Recent Projects

We submitted public comments on the EPA on its proposed New Source Performance Standards for methane and volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions from the oil and natural gas sector.

Jayni Hein, our policy director, presented today at a national conference on oil-by-rail policies, “Oil Train Response 2015: Community Risks & Solutions,” in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

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.

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.

Policy Integrity’s multi-year effort to make the government account for “option value” in its natural resource leasing decisions has begun to pay off. In its new proposal for offshore oil and gas leasing from 2017-2022, the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) devotes 12 pages to option value and related resource valuation concepts, which will now be considered in leasing decisions. Much of this language closely resembles the arguments Policy Integrity has made to the agency repeatedly since 2009.