Recent Projects

Policy Integrity submitted comments on draft recommendations by the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS) Committee on Judicial Review for remand without vacatur in which a court returns a regulation to an agency for revision. This is an improvement to the traditional approach of annulling an agency action outright, which can result in creating an antiregulatory bias. But the draft recommendations could be strengthened in three ways:

Policy Integrity, along with Environmental Defense Fund, Natural Resources Defense Council, and Union of Concerned Scientists, submitted comments on the social cost of carbon (SCC) within a rule proposed by the Department of Energy regarding energy conservation for commercial refrigeration equipment. The SCC calculation is an estimate of the damage caused by each ton of carbon emissions and used in the cost-benefit analyses of regulations with greenhouse gas emissions reductions.

Policy Integrity, along with the Environmental Defense Fund, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Union of Concerned Scientists, submitted comments on the social cost of carbon. The calculation—an estimate of the damage caused by each ton of carbon emissions—was used in a rule proposed by the Department of Energy regarding energy conservation from metal halide lamp fixtures. The joint comments show that according to cutting-edge economic research, the estimate used by the government may be too low.

HUD has implemented several recommendations outlined in a regulatory report published by the Institute for Policy Integrity in the proposed Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule. By incorporating our recommendations, HUD has more clearly defined its goals in “affirmatively furthering fair housing,” and has provided metrics and data that municipalities can use to measure their compliance.

The Obama Administration is poised to improve worker safety by establishing a nationwide Injury and Illness Prevention Program. But unless it is well designed, the program will leave too many vulnerable to unsafe work conditions.

The Institute for Policy Integrity submitted comments in response to OIRA’s 2013 draft report to Congress. We suggest that OIRA can make further improvements to its final report by adding the following: recommend the balanced, transparent integration of employment impacts into cost-benefit analysis; recommend using retrospective review to pursue balanced, evidence-based, data-driven decisionmaking—not just cost-cutting; and recommend agencies coordinate by standardizing methodological practices, and should address claims of regulatory conflict or incoherence.

Policy Integrity submitted comments to the Chugach National Forest advocating for the use of cost-benefit analysis in the revision of the forest’s Resource Management Plan. The US Forest Service updated its rule last year on how individual forests should develop their management plans, eliminating an explicit requirement to study the net present value of management alternatives. The forests, though, were left with some discretion, which we think forests like Chugach should use to incorporate cost-benefit analysis into their planning.

Policy Integrity submitted comments on draft recommendations proposed by the ACUS (Administrative Conference of the United States) Committee on Regulation on the use of cost-benefit analysis at independent regulatory agencies.

Sadly, the idea that market forces can drive down the cost of public health regulation has lost favor in the past few years. The EPA’s long-delayed, first-ever greenhouse gas standards for new power plants (New Source Performance Standards or NSPS) offers an opportunity to make market mechanisms cool again.

Policy Integrity submitted comments to the Department of Energy (DOE) on its plan for periodic retrospective review pursuant to Executive Order 13563, which asks agencies to consider how best to promote retrospective analyses of existing rules. We found that the DOE’s plan could do a better job of updating and expanding regulations to enhance net benefits rather than just minimization of compliance burdens and administrative cost cutting, which the plan largely focuses on.