Recent Projects

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently finalized a rule that expands protections for healthcare workers who deny care based on moral or religious beliefs. We submitted amicus briefs in support of challenges to the rule filed by states, municipalities, medical organizations, and civil-rights advocates. Our argument details how HHS’s analysis of the rule’s economic impacts ignores significant costs while touting entirely speculative benefits. We submitted briefs to the Southern District of New York, Northern District of California, and the District of Maryland.

New Jersey’s 2019 Energy Master Plan (EMP) outlines how the state can achieve its emissions reduction target of 80% below 2006 levels, as well as 100% clean energy, by 2050. We submitted comments applauding improvements to the draft EMP and making further suggestions. Our comments encourage the state to establish a technology-neutral policy framework to achieve its emissions reduction goal, compensate distributed energy resources in a way that reflects their full social value, and implement reforms to advance related technological and regulatory frameworks. We also submitted comments last October, during the EMP scoping phase, that made suggestions on grid resilience, rate design, and energy storage incentives.

We filed a petition requesting that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reconsider and rescind a new rule reducing penalties for automobile manufacturers that fail to meet corporate fuel economy standards. Our petition explains how NHTSA’s analysis ignores financial and environmental benefits forgone by the rule and relies on flawed, even contradictory evidence. NHTSA’s weakened fuel economy penalties deprive the public of substantial benefits and should be rescinded.

The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency and Minnesota Department of Commerce requested comments on their proposal to consider resource planning scenarios using a range of both environmental and regulatory costs. Minnesota has been a leader among states on incorporating environmental externalities into electricity policy, and our comments encourage the agencies to continue requiring the use of the social cost of carbon.

The Council on Environmental Quality is proposing to revise its National Environmental Policy Act guidance on the consideration of greenhouse gas emissions. We submitted comments explaining how the draft guidance makes vague and misleading statements with respect to when and how agencies must analyze the greenhouse gas emissions associated with their project approvals. We encourage CEQ to correct errors and align the guidance with federal caselaw and existing regulations.

The Department of Energy requested input on how it can enhance the resilience of electric infrastructure systems against severe weather events. We submitted comments, attaching our report on grid resilience and highlighting key takeways that may support DOE efforts to improve the power system.

A federal appeals court recently rejected industry and state challenges to a set of Obama-era air quality standards, which the Institute for Policy Integrity had filed an amicus brief defending. In 2015, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) strengthened National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for ground-level ozone, the primary ingredient in urban smog and the source of a variety of respiratory ills. The coal mining company Murray Energy Corporation, along with trade associations and several state attorneys general, brought suit in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, arguing that the new standards were unnecessarily stringent and impossible to achieve. We filed an amicus brief in support of the standards.

The Department of Energy requested input on impact and emissions analysis for upcoming energy conservation standards. We submitted comments encouraging DOE to continue to monetize the full climate benefits of greenhouse gas emissions reductions. 

The Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) and Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA) have proposed several quantitative and qualitative value categories it intends to examine in its study of the value of DERs. We submitted comments supporting their inclusion of avoided emissions costs, which covers both greenhouse gas emissions and ambient air pollutants, as a value category. We also encourage DEEP and PURA to include electricity system resilience among the quantifiable benefits of DER deployment.