Recent Projects

The East Lateral XPress Project could result in the emission of over 3.6 million tons of downstream emissions in carbon-dioxide equivalence per year from the combustion of natural gas. We submitted comments (April 2021) and a follow-up letter (August 2021) encouraging the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to provide a more complete analysis of project emissions, weigh its climate impacts using the social cost of carbon, and consider mitigation measures.

In June 2021, the Department of the Interior’s Office of Natural Resource Revenue's (ONRR) proposed a rule rescinding a Trump-era repeal of the Valuation Rule. This rule sought to ensure that states and the federal government receive the full value of royalties due under the law for oil, gas, and coal extracted from public land. We submitted comments supporting ONRR’s proposal to fully rescind the 2020 Rule and encourage ONRR to further elaborate upon its reasons for fully withdrawing the 2020 Rule, in contrast to other alternatives. We lay out several key provisions in the 2020 Rule where ONRR can expand upon its justification for rescinding.

This comment letter follows a long line of advocacy that we've made opposing the Trump-era rule and supporting the valuation processes that it rescinded.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has granted the Marcus Hook Compression Project Limited Notice to Proceed with the first phase of construction activities, which is currently underway. Our recent comments on FERC's draft environmental impact statement for the project recommend that the agency improve its consideration of climate impacts. It can do so by quantifying upstream emissions, assessing the project’s incremental climate harms, and considering avenues to mitigate its greenhouse gas contributions.

Iroquois Gas Transmission System’s Enhancement by Compression Project would provide a significant increase in natural gas compression and transportation, potentially resulting in over 2.4 million metric tons in downstream greenhouse gas emissions. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, however, failed to estimate the project’s total emissions and climate damages. We submitted comments recommending that FERC consider the full range of upstream and downstream emissions and contextualize their impacts using the social cost of carbon.

The Department of Energy (DOE) has issued a notice of intent to prepare an environmental impact statement for energy conservation standards for manufactured housing. We submitted comments urging DOE to use the social cost of greenhouse gas metric whenever it analyzes the effects of greenhouse gas emissions, whether in a regulatory impact analysis, environmental impact statement, or other decisionmaking process.

Thte Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) published a Notice of Intent regarding the Kingston Fossil Plant, discussing different alternatives for retiring and replacing fossil fuel-powered energy generation facilities. We submitted comments encouraging TVA to better contextualize the climate impacts of each alternative using the social cost of greenhouse gases.

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.