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News
Statement on Racial Justice
The Institute for Policy Integrity, along with the NYU School of Law, denounces racism in all its forms. We wish to acknowledge the pain and anger being expressed in protests around the country. The murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade and countless others have again highlighted the pervasiveness of violence against Black Americans, especially by police, and the deeply ingrained inequality that exists in this country.
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News
New Resource Tracking Reduced Enforcement of Environmental Laws in Response to COVID-19
The Institute for Policy Integrity is tracking altered enforcement of environmental laws by federal and state agencies in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In connection with the crisis, several agencies have issued waivers or announced plans to stop enforcing key environmental laws and regulations.
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News
Key Economic Errors in the Clean Car Standards Rollback
The federal Clean Car Standards promised steadily increasing fuel efficiency and lower vehicle emissions. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency have now rolled back those standards, eviscerating important public health benefits and fuel savings for consumers. But the agencies’ own analysis shows that the rollback will cause more harm than good for society. And even the slight benefits that the agencies find under certain assumptions are premised on a flawed economic analysis that is riddled with problems.
We released a resource that explains the main economic problems with the rollback’s justification, identifying several critical errors and detailing how they invalidate the agencies' own claims
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News
Fuel-Economy Standards, Corporate Penalties, and a Very Costly Rollback
The mistake of setting corporate fuel-economy penalties just a little too low can be magnified by automakers’ decisions to produce millions of cars with worse fuel-economy. And the Trump penalty appears to be way too low to motivate compliance. Here’s a breakdown of the reduced penalty and how it will likely affect cars, consumers, and our climate.
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News
Our Work on State Zero-Emission Credits Programs
Several states have determined that ensuring the viability of zero-emission electricity generation from nuclear power is critical to mitigating the impacts of climate change especially in the short term while states work to meet aggressive new clean energy goals. Through comments and amicus briefs, we’ve been involved in those efforts in both New York and New Jersey.
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News
Courts Strike Down Conscience Protections Rule
Three federal courts—in the Southern District of the New York, the Northern District of California, and the Eastern District of Washington—vacated the Department of Health and Human Services’ conscience protections rule, which would have reduced healthcare access for women and LGBT individuals. In amicus briefs, Policy Integrity had criticized HHS for, among other things, failing to consider the rule’s likely health costs. The SDNY decision was consistent with our argument that HHS failed to provide a reasoned explanation for the rule.
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News
Court Upholds New York’s Zero-Emissions Credit Program for Nuclear Power
The Albany County Supreme Court rejected a challenge to New York’s Zero-Emissions Credit (ZEC) program, which pays nuclear power plants for the value of avoided carbon emissions. The legal challenge focused largely on the state’s decision to use the Interagency Working Group’s Social Cost of Carbon (SCC) to value emissions.
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News
Court Strikes Down Rule Refusing to Limit Cross-State Air Pollution
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit vacated EPA’s Close-Out Rule, which allowed upwind states to continue emitting ground-level ozone pollution that significantly contributes to downwind air quality problems. The agency justified the rule by falling back on its analysis from the Cross-State Update, a prior rule that had provided only a partial remedy to interstate emissions. We filed an amicus brief, which argued that EPA fundamentally misunderstood its job in analyzing and choosing between cost-effective options.
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News
Court Upholds 2015 Ozone Standards
A federal appeals court recently rejected industry and state challenges to a set of Obama-era air quality standards, which the Institute for Policy Integrity had filed an amicus brief defending. In 2015, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) strengthened National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for ground-level ozone, the primary ingredient in urban smog and the source of a variety of respiratory ills. The coal mining company Murray Energy Corporation, along with trade associations and several state attorneys general, brought suit in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, arguing that the new standards were unnecessarily stringent and impossible to achieve. We filed an amicus brief in support of the standards.
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News
Court Blocks Rule Making Harmful Changes to Title X Women’s Health Services
The Institute for Policy Integrity helped contribute to a significant legal victory, as district courts in Washington State, Oregon, and California blocked a Trump administration rule that makes harmful changes to federally-funded women’s health services. In February, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced onerous restrictions to its Title X program, likely forcing the shutdown of some family planning clinics and closing off access to others for low-income women. We submitted comments on the rule and amicus briefs supporting requests for preliminary injunction in four court cases. The Eastern District of Washington refers to our brief in the reasoning for its decision to grant an injunction. The Northern District of California’s ruling cites our brief and devotes a lengthy discussion to the arguments we advanced.
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