Recent Projects

After the Department of Energy published a supplemental environmental impact statement claiming that exporting liquefied natural gas from a proposed Alaska terminal would decrease greenhouse gas emissions, we submitted comments challenging the Department’s methodology and assumptions. In particular, our comment letter explains that the Department’s analysis unreasonably assumes that the Project would merely displace existing exports from Gulf Coast facilities, and thus overlooks the inevitable economic reality that the Project will increase total natural gas supply and consumption. As our comment letter explains, courts have rejected this “perfect substitution” assumption in related contexts. Moreover, our letter explains that the Department’s lifecycle analysis insufficiently considers the choice of destination countries and is inconsistent with the agency’s analysis of economic impacts.

Together with partner groups, we submitted joint comments to the Department of Energy (DOE) on its proposed rule to strengthen energy conservation standards for commercial water heating equipment. Our comments applaud the agency for appropriately applying the social cost of greenhouse gases to estimate the climate benefits of the proposed standards, even though the standards would be cost-benefit justified without considering any climate benefits. We also encourage DOE to expand upon its rationale for adopting a global damages valuation and for the range of discount rates it applies to climate effects.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed a ban on multiple conditions of use of chrysotile asbestos. The Institute for Policy Integrity and Professor Rachel Rothschild at the University of Michigan Law School submitted comments on the agency’s economic analysis of the proposed rule, identifying numerous ways EPA underestimated the health benefits from reduced cancer cases and lung illnesses and could strengthen the robust scientific, economic and legal basis for EPA’s proposed rule.

The Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA or the Act) committed New York to an ambitious set of changes across all sectors of the economy. The development of a Scoping Plan, as called for by the Act, will help steer New York's agencies--and legislature--as they initiate those changes. Policy Integrity's comments focus on the Electricity and Gas System Transition chapters of the Draft Scoping Plan. In addition to voicing support for several of the measures listed in that plan, those comments encourage adoption of further measures in a final version of the plan. Those additional measures would support greater coordination of electricity sector stakeholders' decisions and would create a greater degree of certainty about the nature and pace of gas system transition.

In April 2022, EPA proposed a Federal Implementation Plan (FIP) to reduce interstate transport of ozone pollution using the Clean Air Act's Good Neighbor Provision. We submitted comments supporting the Proposed FIP and recomming that EPA select the regulatory alternative that maximizes net benefits and revise and expand its distributional analysis to better reflect the impacts of the Proposed FIP on vulnerable groups. We also submitted joint comments with a coalition of environmental groups supporting EPA's use of the social cost of greenhouse gases in the Proposed FIP.

Together with the Environmental Defense Fund and Professor Madison Condon of Boston University School of Law, we submitted three sets of comments to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in support of its Proposed Rule on the Enhancement and Standardization of Climate-Related Disclosures for Investors (Proposed Rule). The Proposed Rule would require publicly traded companies to disclose important information about the extent to which climate change is already affecting their financial performance, their approach to climate-related risk management, their climate-relevant governance structures, and their greenhouse gas emissions, which serve as a proxy for exposure to risk from policy- and market-driven shifts to a clean-energy economy.

Together with partner groups, we submitted joint comments to the Department of Energy (DOE) on its proposed rule to strengthen energy conservation standards for room air conditioners and pool heaters. Our comments applaud the agency for appropriately applying the social cost of greenhouse gases to estimate the climate benefits of the proposed standards, even though the standards would be cost-benefit justified without considering any climate benefits. We also encourage DOE to expand upon its rationale for adopting a global damages valuation and for the range of discount rates it applies to climate effects.

In March 2022, EPA proposed standards to regulate emissions of nitrogen oxides and particulate matter from heavy-duty vehicles beginning with Model Year 2027. Policy Integrity submitted comments recommending that EPA strengthen these crucial standards in order to fulfill EPA's statutory duty to set standards "reflecting the greatest degree of emission reduction achievable." We also made a number of recommendations designed to ensure that EPA is properly comparing regulatory alternatives and accounting for the benefits of strong regulation.

In February, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission released two policy statements that acknowledged the Commission’s role in shaping the nation’s transition to a low-carbon future and called for the consideration of climate impacts in pipeline certificate proceedings. Today, the Institute for Policy Integrity filed two comment letters to these proposed policy statements.

In one of our comment letters—filed jointly with over two dozen legal scholars from institutes across the country—we rebut arguments from opponents of the policies that the Commission lacks authority to consider climate effects in its oversight of natural gas infrastructure under the Natural Gas Act.

In our other comment letter, we explain that the policy statements serve as an important step toward ensuring that upstream and downstream emissions are properly considered in line with the Commission’s statutory obligations, but provide several suggestions for improvements.

Today we submitted comments to FERC on the draft environmental impact statement for Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Co.'s Regional Energy Access Expansion Project. These comments offer recommendations for improving the Commission's assessment of climate and environmental justice impacts of the project, and its consideration of alternatives.