The Institute for Policy Integrity produces a variety of publications. Our research reports develop in-depth research on our core issues, while our policy briefs and issue briefs provide focused analysis on more timely or particular topics. Our academic articles and working papers offer original scholarly research and analysis from established experts as well as fresh new voices.
Latest Publications
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The Social Cost of Carbon
Options for Applying a Metric in Flux
Many states and other jurisdictions are grappling with how to value greenhouse gas emission reductions and trying to understand the rapidly developing climate economics and science involved in this task. Frequently, state governments and other jurisdictions value greenhouse gas emissions in policymaking using a tool known as the social cost of carbon.
While applying the social cost of carbon is conceptually simple, the appropriate value to place on the metric is in flux. In late 2022, the federal government released new, updated values of the social cost of carbon in draft form which, for now, remain unfinalized. So what estimates of the social cost of carbon should states and other entities use during this transition period? This policy brief explores the available options.
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Administrative Severability
A Tool Federal Agencies Can Use to Address Legal Uncertainty
Several recent developments in administrative law—namely the Supreme Court’s embrace of the major questions doctrine and decision to hear a case asking it to overrule or clarify Chevron deference—have left federal agencies uncertain about how regulations will fare in litigation. Agencies adapting to this uncertainty may want to pay closer attention to recent case law on administrative severability, which allows a court to sever the invalid portion of a rule while leaving the rest intact.
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Wildfire, Power Shutoff, and Residential Energy Storage Adoption
Extreme weather poses a growing threat to electrical grid stability. On-site battery storage connected to solar power —known as a solar-plus-storage system—can buffer the impact. Despite its crucial benefits, the widespread adoption of this technology is hindered by its high costs. This study examines the impact of recent salient events—namely, preemptive power shutoffs to prevent wildfires, or Public Safety Power Shutoffs (PSPSs)—on residential solar-plus-storage adoption. I demonstrate that while communities at risk of wildfires lacked proactive investments before wildfire seasons, prolonged PSPSs increased solar-plus-storage adoption during the subsequent two months. This increased storage uptake can be attributed to heightened awareness of the need for backup power. Additionally, households’ choices between purchasing and leasing options were influenced by latent wildfire hazards and education levels. These findings highlight the role of risk awareness in promoting storage adoption and underscore the potential for using public information to enhance wildfire preparedness. -
Making Electricity Capacity Markets Resilient to Extreme Weather Events
The devastating 2021 blackout in Texas, among others, has highlighted the need to reform electricity markets to make them resilient to extreme weather events. In this paper, we review related efforts by system planners and operators within electricity market contexts, focusing on Europe and the United States, and we analyze possible reforms to electricity capacity markets. To account for extreme weather events, capacity requirements and markets, along with other regulatory measures throughout the electricity and fuel supply chains, should be modified. First, capacity requirements must be tailored to the specific severe weather failure modes applicable to a given power system to achieve policymakers' reliability and resiliency objectives: reducing the frequency, magnitude and duration of blackouts. Second, all capacity requirements should be cost-effective and integrated with other non-capacity resources and requirements, such as transmission, distribution and other infrastructure systems. Third, for a capacity market to produce the desired efficiency benefits, the product (capacity) must be well-defined and backed by sufficient credit and other policies to ensure providers have sufficient incentives to perform when called.
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Justifying Redistributive Regulations
Congress often relies on agencies to fill in the details of its transfer programs with regulations, such as those setting eligibility criteria for healthcare, housing, and nutritional assistance. This Article uses three recent rulemakings to illustrate how conventional cost-benefit analysis tends to obscure rather than illuminate agencies’ (often distributional) reasons for issuing such transfer regulations—generating unnecessary legal risk for the agencies and unnecessary confusion for the public. The Article then explains why recently proposed revisions to White House guidance on cost-benefit analysis—including the introduction of an analytic technique called income-based distributional weighting—will not fully resolve this problem. Finally, the Article recommends a new analytic framework for transfer regulations that recognizes the particular relevance of distributional concerns to their promulgation and the distinct challenges of assessing their net benefits.