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Comments to NYPSC on Gas Planning Proceeding and Staff Straw Proposal
The Institute for Policy Integrity submitted comments in the New York Public Service Commission’s Proceeding on Motion of the Commission in Regard to Gas Planning Procedures, responding to a notice posing various questions about non-pipeline alternatives (NPAs). Our comments focused on how NPAs can be compared fairly to conventional infrastructure alternatives.In addition to the comment regarding NPAs, Policy Integrity also responded to Staff Straw Proposal concerning the modification of the Commission’s regulation governing gas main extensions by filing in this docket a letter attaching a law journal article addressing the tensions between the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act and relevant provisions of the Public Service Law, and the Commission’s options for mitigating those tensions, including modification of this regulation.
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Comments to EPA’s SAB on Peer Review of Draft Revised EJTG
EPA's Science Advisory Board (
SAB) seeks comments on its review report of the EPA’s Draft Revised Environmental Justice Technical Guidance (EJTG), which reviews the methods and procedures described in EPA’s Draft Revised EJTG for evaluating environmental justice concerns in regulatory actions. Policy Integrity submitted comments making four key recommendations that the SAB can use to advise EPA. -
Policy Integrity’s SC-GHG Website Cited by the Army Corps of Engineers in Draft EIS
In August 2024, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers released a Draft Integrated Material Management Plan and Environmental Impact Statement as part of its Lower Columbia River Channel Maintenance Plan. In the EIS the Corps cited values for the social cost of greenhouse gases (SC-GHG) from the calculator on Policy Integrity’s Cost of Carbon Website. The Corps also citied our Cost of Carbon website when describing the SC-GHG in the Draft EIS.
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Just Regulation: Improving Distributional Analysis in Agency Rulemaking
Published in Ecology Law Quarterly
This Article seeks to understand the shortcomings of current agency practice and outline what agencies can do better. To do so, it examines fifteen significant proposed or final agency rules promulgated during the Biden-Harris Administration’s first eighteen months and reveals four categories of limitations. First, agencies often pursue inconsistent goals across different regulatory initiatives. Second, they do not grapple with the core issue that distributional analysis should raise: the extent to which the better distributional consequences of one alternative should trump the higher net benefits of another alternative. Third, agencies do not apply a consistent approach to defining disadvantaged groups, which makes the analysis inconsistent and unpredictable. Fourth, the distributional analysis relies on a truncated set of costs and benefits, and thus presents an incomplete picture of the consequences of regulation on disadvantaged communities.
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Amicus Brief on EPA Revision of the Particulate Matter National Ambient Air Quality Standards
EPA revised the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for Particulate Matter (PM) in March. The state of Kentucky and others filed a lawsuit in the D.C. Circuit arguing that EPA should have considered costs when setting its 2024 NAAQS for PM. We filed an amicus brief explaining that EPA appropriately assessed costs in its separate regulatory impact analysis, that considering regulatory costs would not lead to a less stringent standard, and that there is no history of EPA considering costs when revising the NAAQS.
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Policy Integrity Report Cited in Congressional Research Service Marine Carbon Dioxide Removal Report
In response to congressional interest in marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR) the Congressional Research Service prepared a brief report on the subject. In the document, CRS cited our recent report on expert consensus about carbon dioxide removal to support that claim that “[some stakeholders] may invoke a moral hazard argument against CDR because they prefer policies and actions to reduce GHG emissions prioritized over those aimed at removing emitted GHG from the atmosphere.”
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Amicus Brief in Case Challenging SEC Climate-Related Financial Disclosure Rules
In March 2024, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) finalized its rules on The Enhancement and Standardization of Climate-Related Disclosures for Investors (Rules). The Rules will require public companies in the United States to make certain climate-related disclosures in their registration statements and annual reports, giving investors critical information to better balance risk in their portfolios. Immediately following the Rules’ release, industry actors and a coalition of states filed lawsuits seeking to vacate the Rules. We filed an amicus brief in the Eighth Circuit, supporting these important Rules. Our brief argues that the petitioners’ economic arguments about the Rules’ costs and benefits suffer from fundamental flaws.
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Policy Integrity Recommendations Incorporated in ICC Future of Gas Phase 1 Facilitator Report
On July 29, 2024, the Workshop Facilitator for the Illinois Commerce Commission finalized its Future of Gas Phase 1 Workshops Facilitator Report to the Commission. The final report incorporated several recommendations that Policy Integrity made in comments responding to presentations and draft documents during the course of Phase 1.
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Comments to Treasury and the IRS on 45Y and 48E Implementation Regulations
Policy Integrity submitted comments to the Department of Treasury and Internal Revenue Service on their proposed rule implementing the Section 45Y Clean Electricity Production Credit and Section 48E Clean Electricity Investment Credit. The comments focus on the treatment of waste methane fuels under these credits, emphasizing the need for accurate emissions accounting and preventing unintended consequences.
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FERC Decision Vacated in Case Where Policy Integrity Submitted a Brief
Advocates have been trying for decades to engage FERC in a significant course correction: assessing whether interstate gas pipelines serve the public interest, rather than relying on private contracts to assume that it does. Yet FERC has resolutely ignored its Natural Gas Act mandate to protect the public interest, including when it approved the Regional Energy Access pipeline despite substantial evidence showing the project would serve private interests at the public’s expense. In a case where Policy Integrity submitted an amicus brief demonstrating why FERC’s decision ought not receive deference, the D.C. Circuit vacated FERC’s authorization. This was the first time that the courts have done so for a project where there wasn’t blatant affiliate self-dealing.