In the News

EPA’s timeline for power-sector regulations has slipped since the start of the Biden administration, causing some environmentalists to worry that the rules could more easily be removed if Republicans win the White House and Congress in 2024. “I think what we're seeing is the Biden administration take the time to be deliberate, to develop the regulatory record to make sure the regulations that they finalize can withstand the inevitable litigation,” said Carrie Jenks, executive director of the Environmental & Energy Law Program at Harvard Law School. An April analysis by the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University School of Law found that legal defeats caused 192 Trump-era rules to be rescinded on topics as diverse as the environment, immigration and worker protections. Richard Revesz, who directs IPI, has since been tapped as Biden’s regulatory czar.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) released its long-awaited 2023–2028 Proposed Program for offshore oil and gas leasing earlier this summer. Unlike previous five-year plans, the Proposed Program does not declare a “preferred” schedule of lease sales, leaving open the possibility of scheduling anywhere from zero to eleven sales. BOEM’s decision, expected in the coming months, rests on how it balances the nation’s energy needs — including its assessment of the environmental impacts of leasing.

Some advocates support Revesz’s nomination given that he is a long-time New York University law professor who founded the school’s Institute for Policy Integrity that often supports protective EPA standards. Revesz’ nomination is also winning support from a host of bipartisan legal academics and others, who sent a recent letter to the Senate committee “in enthusiastic support of his nomination.”

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) includes the most significant investment in climate that Congress has ever made. Getting input from a range of relevant stakeholders will help Treasury and the IRS ensure the IRA meets its goals. Building off Mike Kaercher’s remarks at the Institute for Policy Integrity’s conference A New Era of Climate & Energy Policy, this post provides a brief overview of the climate provisions, discusses the importance of public interest stakeholder contributions in implementing them, and presents two examples of high-priority projects that could benefit substantially from public interest stakeholder input.

President Biden’s nominee to become the Administrator for the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) – told senators at a September 29 nomination hearing that he is targeting updates to existing regulatory analysis standards if he is confirmed to the new post. At a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing, Revesz talked about pushing forward ongoing efforts to update OMB’s Circular A-4, which guides development of regulatory analysis, but which has not been updated in 20 years.

Revesz's writings point out that costs and benefits may hit different classes and races differently. Suppose costs were imposed mainly on the poor (which is the history of the failure to regulate pollutants) while benefits went to the rich. And suppose a regulation reversed that pattern. Distributional analysis would show that it is well worth enacting, in contrast to traditional cost-benefit analysis, which looks at averages or, worse, values the life of a poor person as worth less than the life of a rich one. Revesz, assuming he is confirmed, will soon get the chance to put these revolutionary concepts into practice.

Richard Revesz, the Biden administration’s nominee to run the White House regulatory review office, drew little direct opposition from Republican lawmakers at his Senate nomination hearing, even as several GOP senators expressed significant concern over the administration’s approach to environmental and other regulations. At the Sept. 29 hearing of the Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee, Revesz stressed that he would focus on transparency as well as even-handed cost-benefit analyses of agency rulemakings should he be confirmed as administrator of the White House Office of Information & Regulatory Affairs (OIRA).

After the Supreme Court handed down its decision in West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) earlier this year, many speculated on what it does—and does not—mean for future power plant rules. One key point is clear: the decision will shape, but not stop, power plant regulation, writes Attorney Dena Adler.

The major questions doctrine boils down to the following: under rare circumstances that would transform the underlying statute, the Court may depart from its normal approach to agency deference and look more skeptically on agency authority in the absence of clear congressional authorization. Many have noted the ill-defined parameters of this interpretive principle,1 but one key feature is not reasonably in dispute: it remains the exception, not the rule.

President Biden’s pick for “the most important job in Washington that no one ever heard of” testified on Thursday, underscoring his support for cost-benefit analysis in the rulemaking process. He also told lawmakers on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that if confirmed, he would lean into the effort to modernize regulatory reviews that the president launched upon coming into office.