Recent Projects

Jayni Hein, our policy director, recently participated in the Department of the Interior’s (DOI’s) inaugural listening session on the federal coal program. Hein provided recommendations for modernizing the fiscal terms of federal coal leases at this Washington D.C meeting, held on July 29th. DOI organized the event to solicit input from the public about how the the agency can best carry out its responsibility to ensure that American taxpayers receive a fair return on the coal resources managed by the federal government on their behalf. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell attended the listening session.

We recently filed an amicus brief in a federal court case challenging the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) new efficiency standards for commercial refrigeration equipment. The case, Zero Zone Inc. v. U.S. Department of Energy, will be heard by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

New York City reached an environmental milestone today as the final deadline passed in a multi-year effort to eliminate the city’s dirtiest residential heating oils. Policy Integrity played a major role in shaping and supporting the NYC Clean Heat program, which has saved hundreds of lives by curbing air pollution.

Today, the Supreme Court ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) did not consider costs at the appropriate stage of the regulatory process before crafting the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards. This rule, which regulates toxic emissions from power plants, will now be sent back to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, where the judges will decide how the EPA should proceed.

Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit dismissed the first challenges to President Obama’s signature climate change initiative—the EPA’s Clean Power Plan. In the ruling, the judges said they would not take the unprecedented step of blocking the EPA’s regulation before a final rule has even been issued.

Our new regulatory report offers guidance on how how the EPA can improve its cost-benefit analysis for a new proposed rule regulating the dispersants used to clean up oil spills and other major pollution events.

Policy Integrity recently filed public comments on the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s (BOEM’s) new offshore leasing proposal, suggesting that the agency update its use of “option value” to improve its valuation of offshore resources.

Policy Integrity senior advisor Michael Livermore represented the plaintiff in Center for Sustainable Economy v. Jewell, a lawsuit challenging the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s (BOEM’s) 2012-2017 leasing plan for the Gulf of Mexico and the Alaskan coast. The Center for Sustainable Economy (CSE) argued that incomplete and flawed economic analysis leads the government to sell resource leases too quickly and too cheaply, potentially costing the American public billions of dollars and leading to high-risk drilling. Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled against CSE in the case. However, part of the ruling could lead to major changes in how the government values the natural resources it leases.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit will soon hear the first set of cases challenging President Obama’s signature climate change initiative—the EPA’s Clean Power Plan. We recently filed an amicus brief for West Virginia v. EPA, one of the cases challenging the as-yet unfinalized regulation.

Policy Integrity has submitted comments to the Department of Energy, encouraging DOE to improve its economic justification for a proposed energy efficiency determination. DOE has determined that energy conservation standards for mercury vapor and metal halide high-­intensity discharge lamps are not “economically justified” as required by statute, even though such standards could save up to 1.6 quadrillion British thermal units of energy. By reducing electricity demand at and pollution from fossil fuel­-fired power plants, such energy savings would generate environmental and health benefits. However, at no point in DOE’s documentation does the agency discuss environmental and health benefits as part of its analysis of “economic justification” and “national impact.”