Recent Projects

For the last year, New York City has been working to develop potential regulation of the dirtiest heating oils used in residential and commercial boilers. Policy Integrity has been in close contact with city officials and interested advocacy groups as the rule is being developed to help quantify the potential health benefits and shape a rational regulatory response.

Policy Integrity submitted comments to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in support of a proposed rule that would prevent Internet-service providers from price discrimination. The comments argue that the presence of positive externalities, including the public good nature of information and network externalities, justify the regulation.

New York State released its final Energy Plan today. Few changes were made from the revised draft version from the draft version. Policy Integrity had proposed distributing tradable energy vouchers to businesses instead of pure electricity subsidies in order to incentivize them to reduce their electricity usage—at no extra cost to taxpayers.

Policy Integrity submitted two sets of comments regarding the federal government’s proposed regulations to control the emissions and fuel economy standards of America’s fleet of light-duty vehicles (cars, SUV’s and pick-ups but not larger trucks).

A cap-and-refund approach to climate change will require that all households be transferred their portion of the proceeds from the auction of carbon allowances in a timely and cost effective manner. Policy Integrity conducted analysis of the refund can be administered and released a fact sheet finding that the cost of getting the refund to American individuals and families will be relatively modest.

In response to widespread concern about the economic effects of climate change legislation, Policy Integrity conducted a survey to determine the views of top economists about the wisdom of pursuing greenhouse gas limits. Questionnaires were circulated to every economist who had published a climate change related article in a top-20 economics journal over the past 10 years.

Policy Integrity expanded on our initial comments on the New York State Energy Plan. In this version, more detail is offered on how the state could build efficiency incentives into its economic development programs.

Changes to the Renewable Fuel Standard program were proposed by EPA in response to directives from Congress—if adopted, the rules will require that a higher percentage of transportation fuel sold in the United States be derived from renewable sources, such as corn‐based ethanol or biomass‐based diesel.