In the News

Now with the clock winding down on the Obama administration, experts say it’s unclear whether EPA will craft carbon-emissions standards for any big stationary pollution sources beyond power plants—or even if it has enough time or resources left to do so. … When it comes to carbon emissions standards for big stationary industrial polluters, power plants are the big show—and maybe the only one. Michael Livermore of the Institute for Policy Integrity, an environmental group affiliated with New York University’s law school, said the fact that the clock is running out on emissions standards beyond power plants is a “concern.” But what’s crucial, he said, is for EPA to focus on creating carbon emissions standards for power plants that will withstand challenges in the courts and on Capitol Hill, and he noted that the power plant rules are a high priority for environmentalists. Those EPA rules are a centerpiece of President Obama’s climate agenda. “My guess is they see the refineries … as icing on the cake,” said Livermore, who was the founding executive director and is now senior adviser to the institute. “But they mostly want to make sure the cake doesn’t fall apart.”

The Heritage Foundation recently published a faulty report on the economic effects of the EPA’s forthcoming carbon pollution regulations, and its findings have been repeated uncritically in conservative media despite the foundation’s fossil fuel funding and the report’s “deeply problematic” analysis. Michael Livermore, Senior Advisor at New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity, explained in a phone call that “even as a cost prediction, [the report is] very inaccurate because it doesn’t paint a complete picture about how the economy is going to respond.”

The Obama administration relied on outdated science that produced a social cost of carbon figure that is too conservative, environmental groups said Feb. 26. “This estimate should be regarded as the lower bound on the true number,” Richard Revesz, director of the Institute for Policy Integrity at the New York University School of Law, told reporters. The Institute for Policy Integrity, Environmental Defense Fund and Natural Resources Defense Council announced Feb. 26 that they had launched a new website, http://costofcarbon.org/, to collect academic research on the social cost of carbon figure. The first report on damages not being accounted for in the federal government’s estimate is expected in March, Revesz said.

Environmentalists and conservatives rushed yesterday to weigh in on the Obama administration’s estimate for the social cost of carbon before the public comment period ended. In a conference call, Institute for Policy Integrity Director Richard Revesz said that the fact OMB offered a public comment period on the SCC demonstrated that the administration had “bent over backward” to give parties on all sides of the issue an opportunity to weigh in. The estimate is not a rule, though it will play a limited role in rulemakings. And OMB does not usually collect public comments on estimates of this kind. “Any claim that there is some kind of transparency deficit here is totally misplaced,” he said.

Climate change impacts – from more extreme droughts and floods to effects like crop losses and sea-level rise – are costing Americans $37 per tonne of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere, according to an updated estimate by the U.S. government. The Obama administration’s cost-of-carbon figure has been put to use in a variety of ways, including to justify energy efficiency rules put out by the Department of Energy, said Richard Revesz, director of the Institute for Policy Integrity at the New York University School of Law. It is also expected to play into regulations being crafted to govern the building of new power plants in the United States, he said.

Monday, the Supreme Court of the United States heard oral argument on a case concerning the ability of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. At first glance, this case deals with only a narrow technical legal issue. Does the term “any air pollutant” under one of the Clean Air Act’s many programs mean any air pollutant regulated by the Clean Air Act, as maintained by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and by the opinion of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit upholding this interpretation? Or does it mean only a subcategory of such pollutants, as maintained by the regulation’s challengers?

Richard Revesz, director of the Institute for Policy Integrity at the New York University School of Law, discusses the arguments and potential outcomes in the Supreme Court case on the ability of EPA to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. He also explains its significance in the context of the broader discussion on EPA’s ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

Monday morning, the high court heard arguments over whether the Environmental Protection Agency can use the Clean Air Act to curb carbon dioxide emissions from some “stationary sources” of pollution, such as existing factories, oil refineries and power plants. After the arguments, environmental groups predicted the court will uphold the EPA’s actions under the Clean Air Act. “I think it’s much more likely that when they try to get out an opinion, they’ll have to hold up what EPA did,” says David Doniger, an attorney for the National Resources Defense Council. New York University law professor Richard Revesz offered a similar opinion. “The regulations will be upheld,” he says. “Congress designed a program specifically for this [with the Clean Air Act]. Once they struggle with all the back and forth, a majority of them [the justices] will come to see that.”

President Obama’s use of executive power to tackle global warming goes on trial Monday when the Supreme Court hears arguments in a challenge from industry and a dozen states to an EPA effort to curb industrial emissions of greenhouse gases. The program at the heart of the case — prevention of significant deterioration, or PSD — requires facilities to obtain permits that mandate the use of “best available” control technology to limit emissions. EPA supporters say the agency has long said regulating new pollutants under other parts of the Clean Air Act requires inclusion in the PSD program. “For 30 years, EPA has had a consistent approach to this program,” said Richard Revesz, director of the New York University School of Law’s Institute for Policy Integrity.

President Barack Obama’s four appointees to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit are well-regarded attorneys with extensive careers in U.S. Supreme Court appeals and civil rights cases, but their legal backgrounds offer minimal insight into their approach to environmental law. Legal observers will be closely watching the four new additions—Judges Patricia Millett, Cornelia Pillard, Sri Srinivasan and Robert Wilkins—over the coming months as they hear oral arguments and issue decisions in air, mining and other environmental cases. On the administrative area or environmental area, we don’t see a lot of past work that these guys have done,” Michael Livermore, an associate professor at the University of Virginia School of Law and senior adviser at the Institute for Policy Integrity, told Bloomberg BNA.