Recent Projects

We recently submitted comments to Office of Surfacing Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSM) on its environmental assessment (EA) on modifying the federal mining plan for Bull Mountains Mine No. 1 in Montana. The EA evaluates a proposal to extend operations at an existing mine by nine years, which would produce an extra 86.7 million tons of coal. While the EA quantifies the tons of greenhouse gas emissions related to the project, OSM refused to use the social cost of greenhouse gases metric to monetize the climate effects of these emissions. Our comments explain why the agency’s refusal is arbitrary and unlawful in light of a growing body of case law, which holds that failure to monetize a project’s costs is impermissible if an agency justifies an action based on the project’s monetized benefits. Our comments also explain why the social cost of greenhouse gases metric is appropriate for projects of this scale, why the metric’s use is not limited to rulemakings, and how failing to adequately account for the project’s climate effects is a violation of NEPA.

We recently submitted comments to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on its environmental assessment (EA) for the Rivervale South to Market pipeline project in New Jersey. Once again, FERC quantified the tons of downstream greenhouse gas emissions that the project would generate, but the Commission did not use the social cost of greenhouse gases to monetize the climate effects of those emissions. In the EA, FERC incorrectly claims that it is impossible to determine the significance of a discrete amount of additional greenhouse gas emissions. Our comments dispel FERC’s arbitrary and misleading rationale and explain why failing to meaningfully analyze a project’s climate effects violates NEPA. Our comments also offer guidance for how the Commission should use the social cost of greenhouse gases metric based on the best available science and economics going forward.

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) is developing a comprehensive policy for integrating Distributed Energy Resource (DERs), like rooftop solar, into its energy system. A March 2018 administrative law judge ruling heavily cited our earlier comments in laying out a revised plan to require the state’s utilities to conduct a societal cost test to help compare the net benefits of different DER technologies. We submitted comments to the CPUC commending the agency for its revisions to the proposed analysis and recommending additional improvements.

The State of Virginia is proposing to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a carbon trading program currently including states across the Northeastern U.S. Including Virginia energy producers in RGGI will greatly expand the scope of the carbon market, thereby improving market efficiency, competitiveness, and lowering carbon abatement costs. Our comments to Virginia on its proposal offer two suggestions to ensure that Virginia’s addition to RGGI creates a competitive permit trading market.

We recently submitted joint comments with EDF and Sierra Club to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on the draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) for the Midcontinent Supply Header Interstate Pipeline. The analysis covers a proposal to construct over 200 miles of pipeline, as well as compressor stations, a booster station, and accompanying facilities, to transport natural gas. The DEIS quantifies the tons of downstream greenhouse gas emissions related to this project—over 28 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year—but FERC fails to use the social cost of greenhouse gases metric to fully account for the climate effects of these emissions. FERC’s failure to adequately consider climate damages from the pipelines it approves is under increasing scrutiny. Our comments offer a detailed rejection of FERC’s rationale for excluding the social cost of greenhouse gases from this analysis, and give FERC additional guidance on how to monetize climate effects consistent with the currently best available science and economics.

The Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB’s) annual reports to Congress not only compile all the significant benefits and costs of federal regulations, but they also offer federal agencies and academics an up-to-date summary of the literature on key practices in regulatory impact analysis. As such, OMB’s annual reports should reflect the most comprehensive syntheses of the legal and economic literature on these analytical practices. Our comments on OMB’s draft report for 2017 propose two additions to its summaries of the literature on job impact analysis and on co-benefits analysis

In 2016, the New York Public Service Commission adopted the Clean Energy Standard, an ambitious plan to increase renewable generation to 50% of the market by 2030. While working toward that goal, the State found it was necessary to pay nuclear generators through a zero-emissions credits (ZECs) system, as compensation for the value they provide in avoiding emissions. The State found that this would help guard against an increase in pollution if the nuclear generators were to close. Our amicus brief to the Supreme Court of New York in Albany County argues that the Commission’s decision to base ZEC prices on the Social Cost of Carbon (SCC) was reasonable.

The U.S. Forest Service continues to ignore climate damages in its final approval of a coal mine expansion in Colorado, despite a court ruling that asked the Forest Service to disclose the effects of greenhouse gas emissions from the expansion. In its final environmental impact statement (EIS) on the project, Forest Service quantifies how much the expansion will increase greenhouse gases emissions but only gives a generic description of climate change and its effects. By not quantifying and monetizing the effects of this increase in emissions, the EIS obscures information necessary for the public to appreciate how the expansion will result in hundreds of millions of dollars in climate damages. Our brief to the District Court of Colorado argues that Forest Service’s failure to monetize climate impacts was arbitrary and is still in violation of the National Environmental Policy Act.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently proposed a rule purporting to clarify the scope of statutory protections for medical providers who decline to participate in certain procedures, such as abortion or euthanasia, due to religious or moral objections. HHS issued a similar rule in 2008 but rescinded it in 2011 due to concern that the 2008 rule’s expansive definitions of statutory terms would lead providers to believe, incorrectly, that statutory protections extended not just to refusals to perform particular procedures, but also to refusals to care for particular types of patients, such as LGBTQ individuals. Our comments criticize HHS for reviving the 2008 rule’s expansive definitions without acknowledging its 2011 findings that such definitions would foster confusion and discrimination.