In the News

Rachel Rothschild, a legal fellow with the Institute for Policy Integrity, said fossil fuel companies are sure to sue if the state enacts the legislation. Rothschild’s legal research provided the basis for the proposed legislation, and she says one major legal question likely to arise in court is jurisdictional. In a memo to state legislators, Rothschild cites various cases in the hazardous waste context that she says suggest “that a state can exercise jurisdiction over a polluter simply because it discharged harmful substances into the forum state” and can therefore aid New York’s ability to assert jurisdiction over foreign or out of state companies.

The impact of removing the social cost of greenhouse gas figures from the Biden administration’s arsenal might not hobble future climate rules. Losing the social cost of carbon “would complicate things,” said Max Sarinsky, a senior attorney with the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University Law School. “But it would not be fatal. Climate regulation would continue.”

“Those who think ESG investing is all surface and no substance should welcome the Commission’s effort to provide investors in ‘green’ or ‘socially responsible’ funds with clear and comparable information about where their dollars are going and why,” Jack Lienke, who directs regulatory policy at New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity, said in a statement. “And those who think ESG investing is a reliable means of maximizing long-term returns,” he added, “should welcome this effort to expose greenwashing and increase investor confidence in legitimate ESG claims and products.”

The growing threat of power outages fueled by extreme weather calls for new approaches to grid oversight, the head of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said yesterday, adding that utilities and grid operators should “think differently.” Sarah Ladin, an attorney at the Institute for Policy Integrity at the New York University School of Law, said FERC should “deeply scrutinize” the emissions estimates provided by project applicants, even in cases where a new gas project would replace a higher-emitting coal power plant. In general, many coal plants across the United States are closing due to market changes, she added.

The agency last year also withdrew the Trump EPA’s other last-minute denials of petitions that sought a more expansive Clean Air Act to battle climate change. Environmental and public interest groups behind those petitions, however, remain in limbo. “We have not heard anything more on this since we received the withdrawal of the denial,” said Derek Sylvan, a spokesperson for the Institute for Policy Integrity, based at the New York University School of Law. The institute petitioned EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under Section 115 of the Clean Air Act.

New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity and the Energy Department (DOE) are hosting a May 11-12 conference to bolster steps to “help make deep decarbonization efforts more consistent with the tenets of energy justice.” Speakers include Shalanda Baker, DOE’s deputy director for energy justice.

CRA, aka the Congressional Review Act, became law in 1996 to provide a mechanism through which the U.S. Congress could repeal recently adopted Executive Branch rules and regulations, with simple majority votes in both the House and the Senate. Professor Richard Revesz of New York University School of Law has a different take on things. “It would be wrong … to say that this result [meaning the limited use of the CRA] confirms Democratic antipathy to the CRA,” Revesz has written. “Quite to the contrary, for the first time in its history, the CRA was invoked to disapprove regulations promulgated by a prior Republican administration. And the Biden administration found ways to rid itself of the five offending regulations [that Revesz had previously highlighted as particularly egregious] without needing to avail itself of either the CRA or of lengthy notice-and-comment rulemaking.”

Richard Revesz, director of the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University Law School, says EPA has authority to require cumulative impacts assessments under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) and anywhere it is required to “look at the consequences of its policies,” such as when it conducts a regulatory impact assessment including costs and benefits.

It is one thing to sell leases, but getting an oil rig online takes a long time. “Developers already have vast reserves of both productive and currently undeveloped fossil-fuel leases, and any leases that occur today are unlikely to produce oil for many years,” says Max Sarinsky, a senior attorney at New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity. “There is considerable value in curtailing fossil-fuel leasing now and preserving the option to lease or not lease in the future,” he adds.

What is standing in the way of democracy doing what it is supposed to do to represent demands of the majority by adopting aggressive climate action? Panelists at ASU's conference on democracy and climate change last week say it might be the U.S. Constitution. Richard Revesz, a professor at the New York University School of Law and director of the American Law Institute, said during last Tuesday's panel that the elephant in the room is something that "is not really a constitutional doctrine, but is informed by constitutional ideas." "The current real challenge to climate change regulation is something that we've never thought of as a serious thing until a few years ago, called the major questions doctrine," Revesz said.