In the News

President Trump has initiated the most aggressive environmental deregulation agenda in modern history, but as his first term drives to a close, many of his policies are being cut down by the courts — even by Republican-appointed jurists who the administration had hoped would be friendly. According to a database kept by New York University’s nonpartisan Institute for Policy Integrity, the Environmental Protection Agency has won only nine out of 47 cases in court under Mr. Trump, while the Interior Department has won four of 22. The Trump administration’s overall win rate hovers just under 16 percent, the group said, compared to win rates of about 70 percent for both the Obama and Bush administrations.

The administration has only succeeded in 18 of 107, or about 17%, of its regulation-related court cases, according to a tracker by New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity. Historically, the average success rate among administrations is 70%, said Bethany Davis Noll, litigation director at the New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity.

Administrations usually win 70% of the cases brought against them, but Team Trump has won only about 16% of the 132 decided lawsuits. These figures include 14 of 83 lawsuits about environment, energy and natural resources; seven of 53 lawsuits about deregulation; and 3 of 26 lawsuits about health. “Over and over and over the Trump agencies are doing things that are outside the bounds of their statutory authority,” said Bethany Davis Noll, the litigation director of the Institute for Policy Integrity at the New York University School of Law.

The Center for Biological Diversity is just one of the environmental organizations that have been using the courts to challenge the Trump rollbacks. Overwhelmingly, these suits have succeeded. Only 12 out of 81 lawsuits related to environment, energy, and natural resources deregulation were decided in the Trump administration’s favor as of August 31, according to the Institute of Policy Integrity at New York University School of Law.

Other items on FERC's agenda: a rehearing request regarding FERC's approval of the Mountain Valley Pipeline Southgate expansion permit; a rehearing request from Sierra Club on a Sabal Trail compression station permit; and a permit decision on a pipeline expansion that would feed the Sabine Pass LNG plant. That one includes a challenge from the Institute for Policy Integrity, which wants to know why the commission did not include downstream greenhouse gas impacts of the pipelines.

Peter Howard, economics director at New York University School of Law’s Institute for Policy Integrity: "Policymakers should not abandon longterm climate and air pollution goals, which produce benefits over multiple generations, every time the economy slows down in the short run. Instead, they should weigh the social benefits and costs. In doing so, they will frequently find that carbon-intensive industries, such as coal and oil-sand extraction, are net costly for society when considering the welfare of all Canadians."

At the conclusion of this year’s Supreme Court term, political scientist Lee Epstein and law professor Eric Posner observed that Trump “has prevailed only 47 percent of the time” before the high court, “a worse record than that of his predecessors going back at least as far as Franklin D. Roosevelt.” The situation is even uglier in the lower courts. The New York University School of Law’s Institute for Policy Integrity has calculated that just 14 percent of the Trump administration’s regulatory actions were upheld against challenges in the lower courts — the rest were blocked or withdrawn. Trump’s recent predecessors have tended to win on regulatory matters at least 60 percent of the time.

A coalition of South Texas community groups and environmental organiztions has challenged U.S. federal regulators' decision last month to approve a scaled-down Rio Grande LNG facility. The suit filed in June has attracted interest from outside groups, with New York University's Institute for Policy Integrity submitting an amicus brief.

Environmental and public interest groups are using meetings with White House Office of Management & Budget and EPA officials to reiterate their push for the agency to tighten its pending revisions to the lead and copper drinking water rule, including seeking quicker replacement of lead pipes and a new analysis of the rule’s benefits. The environmental group Clean Water Action met with OMB and EPA officials Sept. 4, and New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity non-partisan think tank met with the officials Aug. 28.

According to Bethany Davis Noll and Burcin Unel of the Institute for Policy Integrity, the Commission has embraced “market efficiency” as the primary measure of just and reasonable rates. It relies on market mechanisms to set wholesale energy prices, and its regulatory agenda is mainly aimed at promoting competition and economic efficiency in energy markets. The problem, Davis Noll and Unel say, is that energy markets have completely failed to account for the environmental and social cost of carbon emissions. Given FERC’s obsession with promoting economic efficiency, its reluctance to address such a glaring inefficiency is puzzling, Davis Noll and Unel argue. Like others before them, they suggest that an agency-imposed surcharge on the wholesale price of high-carbon energy—a “carbon adder”—could be a workable fix.