Recent Projects

Federal agencies continue to request the public’s suggestions for rules to repeal or reform, tacitly implying that most regulations stifle economic growth. In comments to several agencies, we argue that regulatory review should consider the public benefits of regulation, not just the costs to regulated industries, and should prioritize review of rules for which actual costs and benefits diverge significantly from predicted costs and benefits. We also recommend that agencies develop prospective plans for regulatory review going forward. The agencies for which we recently filed comments include Small Business Administration, Department of Transportation, National Credit Union Administration, Food and Drug Administration, and Customs and Border Control Bureau.

The Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corp of Engineers’ newest attempt to delay implementation of the Clean Water Rule adds an “applicability date” to the original rule. Our comments to EPA argue that this “applicability date” is effectively an administrative stay of the Rule, which the Agency has no authority to issue. Moreover, delaying implementation of the Clean Water Rule will have substantial negative economic consequences, as detailed in our report on the rule. And the agencies have not provided an adequate justification for imposing these costs on society.

New York State is carefully considering rate design reforms that could be adopted by utilities to provide efficient incentives for adoption of distributed energy resources. Studies on customer bill impacts of such rate design changes are necessarily going to be an important factor in moving forward. Our comments on the scope of bill impact studies emphasize that the effect on consumer bills is just one of the aspects to be considered when looking at rate design changes. In addition, we suggest that DPS give more guidance on the types of rate designs it’s considering, parameters used to model consumer behavior, and the time horizon that the studies cover.

Under the Affordable Care Act, federal guidance requires most health insurance plans to cover contraceptive services. Previously only houses of worship and their “integrated auxiliaries” were exempt from this requirement, but a group of agencies recently issued a joint rule expanding this exemption to nonprofits, higher education institutions, closely held for-profit corporations, and publicly traded for-profit corporations with religious objections to providing contraceptive coverage. Our comments argue that the agencies’ cost-benefit analysis for expanding the exemption is unreasonable.

Nevada recently passed SB 65, a bill updating the state’s electricity planning process and boosting resources that provide economic and environmental benefits to the state. The Public Utilities Commission of Nevada subsequently held a series of formal and informal workshops and calls to shape the new regulation required under SB 65. We submitted joint comments with other stakeholders that included consensus language for several sections of the regulation. We also note in these comments that while stakeholders did come to an agreement on most issues, questions remain on how to define the social cost of carbon for the implementing regulation. Accordingly, we submitted supplemental comments to the PUC, discussing how the social cost of carbon is used by several other states, including in state electricity regulations and proceedings. We note that Colorado, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, and New York use SCC estimates from the federal Interagency Working Group, and recommend that the Nevada PUC follow a similar approach.

Our comments to New York State Department of Public Service and New York Independent System Operator encourage the state to pursue carbon pricing, as it is the most economically efficient and technology-neutral way to internalize climate damages from greenhouse gases. We argue that the price used for carbon damages, the mechanisms to prevent emission leakage, and the allocation of revenue collected from emitting sources will all affect the level of emissions reductions the state can achieve through policy. The design of the program will determine its success in reducing emissions, and we encourage New York to consider carefully the benefits of different implementation plans.

We submitted comments to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), along with partners, on the Commission’s failure to use the social cost of greenhouse gases in the Southeast Market Pipelines Project supplemental environmental impact statement. In addition to the joint comments, we also submitted a set of comments on FERC’s failure to conduct a full assessment of substitute energy sources.

We submitted comments to the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) on recent draft environmental impact statements (EISs), in which we stressed the importance of addressing climate impacts of proposed projects.

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has announced its intention to repeal the greenhouse gas (GHG) measure, which is part of a series of rulemakings intended to ensure the most efficient investment of federal transportation funds. We submitted comments to the FHWA on the proposed repeal, highlighting that the Administration had failed to consider foregone benefits in its decision to finalize the repeal and failed to explain why the benefits of the measure no longer justify the costs.

The New York Independent Systems Operator (NYISO) and the New York Department of Public Service (DPS) recently began a joint effort to harmonize the state’s energy policies with the operation of wholesale markets, including by establishing a task force to discuss how to incorporate carbon pricing into the wholesale market. We recently submitted comments with a number of recommendations on how to ensure the task force’s work plan shapes the program in the most economically efficient and legally sound way. We suggested that price, revenue allocation, leakage, and harmonization with other state policies be included as topics in the work plan, among several others. We plan to continue to engage with this process over the next several months.