In the News

A federal court in Louisiana heard oral argument Dec. 7 in a case brought by Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry (R) that is gaining national attention. The case seeks to prevent federal agencies from considering scientific estimates of climate change impacts. It could have profound consequences, but not the ones Landry suggests. While Landry’s lawsuit is cloaked in hyperbole about federal takeovers and taxes, no such risks exist. But the suit does threaten to upset settled, bipartisan principles of administrative law.

Policy Integrity’s comments make two categories of recommendations: (1) improving public participation, and (2) improving analysis.

Getting greener mail trucks would help combat climate change — and all of the Postal Service’s competitors are doing it.

But what would serious distributional analysis look like? As we explained in our recent comments on EPA’s Draft Strategic Plan for 2022–2026, serious distributional analysis requires that an agency consider the distributional consequences of multiple regulatory alternatives.

By changing the underlying risk profile of certain insurance products, climate change threatens insurers’ business model. At the same time, insurers also face risk as investors, as insurers’ assets may be overvalued due to unassigned climate risk. Improved data, research and resilience planning can contribute to a more robust and more equitable insurance system, while improving financial disclosure requirements can limit investment risk.

With experts worldwide calling on governments to transition away from fossil fuels to prevent catastrophic levels of climate change, the Biden Administration is in the midst of reconsidering the federal government’s oil, gas, and coal leasing programs. Reforms to these programs could bring U.S. energy policy closer in line with climate reality by reducing the extraction of fossil fuels from public lands.

The new methane rule goes beyond merely undoing the damage of the Trump years. The proposal is broader than its Obama-era predecessors, and once finalized, will apply to hundreds of thousands of previously unregulated emission sources, like wells, storage tanks, and compressor station. That is because unlike the prior standards, Biden’s rule will cover equipment of all ages. 

We support the SEC’s plan to propose a rule requiring standardized climate risk disclosures. Doing so would further the Commission’s mandate to protect both investors and the public interest. Our forthcoming paper in the N.Y.U. Journal of Legislation and Public Policy provides several recommendations for how the SEC should build its institutional knowledge as it designs and enforces a climate risk disclosure regime.

These findings offer the Biden administration a critical lesson. Executive agencies cannot blindly rely on their traditionally high success rate in litigation. If agencies fail to engage in reasoned decision making and remain within statutory limits, courts will serve as a bulwark.

So what's a reasonable investor to think about the MOPR and state climate and clean energy policies? If nothing else, it should be clear that one is more certain than the other. A reasonable investor knows the MOPR has not been a durable construct, while state policies have long been moving in one direction. There is certainty there. Regardless of what happens to the MOPR, states are not giving up on their climate ambitions. They will continue to support clean energy technologies that are cheaper for consumers and safer for their citizens.