal director at New York University's Institute for Policy Integrity. "We are now in a world where actually some of the most cost-effective opportunities for reductions are in different industries," Schwartz said.

The Biden administration directed agency policymakers on Thursday to more heavily weigh how their economic regulations will help or hurt worker safety, children’s health, and consumer prices decades into the future. The 93-page memo instructs agencies to pay more attention to how the costs and benefits of their regulations vary by person… “Costs accrue for the most part in the short term,” said Max Sarinsky, an attorney that studies regulation at New York University School of Law. “But the benefits accrue decades or more into the future.”

Environmental justice organizations and local municipalities had an opportunity to learn about a new resource designed to help them identify, navigate, and pursue federal funding for environmental justice by attending a webinar on Monday. This webinar introduced attendees to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Environmental Justice Thriving Communities Technical Assistance Center (TCTAC) for EPA Region 2, from Harlem to Newark. Among the speakers was Al Huang, Environmental Justice Director at the New York University School of Law Institute for Policy Integrity

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law strengthened the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s authority to site interstate transmission projects that have been rejected or not acted upon by states. Used appropriately, this authority can help the United States build the transmission infrastructure necessary to achieve President Joe Biden’s goal of fully decarbonizing the electricity grid by 2035.

On May 15th, Policy Integrity hosted a webinar that brought together researchers focusing on energy insecurity and policymakers who may be able to use their findings. Presenters focused on interesting, yet often-overlooked questions about how energy insecurity is often measured incorrectly, how insecurity-driven transitions can end up benefiting fossil fuels, and how some relevant actors in the energy system don’t actually receive transition incentives. The answers to these questions were often surprising and may prove useful in future government decisionmaking.

The Institute for Policy Integrity recently hosted a webinar titled “Tribal Energy Transitions: Impacts, Opportunities, and Research Ethics.” The panel brought together leading researchers and policy professionals to discuss the challenges and opportunities that the energy transition presents for tribes.

In a panel addressing how the FERC can incorporate environmental justice communities into their infrastructure permitting, Al Huang, director of environmental justice at the New York University School of Law’s Institute for Policy Integrity, said, “FERC needs to demonstrate a foundational commitment to environmental justice, and that means identifying who EJ communities are, engaging with them, providing support for them [and] building trust. Building that foundation can yield substantive advantages such as … identifying viable alternatives to opposed projects that can mitigate adverse impacts, and fully understanding the vulnerabilities that communities might face."

As it is currently performed, cost-benefit analysis generally undercounts many benefits both to society at large and to vulnerable communities in particular. Before resolving how to consider equity as part of cost-benefit analysis, there are improvements we can make within the existing cost-benefit framework to ensure that health and environmental benefits to society at large — and to marginalized communities in particular — are sufficiently considered.