-
Public Comments
Comments to EPA on Delay of Emissions Rule for Wood Heaters
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing to amend the 2015 New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) for residential wood heating devices. This change would allow retailers to sell non-compliant wood heaters for two years past the original 2020 compliance date. We submitted comments explaining that the proposed rule imposes net costs on society and is not justified by EPA’s faulty analysis.
-
Public Comments
Comments to EPA on Delay of Landfill Emission Guidelines
In 2016, EPA finalized Emission Guidelines and Compliance Times for Municipal Solid Waste Landfills. Once implemented, the regulation will deliver significant net benefits from reducing pollution that contributes to climate change and other harmful impacts to human health. EPA, however, is proposing to substantially delay the implementation of these protections. We submitted comments that point out how EPA fails to justify the proposed delay and assess its social costs.
-
Public Comments
Comments on EPA Rollback of Refrigerant Substitutes Regulation
EPA recently proposed rolling back regulatory provisions that curb emissions of refrigerant substitutes, which are highly potent greenhouse gases. The agency admits that the rescissions would significantly increase the release of refrigerator hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) but fails to monetize the climate damages caused by forgone emissions reductions. We submitted comments explaining how EPA should value the climate damages of these greenhouse gases.
-
Reports
Deregulation Run Amok
For the first year and a half of the Trump administration, deregulatory efforts focused on suspending regulations across many agencies. But those suspensions flouted public input requirements, ignored statutory mandates, and failed to fully and honestly address the impact of the delays on the valuable benefits conferred by the original regulations. As a result, many have been struck down in court.
Our report provides a survey of the legality of the Trump administration’s regulatory suspensions. Looking at a number of cases, we discuss the administration’s disregard for notice-and-comment requirements, statutory restrictions, and the reasoned explanation requirement. We also lay out some of the challenges facing advocates, and the strategies by which agencies have evaded review. It is worth reflecting on the era of suspensions as the administration moves into repealing rules. The legal principles that applied to suspensions will also apply to repeals, and the same flaws are already appearing in many of the proposals to repeal regulations.
-
Public Comments
Comments on California’s Proposed State-Specific Vehicle Emissions Regulations
We recently submitted comments to the California Air Resource Board (CARB) on its proposal to maintain existing statewide vehicle emission regulations. In coming years, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Environmental Protection Agency plan to weaken federal environmental regulations. CARB is aiming to hold California vehicle emissions at current standards to avoid the effects of weakened regulations. Our comments support the feasibility of California’s current standards and encourage CARB to improve its economic impact assessment by accounting for new federal proposals and a broader range of effects.
-
Court Filings
Brief on the Clean Water Rule’s “Applicability Date”
The Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corp of Engineers were sued for suspending implementation of the Clean Water Rule through the addition of an “applicability date” to the Clean Water Rule. Our brief to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in that case argues that the court should vacate the Suspension Rule because the agencies improperly ignored the forgone benefits of suspending the Clean Water Rule.
-
Public Comments
Comments to EPA on Coal Combustion Residuals Rule
In 2015, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) established minimum criteria for the safe disposal of coal combustion residuals. At the time, EPA projected that the new rule would yield substantial health and environmental benefits. EPA now proposes to weaken the requirements of the 2015 rule but insists that doing so “will not change risks to human health and the environment” and thus will have no effect on the projected benefits of the 2015 rule. Our comments explain why EPA cannot reasonably assume that its proposed changes will have no effect on the 2015 rule’s projected benefits.
-
Academic Articles/Working Papers
Environmental Standards, Thresholds, and the Next Battleground of Climate Change Regulations
Regulations to curtail climate change have the additional benefit of reducing air pollution by accelerating the shift away from carbon-intensive and high-polluting energy such as coal. The benefits from reducing just one air pollutant – particulate matter – account for almost half of the quantified benefits of the Obama Administration’s Clean Power Plan. Regulatory opponents have launched an aggressive attack on the use of these benefits to justify climate change regulations. They claim that these benefits are not real, are accounted for in other regulations, or should not be considered because they are indirect benefits. This article, published in the Minnesota Law Review, collects and analyzes for the first time the robust support for valuing particulate matter and other air pollution reduction benefits. Following an examination of the scientific literature, longstanding agency practices under administrations of both major political parties, and judicial precedent, the authors conclude that particulate matter benefits deserve a meaningful role in regulatory cost-benefit analysis.
-
Public Comments
Comments on Regulatory Impacts Draft Report to Congress
The Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB’s) annual reports to Congress not only compile all the significant benefits and costs of federal regulations, but they also offer federal agencies and academics an up-to-date summary of the literature on key practices in regulatory impact analysis. As such, OMB’s annual reports should reflect the most comprehensive syntheses of the legal and economic literature on these analytical practices. Our comments on OMB’s draft report for 2017 propose two additions to its summaries of the literature on job impact analysis and on co-benefits analysis
-
Public Comments
Comments to EPA on Grandfathering and Glider Trucks
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed to grandfather glider trucks, which have new truck bodies but old powertrains, into older emissions requirements. Our comments to EPA argue that the Agency improperly disregarded the effects that this exemption would have on air pollution, public health, and environmental quality, in violation of both the Clean Air Act and applicable executive orders on cost-benefit analysis. In particular, EPA failed to consider the extent to which its action will increase air pollution (and attendant environmental harms) by extending the useful economic life of older, dirtier powertrains.
Viewing recent projects in Environmental Health