Recent Projects

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.

The Department of Energy (DOE) requested information on adding market-based compliance flexibilities to its Appliance and Equipment Energy Conservation Standards (ECS) Program. In many cases, market-based flexibilities lowered compliance costs, incentivized innovation, and decreased administrative burdens without sacrificing policy objectives. But in other cases, these policy tools may not improve economic efficiency and may actually undermine policy objectives. Comments from our Legal Director, Jason Schwartz, recommend that DOE should only proceed with market-based flexibilities after balancing gains to efficiency against unintended negative consequences to policy goals, and that better energy labels on appliances may be necessary to help prevent consumer confusion caused by the market system.

In September 2017, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a memorandum rescinding the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA), which had protected certain young people who were brought to the U.S. as children from deportation. A variety of plaintiffs—including the Regents of the University of California; several states, counties, and municipalities; and individual program participants—promptly challenged DHS’s decision in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California and secured a preliminary injunction blocking DHS from carrying out the rescission. DHS has now appealed that injunction to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Our brief, which urges the court to affirm the district court’s injunction, addresses only one issue in the case: DHS’s contention that it had a reasonable basis for rescinding DACA based on the “evident risk” that the program “would at a minimum be the subject of protracted litigation, and very likely be enjoined nationwide.”