In the News

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is finalizing a long-awaited update to fuel economy standards closely tracking EPA’s greenhouse gas limits, with the Biden administration touting the plan as a policy that will reduce consumer costs and boost energy security. New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity attorney Meredith Hankins called the standards the “largest increases to fuel economy standards” in the program’s history, acknowledging the final rule’s tighter MY26 standard compared with the proposal. Hankins added that NHTSA’s recent reinstatement of tighter civil penalties for noncompliance will “make the [fuel economy] program far more effective.”

The court is considering West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency, a case brought by 18 Republican attorneys general, backed by some of the nation’s largest coal companies, who want to sharply limit, if not eliminate, the agency’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas pollution from power plants. “This is a serious threat to regulations,” said Richard Revesz, who teaches environmental law at New York University and filed a legal brief in the case in support of the administration.

This episode compares three US state and regional carbon cap-and-trade programs: the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), Washington State’s Climate Commitment Act, and the Transportation and Climate Initiative (TCI). Guests include Iliana Paul, Senior Policy Analyst at the Institute for Policy Integrity at NYU School of Law.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has rolled back sweeping new policies for large natural gas projects, including a framework for assessing how pipelines and other facilities contribute to climate change, weeks after prominent lawmakers panned the changes. If the orders issued yesterday “inappropriately ignore” the impacts of climate change, they may continue to be rebuked by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, said Sarah Ladin, an attorney at the Institute for Policy Integrity at the New York University School of Law.

Many have viewed the current regulatory regime as ineffective in eliciting appropriate climate disclosure. As described in this 2021 report from the Institute for Policy Integrity at NYU and the Environmental Defense Fund, two years after the issuance of the 2010 guidance, the SEC reported to Congress that it had not seen a noticeable change in disclosure as a result.

When states adopt commitments to use clean energy it often has the celebratory air of a new marriage. But making good on those commitments and leaving fossil fuels behind also requires a messy divorce from longstanding legal frameworks. In all of the states that have committed to transitioning to clean energy — and away from fossil fuels — the laws embodying the new commitment generally don’t repeal other, older laws that enable or even encourage consumers to continue getting their energy from fossil fuels.

The Securities and Exchange Commission voted Monday 3-1 in favor of a proposed rule that would expand and standardize how public companies disclose business risks related to the climate and greenhouse gas emissions. Jack Lienke, regulatory policy director at the Institute for Policy Integrity, supported the SEC’s proposed rule in a statement Monday, saying the commission “no longer has the luxury of ignoring climate change.” The SEC, he said, must protect investors by demanding the same transparency on climate risk as other financial risks.

But Max Sarinsky, a professor at the New York University School of Law, said accounting for future damages from emissions is key to the administration attempt to weigh climate impacts of actions such as the pending oil and gas lease sale. “These numbers are important,” Sarinsky said. “They provide a useful tool for the government to develop cost effective policies that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

Considering additional information about interactions with climate change means that some reactors’ licenses might not be extended. But this reversal supports the viability and social license of the U.S.’s nuclear fleet, thereby helping to preserve a crucial zero-emissions resource for the power sector.

As the centerpiece of presidential leadership, OIRA serves as both overseer of the quality of agency action and mouthpiece for the President’s policy goals. Professor Richard Revesz has suggested that OIRA itself or another centralized, presidential enforcement body could encourage agencies to take into account the distributional consequences of regulation. His proposal could result in an administrative focus on equitable outcomes similar to the pervasive governmental culture of cost-benefit analysis that OIRA has promoted since the Reagan Administration.