In the News

The Institute for Policy Integrity on June 6 hosts an event on how climate-linked weather events are causing energy disruptions, and ongoing research on resilience. The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) hosts a June 6 event about a two-year status update for its READi resilience and adaptation program.

As a regulatory challenge database from the New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity shows, 94 percent of major Trump-era immigration agency actions that faced legal challenges ultimately did not survive litigation (that is, in 33 out of 35 cases). Either a judge ruled against the agency responsible for the policy, or the agency withdrew the policy after being sued.

A study by the Institute for Policy Integrity at NYU says the idea that oil companies could pass on increases in fixed costs to consumers is “unlikely.” “It is an international market and the price is not set in the United States, let alone New York State,” said the economist Peter Howard, director at the institute and co-author of the study. “If these companies started trying to manipulate prices, the market would respond and other firms would enter the market. So there’s really no ability for these companies to manipulate prices,” Howard added. The bill, Howard also points out, would charge companies different amounts according to how much carbon they emit. A scientific peer-reviewed method devised by the Climate Accountability Institute will be used to estimate how many metric tons of greenhouse gasses from each fuel company ended up in the atmosphere on an annual basis.

Jason Schwartz, legal director at New York University School of Law's Institute for Policy Integrity, told Law360 that agency officials carefully pay attention to the calendar when they plan rulemaking in the early days of a presidential administration. Schwartz served as a senior adviser at OIRA under Biden. "For a while now, agencies will have been thinking about their priorities and been coordinating with OIRA and with the policy councils in the White House to really sequence things so that the highest-priority rules made it to the finish line with time to spare," he said. Agencies also consider litigation targeting rules they issue, Schwartz said.

The Institute for Policy Integrity hosts a May 13 webinar featuring researchers discussing their work on energy access and equity.

The Clean Air Act requires that a best system of emissions reduction must be “adequately demonstrated.” Courts have interpreted this phrase to include options that are forward-looking and “technology-forcing”—meaning that the standards may not be achievable today, but information available now shows they will be achievable in the future.

The Institute for Policy Integrity hosts an April 29 event on electrification in buildings and communities. Speakers include academics, as well as DOE science official Henry McKoy.

Unlike former President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan, Biden’s regulation drills down on carbon emissions at the power plant level, which legal experts say may save it from a similar fate before the Supreme Court. “EPA’s new rule sticks to its plain vanilla, long-standing approach to reduce emissions through systems that help a source operate more cleanly,” said Dena Adler with the New York University School of Law.

Industry lawyers last fall raised concerns about EPA’s reliance on those D.C. Circuit cases -- including arguing that they do not apply to existing sources. However, New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity in a recent issue brief argues federal courts have repeatedly affirmed that technology does not have to be in widespread use to be “adequately demonstrated,” and that standards may be forward looking.

"At bottom, the Clean Power Plan essentially adopted a cap-and-trade scheme, or set of state cap-and-trade schemes, for carbon," Roberts wrote. "Congress, however, has consistently rejected proposals to amend the Clean Air Act to create such a program." The Biden rule, however, takes an entirely different approach, said Dena Adler, a senior attorney at the Institute for Policy Integrity at the New York University School of Law. “EPA’s new rule sticks to its plain vanilla, long-standing approach to reduce emissions through systems that help a source operate more cleanly,” she said.