Recent Projects

The federal regulation of greenhouse gases from coal-powered plants called “New Source Performance Standards” has been delayed several times but is now set to be released in early 2012.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) recently announced its final policy on incorporating full fuel cycle analysis. This form of analysis expands on the current way of estimating the energy savings of appliances by including the costs of everything from fuel extraction to distribution and also estimating the greenhouse gas impacts of the machine.

Mayor Bloomberg recently announced that the city will phase out the use of unrefined oil sludge and the most-polluting grades of heating oil, to be completed by 2030. The new rules target the airborne fine particulate matter from two grades of heating oil that when burned by buildings create more than 85% of the city’s heating oil soot emissions. It’s expected that 10,000 buildings will be affected, as the black smoke billowing from smokestacks that the city says is responsible for killing 3,000 residents each year is eliminated.

Today, the city is conducting hearings on a regulation that the Bloomberg administration released last month to address the soot pollution from residual oil.

This afternoon, Policy Integrity legal fellow, Jason Schwartz spoke at the bill signing ceremony for Introduction 194|Text|&Search=194, a New York City Council act that will reduce air pollution.

Policy Integrity legal fellow, Jason Schwartz, testified this afternoon at a hearing on a bill that would restrict the use of the dirtiest fuels used to heat some New York City apartments.

For the last year, New York City has been working to develop potential regulation of the dirtiest heating oils used in residential and commercial boilers. Policy Integrity has been in close contact with city officials and interested advocacy groups as the rule is being developed to help quantify the potential health benefits and shape a rational regulatory response.

New York State released its final Energy Plan today. Few changes were made from the revised draft version from the draft version. Policy Integrity had proposed distributing tradable energy vouchers to businesses instead of pure electricity subsidies in order to incentivize them to reduce their electricity usage—at no extra cost to taxpayers.

Policy Integrity expanded on our initial comments on the New York State Energy Plan. In this version, more detail is offered on how the state could build efficiency incentives into its economic development programs.