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  • US Judge Strikes Down Biden Climate Damage Cost Estimate

    Not fully accounting for carbon damages would skew any cost-benefit analysis of a proposed rule in favor of industry, said Max Sarinsky, a Senior Attorney at the Institute for Policy Integrity. He added that the social cost of carbon had been “instrumental” in allowing agencies to accurately judge how their rules affect the climate.

  • In Bid To End Suit, DOJ Says Interim SCC Has Not Spurred Tougher Rules

    USPS's final environmental impact statement [for its plans to acquire new vehicles] “has some disappointing omissions, though the Postal Service was right to use the [SCC] in the first place," said Andrew Stawasz, a Legal Fellow at the Institute for Policy Integrity.

  • Update: Supreme Court to Weigh EPA Authority on Greenhouse Pollutants

    There are many instances in which agencies must rely on ambiguous allocations of statutory authority to resolve important policy questions. Conservatives would be able to use a major questions ruling to challenge agencies in such instances, particularly because a vague line between “major questions” and “minor questions” and between “ambiguous” and “unambiguous” might make it hard to understand the scope of the ruling. (New York University Law professor Richard Revesz’s brief focuses on the “illogical and unworkable new standards” that would come from applying the major questions doctrine to this case).

  • Surging Con Ed Bills Leave New Yorkers With Electric Burns

    Better insulating homes and building without gas appliances will help, said Justin Gundlach, a senior attorney at NYU School of Law’s Institute for Policy Integrity. "If you need less [energy], it stands to reason that you will feel less of a ripple when the price changes."

  • EPA Aims For Certainty With Rule Supporting Mercury Regs

    Now that the Biden administration has had a chance to take a crack at it, the legal justification looks much sturdier, according to Richard Revesz, a professor at New York University School of Law and director of the Institute for Policy Integrity. "What EPA does is establish that the direct benefits are sufficient to justify the rule," Revesz said. "The direct benefits are large and very significant."

  • Power Plant Mercury Limits Still Need Tightening, Say Advocates

    Reaffirming the legal basis for mercury power plant rules is a welcome move away from a controversial Trump-era rollback and should pave the way for even stronger federal regulation, clean air advocates say. “Limiting pollutants targeted by MATS inevitably curbs other pollutants like particulate matter as well, leading to enormous public health co-benefits,” NYU Institute for Policy Integrity director Richard Revesz said in a statement. “By considering both direct and indirect benefits in this decision, EPA revives analytic best practices cast aside by the Trump administration,” Revesz said.

  • EPA’s MATS Plan Builds On Obama-Era Concepts to Justify Regulation

    Despite a return to its prior approach, supporters of the measure continue to back the agency’s methods. “In taking this important step, EPA emphasizes the significant neurocognitive and other direct benefits of mercury reduction. The agency also recognizes that limiting pollutants targeted by MATS inevitably curbs other pollutants like particulate matter as well, leading to enormous public health co-benefits,” Ricky Revesz, director of the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University Law School, said in a statement.

  • US EPA Moves to Restore Legal Basis for Mercury Rule Targeting Coal Plants

    "By considering both direct and indirect benefits in this decision, EPA revives analytic best practices cast aside by the Trump administration," Richard Revesz, director of the New York University School of Law's Institute for Policy Integrity, said in a statement. "The newly restored approach is endorsed by the Office of Management and Budget's longstanding guidance and by all respectable economists and, prior to the Trump administration, had been the norm in both Republican and Democratic administrations for decades."

  • N.Y. Utilities: FERC Delays Could Jeopardize Gas System

    Two New York utility giants last week urged the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to “promptly” approve a natural gas project proposed nearly two years ago, fueling a debate over the consideration of greenhouse gas emissions against other factors. “[The] Commission has a clear obligation to properly quantify the reasonably foreseeable upstream greenhouse gas emissions associated with production of the natural gas ConEd and National Grid are buying,” Sarah Ladin, an attorney at the Institute for Policy Integrity at the New York University School of Law, said in an email.

  • Next Justice Unlikely to Make a Difference in Climate Law

    “I’m less optimistic about the court’s rulings in the next few years, given that the 6-3 majority seems intractable,” said Meredith Hankins, an attorney at the Institute for Policy Integrity. “Completely rejecting the idea … that these expert agencies should have the power to decide complicated questions — from an environmental/climate perspective — that’s incredibly depressing,” Hankins said. “The EPA is this expert agency that Congress has chosen to provide a lot of leeway to in issuing regulations, and if a judicial majority is going to refuse to recognize that expertise, there’s not much to be done at the margins.”