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Policy Integrity Supports Upholding of EPA Mercury and Toxic Standards
Policy Integrity welcomes the decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to uphold the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) rule limiting mercury and other toxic air pollutants emitted by fossil-fuel burning power plants, which are the largest source of mercury emissions. The decision supports EPA efforts to improve our air quality and safeguard public health.
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Rethinking Health-Based Environmental Standards
In Whitman v. American Trucking, the Supreme Court interpreted the Clean Air Act to require the EPA to set the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS), without considering costs. Instead, the agency must rely exclusively on health-related criteria. The authors argue that such health-based standards are problematic because there is no coherent way to set the permissible level of pollution based on health considerations alone and, ironically, the NAAQS have generally been set at levels that are inefficiently lax from an economic perspective. The authors urge a reinterpretation of the American Trucking case that would allow the EPA to consider costs-benefit analysis when it would lead to more stringent standards, as it currently does for most regulated pollutants.
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Shifting Gears
A New Approach to Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions from the Transportation Sector
To overcome a stall out of “command-and-control” regulations for biofuels, EPA should move towards a flexible, market-based emissions trading system for the transportation sector.
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Global Warming: Improve Economic Models of Climate Change
Costs of carbon emissions are being underestimated, but current estimates are still valuable for setting mitigation policy, say Richard L. Revesz, Peter H. Howard, Kenneth Arrow, Lawrence H. Goulder, Robert E. Kopp, Michael A. Livermore, Michael Oppenheimer, and Thomas Sterner in Nature.
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Omitted Damages: What’s Missing from the Social Cost of Carbon
The social cost of carbon is an estimate of the economic damage done by each ton of carbon dioxide spewed into the air. Howard examines the Integrated Assessment Models used to produce the social cost of carbon estimate and gives a comprehensive review of what each model accounts for and what each model misses.
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Comments Submitted to OMB in Support of the Social Cost of Carbon
Policy Integrity submitted comments to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) voicing our support for the Administration’s continued use of the social cost of carbon (SCC) as it provides an important, if conservative, estimate of the costs of climate change and the benefits of reducing carbon pollution.
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Policy Integrity Staff Attend Supreme Court Oral Arguments on EPA PSD Permitting Case
Policy Integrity director, Richard Revesz, legal director, Jason Schwartz, and legal fellow Denise Grab were at the Supreme Court today to hear oral arguments in the case challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from stationary sources under the prevention of significant deterioration (PSD) program.
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Supreme Court Amicus Brief on EPA’s PSD Permitting Case
Policy Integrity filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court supporting the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from stationary sources under the prevention of significant deterioration (PSD) program.
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Comments on EPA Proposed 2014 Standards for the Renewable Fuel Standard Program
Policy Integrity submitted comments to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on the agency’s proposed 2014 standards for the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) program. EPA proposes to reduce renewable fuel targets from 2013 levels, due to concerns regarding industry’s ability to produce sufficient quantities of qualifying fuel and consumers’ ability to use the fuel. This backsliding highlights the RFS program’s inability to guarantee steady reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.
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Comments on Con Edison Storm Hardening and Resilience Collaborative Report
On January 10, Policy Integrity, along with New York University’s Guarini Center, submitted comments on Con Edison’s Storm Hardening and Resilience Collaborative Report. The comments urge New York’s Public Service Commission (PSC) to extend the charter of the cost-benefit analysis working group convened as part of the collaborative process surrounding Con Edison’s latest ratemaking proceeding.