Recent Projects

Drip pricing is a strategy used by some sellers to lure in consumers by advertising deceptively low prices, only to reveal hidden mandatory fees after the consumer is on the verge of completing a transaction. We submitted a petition to the Federal Trade Commission formally calling for a new rule banning the use of drip pricing.

The Environmental Protection Agency is reconsidering its withdrawal of a waiver of preemption for California’s zero emission vehicle mandate and greenhouse gas emission standards. We submitted comments supporting the rescission of the waiver withdrawal.

In the Environmental Protection Agency's phasedown of HFCs under the new HFC legislation, the agency calculates a new set of social cost values for HFCs directly, using the same approach as for the social cost of methane. We submitted comments supporting EPA's methodology and encourage EPA to incorporate the SC-HFC into the IWG process going forward. 

The Department of Energy's preliminary technical support document  indicates that DOE will use the domestic-only, interim social cost of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide values developed under the now-repealed Executive Order 13,783. We submitted comments explaining that DOE should follow the reconvened Interagency Working Group’s February 2021 recommendations.

In his Presidential Memorandum titled Modernizing Regulatory Review, President Biden called on OMB to identify measures to promote racial justice in the regulatory review process. We submitted comments outlining procedures and methodologies that OMB could apply to account for equity in the regulatory review process, with a focus on environmental injustice.

The Department of Energy (DOE) asked for input on conducting its national impact analysis, including on market failures, its emissions analysis, and monetization of benefits of emissions reductions. We submitted comments suggesting that DOE continue to monetize the full climate benefits of emissions reductions using the best available estimates of the social cost of greenhouse gases. 

As part of its process for revising the social cost of greenhouse gas values, the Interagency Working Group requested public input. We published and submitted five original reports on key issues, as well as a comment letter that summarizes the reports and offers several additional points for the Working Group’s consideration.

Climate change presents grave risk across the U.S. economy, including to corporations, their investors, the markets in which they operate, and the American public at large. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently requested public input on climate change disclosures, posing several questions related to the development of new disclosure regulations and the enforcement of existing regulations. We worked with several partners to submit comments to the SEC, providing 15 major recommendations.

The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU) released a straw proposal for its Solar Successor Program. We submitted comments addressing a question about solar projects' potential benefits to environmental justice (EJ) communities. Our comments encourage BPU to consider the inclusion of an environmental justice adder and reommend that BPU explore an adder that would deliver material benefits to EJ communities. 

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued a notice of inquiry on how to revise its policy on certifying the construction and operation of interstate natural gas transportation facilities. We submitted comments providing numerous recommendations for how FERC can improve its evaluation of environmental impacts and methodology for determining whether there is need for a proposed project.