March 1, 2016
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Scalia, Sanders, and the Clean Power Plan
Just days after the Supreme Court froze implementation of the Clean Power Plan until litigation ends, the death of Justice Antonin Scalia again altered the rule’s legal path forward. In the wake of this news, Jack Lienke and Denise Grab each weighed in on the ramifications of the Supreme Court vacancy. Richard Revesz also recently dissected Bernie Sanders’ proposal to revise the Clean Power Plan to focus on methane. Meanwhile, as litigation proceeds in the D.C. Circuit, we published new research on the Clean Power Plan’s legal precedents in the Environmental Law Reporter. E&E News discussed our research here.
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Financial Regulation and the Future of the Electricity Grid
In a new working paper, Richard Revesz argues that cost-benefit analyses of financial regulations are primarily hindered by institutional shortcomings, not analytical difficulties. He suggests that these analyses could be greatly improved through Presidential action, such as the exportation of good Executive Branch models to the financial regulatory agencies. Revesz and Burcin Unel also released a new working paper on electricity policy. As distributed energy generation grows in popularity, the debate surrounding how utility customers should be compensated for the excess energy they sell back to the grid is intensifying. And net metering, the practice of compensating for such energy at the retail rate for electricity, is becoming the subject of intense political disagreement. Revesz and Unel analyze how the benefits and costs of distributed generation could be properly incorporated into electricity rates, and discuss the role net metering can play as part of a more comprehensive energy reform effort.
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Brief for BLM Coal Lease Case
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) currently faces a lawsuit focused on two coal leases that would generate more than 2 billion tons of coal – roughly 20% of the total used for U.S. electricity in 2010. We submitted an amicus brief in the case, arguing that BLM used an irrational assumption about coal supply and demand in its environmental impact statement. Because of this flawed assumption, BLM’s presentation of the climate consequences of leasing, versus taking no action, is inaccurate and misleading and in violation of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). We believe that BLM’s analysis violates NEPA’s procedural mandate to rigorously evaluate all reasonable alternatives, and that the lease approvals should be set aside.
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Your Grandfather’s Coal Plant
Our new multimedia project, OldCoal.info, explores coal, pollution, and clean air polices through cutting-edge visual storytelling. The project is based on content from Richard Revesz and Jack Lienke’s new book, Struggling for Air: Power Plants and the ‘War on Coal.’ Produced by the NYU School of Law Office of Communications, the site tells the story of how a flaw in the Clean Air Act related to “grandfathering” has allowed some of the country’s dirtiest coal plants to remain operating and polluting for decades beyond their expected closure dates.
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Hein Addresses Oil and Gas Conference
On February 19th, Jayni Hein presented at the Institute for Energy Law’s Annual Oil and Gas Law Conference in Houston. Speaking on a panel titled “How Revenues Should Be Collected for the Use of Federal Lands for Energy Development,” Hein discussed her work on federal oil and gas leasing royalty reform, including recent calls to modernize lease terms to account for the climate impacts of fossil fuel production. Policy Integrity has published three recent reports on these issues. First presented in 1949, the Annual Oil and Gas Law Conference is America’s oldest continuously presented Continuing Legal Education program.