Recent Projects

The government’s offshore leasing system fails to account for uncertainties about environmental harms—the system ignores “option value,” a well-established economic technique that quantifies the value of delaying decisions to acquire crucial information. As a result, the current leasing system leads to over-exploitation of natural resources and excessive environmental risk.

Richard Revesz, director of the Institute for Policy Integrity, testified at a U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce hearing on July 11 to discuss the proper role of the federal government in environmental regulation. At the hearing, entitled, “Constitutional Considerations: States vs. Federal Environmental Policy Implementation,” Revesz discussed a series of instances in which federal action is desirable.

The centerpiece of the Obama Administration’s effort to address climate change through executive action is now a known quantity with the release of the EPA’s proposed carbon pollution guidelines for existing power plants. The rule, pursuant to Section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act, would cut carbon pollution from power plants 30 percent from 2005 levels by 2030 and allow states to use flexible approaches to meet this target.

Policy Integrity welcomes the U.S. Supreme Court’s 6-2 landmark decision to uphold the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, which requires upwind states to reduce emissions that cause downwind states to exceed air quality standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Policy Integrity submitted comments to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) voicing our support for the Administration’s continued use of the social cost of carbon (SCC) as it provides an important, if conservative, estimate of the costs of climate change and the benefits of reducing carbon pollution.

Policy Integrity filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court supporting the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from stationary sources under the prevention of significant deterioration (PSD) program.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit heard challenges from industry, conservative states and some environmental groups to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Mercury and Toxic Standards (MATS) rule for coal- and oil-burning power plants.

Policy Integrity director, Richard Revesz, legal director, Jason Schwartz, and legal fellow Denise Grab were at the Supreme Court today to hear oral arguments in the case against EPA’s Cross-State Air Pollution regulation. This challenge to EPA’s rule reaches the nation’s highest court after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit decided against EPA. That decision set aside three decades-worth of consistent agency interpretation of the Clean Air Act by six administrations of both political parties, to disallow EPA from taking into account the costs of pollution reductions and using market mechanisms to allocate the pollution control burden between upwind and downwind states.

Policy Integrity, on behalf of the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Sustainable Economy, filed the opening brief in a lawsuit to halt illegal practices at the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. The brief argues that incomplete and flawed economic analysis leads BOEM to sell new offshore leases too quickly and too cheaply, potentially costing the American public hundreds of billions of dollars.

Policy Integrity, along with the Environmental Defense Fund, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Union of Concerned Scientists submitted comments opposing a petition for correction sent to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the other agencies involved in the Interagency Working Group on the Social Cost of Carbon (IWG).