Recent Projects

Representatives of the fossil fuel industry have urged the D.C.Circuit to ignore standard methods of cost-benefit analysis and strike down the EPA’s Mercury and Air Toxics Standards. Not only does this EPA regulation reduce mercury emissions from coal- and oil-fired power plants, it also reduces harmful particulate matter air pollution, or soot. The benefits stemming from the rule far outweigh its costs, with net benefits to the American people estimated to be as much as $80 billion per year.

In compliance with the Dodd-Frank Act, the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection has proposed mortgage regulations to address many of the concerns from the subprime mortgage crisis. Policy Integrity submitted comments to the Bureau on two mortgage servicing rules: (1) the RESPA Rule, which lays out requirements for how servicers must interact with the homeowners whose mortgages they service and (2) the TILA rule, which describes certain disclosures that mortgage servicers must send to their customers at particular points.

Policy Integrity submitted a letter to the EPA on its upcoming rulemaking regarding water quality permitting. The letter makes recommendations on improving the efficiency of EPA’s implementation and enforcement of the Clean Water Act.

The DOT and EPA finalized fuel efficiency standards today for cars and light duty trucks, increasing fuel efficiency to 54.5 mpg by Model Year 2025. The agencies calculate that consumer savings under the new standards will be comparable to lowering the price of gasoline by $1 per gallon by 2025.

The D.C. Circuit overturned an EPA rule that would have dramatically cut down interstate air pollution, ruling that the agency had exceeded its authority devising regulations affecting more than two dozen states.

Policy Integrity sent our report, Balanced Justice, to United States Sentencing Commission in response to its call for public comments on possible priority issues for forthcoming amendments to the Sentencing Guidelines. The guidelines are used to set a uniform sentencing policy for individuals and organizations convicted of felonies and serious misdemeanors.

Today, we sent a letter to the White House’s Office of Management and Budget suggesting ways that that federal agencies can use data to work more closely and maximize their efforts on behalf of the American public.

Policy Integrity is conducting an empirical analysis of power plant emissions in New York City to evaluate the potential efficacy of various policy tools that can reduce or shift electricity demand. The complete project will quantify the health impacts of reducing pollution from specific local sources, and will try to connect the range of legal options available to shift demand with those pollution-reduction and health-improvement outcomes. Today we are posting information on the data and the STATA code that we will use to conduct the analysis. In the coming months, we will publish the results of our analysis as it becomes available.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) released a final rule to prevent, detect and respond to sexual abuse in prison facilities, in accordance with the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 (PREA). The rule marks the government’s first ever effort to set standards to protect inmates in facilities at the federal, state and local levels.

Policy Integrity submitted a letter to OIRA Administrator Cass Sunstein today with recommendations for how OIRA can improve interagency coordination. The letter focuses on two key areas: (1) concerns about regulatory conflict, and (2) potential for harmonization of cost-benefit analysis methodology.