In the News

EPA’s newly final Risk Management Program (RMP) update is facing criticism from all sides over its cost-benefit calculations, especially for novel mandates to consider climate impacts and safer technologies -- provisions that industry says will be unworkably expensive but which pro-regulatory advocates say carry even greater benefits than the rule assumes. For instance, Dena Adler, senior attorney at the environmental law group Institute for Policy Integrity (IPI) at New York University, told Inside EPA in a March 4 interview that the final rule is an indication that EPA has improved its “awareness of the climate related hazards” facing chemical sites, and called it an “essential first step” in the agency’s efforts to address those dangers. However, she emphasized although she sees the March 1 RMP rule as a step in the right direction, the agency’s cost estimates still do not fully capture the “hard to quantify” costs of chemical accidents, such as potential health risks from chemical exposures in communities close to facilities, “lost productivity at affected facilities, emergency response costs,” and “environmental damage,” among others.

Gensler said the SEC has received over 15,000 comment letters on its proposal, the most ever received for a single proposal... “Throughout its history, the SEC has repeatedly required disclosure of information that, while not financial on its face, is nevertheless relevant to investors’ assessment of a registrant’s future financial prospects,” a letter jointly submitted to the SEC from The Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University School of Law and the Environmental Defense Fund stated.

The White House Office of Management & Budget (OMB) is finalizing new guidance about how to weigh federal regulations’ effects on ecosystem services, defined as “contributions to human welfare from the environment or ecosystems,” with observers saying the guide will make EPA and other agencies less likely to overlook important benefits of rules. Institute for Policy Integrity senior attorney Max Sarinsky said that both the ecosystem guide and recently finalized A-4 guidance help to counter a historically flawed focus of regulatory analysis on easier-to-quantify compliance costs while ignoring benefits that can sometimes be harder to quantify.

In late January, the Biden administration announced that it was pausing new approvals for liquefied natural gas export terminals until it can reassess its review process. That decision hinges on a key question: Is continuing to expand the country’s already massive fossil-gas export capacity in the ​“public interest?” But amid much uncertainty and many contested claims over the issue, one thing appears clear, according to a recent report from the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University School of Law: The assessments that have guided U.S. LNG export authorizations over the past half-decade of the industry’s startling growth are not capturing the full scope of climate harms those exports are causing — or the economic harms those emissions will create in the country or around the world.

A Feb. 28 webinar -- hosted by the Center for Progressive Reform, Coalition for Sensible Safeguards, and Institute for Policy Integrity -- will discuss the White House’s new cost-benefit review guidance known as Circular A-4, how it can be used in comments and final rules, as well as how EPA’s updated social cost of carbon (SCC) valuations can affect pending regulations.

The Coalition for Sensible Safeguards, Center for Progressive Reform, and Institute for Policy Integrity are holding a Feb. 28 webinar exploring how the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs’ (OIRA) new Circular A-4 guidance can be used effectively in comments and included in final regulations.

Though prior "good neighbor" regulations, such as CSAPR and its predecessor, the Clean Air Interstate Rule, have focused on power plants, the Clean Air Act does not prevent the agency from looking at other sources that contribute significantly to ozone pollution, said Jason Schwartz, legal director at New York University's Institute for Policy Integrity. "We are now in a world where actually some of the most cost-effective opportunities for reductions are in different industries," Schwartz said.

LNG supporters tout it as a win for climate, pointing to the pivotal role natural gas played in dethroning King Coal from the U.S. grid. As trade group API put it in its protest of the LNG pause: ​“U.S. LNG is critical for accelerating global emissions reductions by displacing higher-emitting fuels.” There’s one problem with that: There’s no guarantee that LNG shipments actually displace coal. “There’s really been no mechanism in place to ensure that [exports] displace dirtier sources and not cleaner sources,” said Max Sarinsky, an adjunct professor at New York University School of Law, in a previous Canary Media feature on the subject.

A New York University study found that the estimated climate costs of continuing to export LNG outweigh the economic benefits for American households. "Under all scenarios evaluated, we found the gross climate damage greatly exceeded economic benefits," said Minhong Xu, an economist who co-authored the study.

The Institute for Policy Integrity found that 83 percent of victims represented by an attorney successfully obtained a protective order, as compared to just 32 percent of victims without an attorney.