In the News

Legal challenges are almost certain for finalized rules that tighten up nitrogen oxides emissions from the freight fleet, but critics looking to take future standards to court will likely face an “uphill battle,” according to Institute for Policy Integrity attorney Meredith Hankins. “Certainly there are costs to the industry, we can’t paper over that, but you can see that the overall net benefits for society under these rules are quite high,” Hankins said.

Rachel Rothschild, legal fellow at the Institute for Policy Integrity, joins Kate and Melissa to recap oral argument in West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency. They also recap cases about prescription drugs, tribal casinos, outpatient dialysis, and what happens when a state wants to enforce a law that’s no longer in effect.

Max Sarinsky, a senior attorney with the Institute for Policy Integrity (IPI) at New York University, argues “the district court’s injunction does not require the Department of Energy to scrap its regulations or return to the drawing board. Instead, if this injunction is not quickly lifted, the agency should look at each regulation on a case-by-case basis and determine how to proceed.”

Observers have said the lower court’s injunction could cause important near-term delays to EPA rules including a long-awaited update to heavy truck emissions rules and federal ozone control plans, though they say it is unlikely to entirely block a range of ongoing regulatory activities. “This [ruling] is a big deal,” said New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity Director Richard Revesz in an interview with Inside EPA’s Climate Extra. But, there are “all kinds of scenarios” for how things play out.

A case argued at the Supreme Court this week—West Virginia v EPA—has potentially huge implications for regulating greenhouse gas emissions. NYU law professor Richard Revesz and Center for Biological Diversity attorney Jason Rylander join the podcast to explain.

A milestone moment occurred in an already historic legal case on Friday, Feb. 18. For the first time in Michigan history, the potential climate impacts of a proposed industrial installation were allowed to be considered during a permit hearing under the Michigan Environmental Protection Act. Witnesses were Peter Erickson, senior scientist and climate policy program director at Stockholm Environment Institute, Peter Howard, economics director at the Institute for Policy Integrity at the New York University School of Law, Elizabeth Stanton, director and senior economist at the Applied Economics Clinic and Jonathan Overpeck, climate scientist and dean of the School for Environment and Sustainability at the University of Michigan.

Progressives are urging President Biden to nominate someone to lead his White House regulatory review shop — a post that will play an instrumental role in the administration’s climate and environmental agenda. Possible names for administrator have churned through the Beltway rumor mill for months. One name floated has been Richard Revesz, a New York University professor who leads the Institute for Policy Integrity, who was not shy about condemning the Trump administration’s environmental rollbacks.

On Monday, the court heard a case involving the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. It was strange that the case was heard at all. Ordinarily the court wouldn’t bother with a case about a nonexistent regulation. “Here there is no regulation in place and no regulation will go into effect no matter what the court does,” as NYU law professor Richard Revesz told me. “This court is being extraordinarily activist,” Revesz told me.

West Virginia and its allies are seeking an "advisory opinion" from the Supreme Court to affect the upcoming rulemaking, Richard Revesz, a professor at the New York University School of Law, said, noting the court doesn't have the authority to issue them. Echoing arguments made by Prelogar, Revesz said the Clean Power Plan is obsolete and would need to go through a rulemaking process before it could be resuscitated. The court should dismiss the case, he said.

“As the U.S. solicitor general explained, there’s currently no regulation in place that puts costs on any petitioner,” said Dena Adler, a research scholar at the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University’s School of Law who works on federal climate and energy policy. “The Clean Power Plan did not spring to life after the most recent decision in this case. Given the absence of any current regulation, it would make sense to dismiss the case as improvidently granted.”