Recent Projects

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.

Today, federal agencies issued new regulations on fuel efficiency standards—for the first time, limiting the amount of greenhouse gas emission allowed from cars and trucks.

Today, Policy Integrity, with five national environmental organizations offered to senior officials in the Obama Administration recommendations on how the social cost of carbon (SCC) should be presented in greenhouse gas regulations.

Each year, the Office of Management and Budget reports to Congress on the benefits and costs of federal regulations. Policy Integrity’s faculty advisor, Dean Richard Revesz and executive director, Michael Livermore were asked to serve as peer reviewers of the 2009 report, released today.

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.

A cap-and-refund approach to climate change will require that all households be transferred their portion of the proceeds from the auction of carbon allowances in a timely and cost effective manner. Policy Integrity conducted analysis of the refund can be administered and released a fact sheet finding that the cost of getting the refund to American individuals and families will be relatively modest.

In response to widespread concern about the economic effects of climate change legislation, Policy Integrity conducted a survey to determine the views of top economists about the wisdom of pursuing greenhouse gas limits. Questionnaires were circulated to every economist who had published a climate change related article in a top-20 economics journal over the past 10 years.

In the summer of 2009, the Department of Energy released a regulation to update electricity efficiency standards for vending machines. Though the rule itself was somewhat routine, it contained information that could have major effects on environmental regulation in the future.

EPA has been quietly working on some serious changes to the guidelines it uses to conduct cost-benefit analysis. Tweaks to the powerful but low-profile Guidelines for Preparing Economic Analyses could have major impacts on the environment. The Guidelines is little known outside of the agency, but is used in the design of every major environmental regulation.