Policy Integrity in the News

Institute for Policy Integrity Attacks EPA’s Economic Review, Social Cost of Carbon Omission in Methane Rule Delay

2026-06-15T15:48:00+00:00

“EPA’s limited analysis of the final rule’s climate and health effects violates the Administrative Procedure Act’s [APA] standards of reasonable decisionmaking,” says a June 10 proposed amicus brief from New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity (IPI).

Source: Inside EPA

EPA Science Office Head Defends the Agency’s Research Overhaul

2026-06-09T14:19:00+00:00

The agency’s moves risk undermining its science, says Al McGartland, economic policy director at New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity and the lead economist at the EPA from 2005 to 2025.

“It’s one thing to make sure the research community is addressing the needs of the agency, but it’s quite another then to eliminate wholesale the activities that are clearly critical to the science-based decision-making process,” McGartland told Chemical & Engineering News.

Source: Chemical & Engineering News

Richard L. Revesz Receives Burton Award for Academic Excellence

2026-06-04T14:18:00+00:00

The award recognizes a law school dean or legal thought leader whose career reflects exceptional scholarship, leadership, public service, and contributions to legal education and the profession. Named in honor of the late Chief Judge Robert A. Katzmann of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, the award celebrates individuals whose work has strengthened both legal institutions and public life.

Source: American Law Institute

New York Backtracked on Its Climate Goals. Here’s Why.

2026-06-03T13:39:00+00:00

Some experts who study decarbonization in New York said that the state’s legally binding emissions target had become virtually impossible to hit given broader headwinds against a national or global transition away from fossil fuels.

“It was going to be really difficult to meet, because the economy wasn’t cooperating,” said Al McGartland, who served as the chief economist at the Environmental Protection Agency from 2005 to 2025.

Source: Grist

Department of Energy ‘Sunsets’ Nuclear, Greenhouse Gas Reporting Rules, Spurring Fears of ‘Chaos’

2026-05-29T15:28:00+00:00

DOE’s sunset rule prompted immediate outcry from analysts at New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity ... [Regulatory policy director Jason Schwartz in a May 28 statement said that] the DOE sunset rule “is both dangerous and unlawful. It provides for the repeal of national security regulations and does not even follow the proper process for doing so.”

Source: Inside EPA

Department of Energy Moves To Sunset ‘Outdated’ Regulations

2026-05-29T15:24:00+00:00

In a statement, the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University's School of Law said the move violates the Administrative Procedure Act, and sets up a “legal nightmare.”

“You can't just wave a magic wand and sunset dozens of regulations without following the law. Each sunset requires individual justification under specific statutory authorities, detailed consideration of costs and benefits, and meaningful public input,” said Jason Schwartz, regulatory policy director at the institute.

The group released a report last year on Trump's order released in April 2025, which is expected to affect 11 agencies.

Source: E&E News

Donald Trump Is Going Nuclear

2026-05-26T15:18:00+00:00

A report from New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity also points out the risk of a “fifty-state patchwork of separate licensing regimes” if [nuclear] regulatory authority were taken from the federal government.

Source: New Republic

How the Biden EPA Beat the Clock on Regs

2026-05-22T15:44:00+00:00

“Probably my key priority was making sure that all administration regulatory priorities, environmental and otherwise, across the whole executive branch would be final rules completed by April 30 of 2024,” Revesz said. “That was my best prediction, which turned out to be correct, of what it took to protect them from disapproval under the CRA.”

Source: E&E News

NAACP Lawyer Links Data Center Fight to Civil Rights Legacy

2026-05-21T13:45:00+00:00

The Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality, for example, agreed with xAI’s argument that the turbines for Colossus II were exempt from certain regulations because they were mobile and temporary sources, according to the lawsuit. The agency eventually issued a permit, which the NAACP and environmental groups opposed. “There’s no question in my mind that it’s a bad faith effort, because [the data center company xAI] did this once, and eventually had to go get permits, and now they did it again,” said Jennifer Danis, federal energy policy director of the Institute for Policy Integrity at the New York University School of Law.

Source: Bloomberg Law

Trump’s EPA Vows To Fight ‘Forever Chemicals’ by Loosening Regulations

2026-05-20T14:06:00+00:00

“There are going to be legal challenges,” said Richard L. Revesz, dean emeritus at the New York University School of Law and former administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs under Biden. “They’ll have to give reasons and those reasons are very likely to be inadequate.”

Source: Grist

Less Noted, Just as Radical: The High Court’s Rightward Economic Shift

2026-05-08T13:57:00+00:00

NYU’s Institute for Policy Integrity tracked over 2,300 major federal rules issued since 1996. They found that courts struck down major rules only about one-tenth of the time in the 1990s but now invalidate over half.

Source: New Republic

Greenhouse Gas Rule Backers Renew Claim That EPA Repeal Fails ‘Major Questions’

2026-05-06T15:03:00+00:00

Even though the Trump EPA relied in part on the doctrine to justify its Feb. 13 rule repealing the GHG finding, Institute for Policy Integrity (IPI) legal fellow Kate Welty argued during a May 4 webinar that the Supreme Court “has effectively already run the MQD test on the endangerment finding” when it ruled in Massachusetts v. EPA, the landmark 2007 case, “and the EPA lost.”

Source: Inside EPA

The Week Ahead: D.C. Circuit Weighs Trump New Source Review Rule; American Bar Association Talks Administrative Law

2026-05-04T14:58:00+00:00

New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity will host a May 4 webinar about the major questions doctrine’s development in the Supreme Court, especially after the high court cited the doctrine in Learning Resources v. Trump, which struck down the president’s emergency tariffs, in February. The event will address how the doctrine might affect litigation over EPA’s Greenhouse Gas risk repeal, given that the agency relied in part on the doctrine.

Source: Inside EPA

Bad Faith Disregard of Benefits and Science in Federal Environmental Deregulation

2026-04-24T14:07:00+00:00

The disregard of benefits in cost-benefit analysis, and the excuse that scientific uncertainty is a major reason, have been analyzed in an article to appear in the Harvard Environmental Law Review by NYU Law School Dean Emeritus Richard L. Revesz, who was administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs during the Biden administration.

Source: New York Law Journal

How California’s Kids Are Taking on Big Oil

2026-04-23T18:58:00+00:00

Economists in a 2022 NYU’s Institute for Policy Integrity study found that, contrary to what industry voices have argued, the climate superfund bill in New York likely wouldn’t drive up costs at the pump, since oil companies would still have incentives to keep their prices at competitive market levels.

Source: The Nation

EPA’s Repeal of the Endangerment Finding Will Cost Society

2026-04-21T15:51:00+00:00

EPA’s lopsided focus on regulatory costs ignores the much larger forgone benefits and the law.

Source: The Regulatory Review

University of Maryland Revives Greenhouse Gas Inventory Dropped by Trump Officials

2026-04-16T14:35:00+00:00

The University of Maryland effort is another instance of efforts to fill data and analysis gaps being left by environmental rollbacks under both the first and second Trump administrations. Other examples include a ramp up of research into the social cost of carbon (SCC) metric during the first Trump administration by Resources for the Future, and a newly announced three-year project on cost-benefit analysis procedures by the Institute for Policy Integrity. The latter effort is aimed in part countering the Trump EPA’s recent claim that it is unable to monetize the health benefits of cutting air pollution.

Source: Inside EPA

New York Climate Law Delay Draws Environmentalist Rebuke

2026-04-15T15:37:00+00:00

On Monday, a new report from the Institute for Policy Integrity at the New York University School of Law warned that the rollbacks would derail the state’s clean energy transition. "The Unfinished Roadmap," available to read at the bottom of this story, showcases how inflation, data centers, and the Trump administration have prevented the state from achieving its CLCPA goals.

Source: ABC News NY

Institute for Policy Integrity Launches Multi-Phase Project to Bolster Benefit-Cost Analysis

2026-04-15T15:31:00+00:00

The Institute for Policy Integrity (IPI) at New York University, a think tank that seeks to improve federal decisionmaking, is launching a three-year project to bolster benefit-cost analysis (BCA), an effort aimed in part at responding to the Trump EPA’s recent claim that it is unable to quantify the health benefits of cutting air pollution.

Source: Inside EPA

Madeline Turk, ’25, Receives Institute for Policy Integrity Fellowship to Work on Environmental and Energy Policy

2026-04-09T17:11:00+00:00

In Fall 2026, Madeline Turk, ’25, will join the Institute for Policy Integrity, at New York University School of Law, for a two-year fellowship.

Source: University of Michigan Law School