Policy Integrity in the News

Trump Plows Ahead on Fuel Economy as Courts Stay Silent

2026-09-30T11:47:00+00:00

“I think there's a problem that courts are frequently quite slow to respond to agency rules, and as a result, particularly when you have these issues that keep ping-ponging back and forth, we just don't get a lot of clarity,” said Max Sarinsky, legal director at New York University's Institute for Policy Integrity.

Source: Politico

Trump’s Fuel Economy Rollback Stokes Worry About Long-Term Cost

2026-09-29T17:31:00+00:00

In addition to those expenses, the agency’s decision to ignore climate change related costs “massively distorts” its calculations, said Max Sarinsky, legal director at New York University Law School’s Institute for Policy Integrity. The 2024 standard that was unwound Monday projected $129 billion in climate benefits ...

At the same time, academic research consistently shows that consumers “do a pretty poor job of actually accounting for fuel savings” when shopping for a new car, said Peter Howard, economics director at the NYU Institute for Policy Integrity. “They’re not very good at doing these calculations in their head.”

Source: Bloomberg Law

Trump Slashes Fuel-Economy Standards in Blow to Climate, Health, Electric Vehicle Market

2026-09-28T17:30:00+00:00

Jason Schwartz, regulatory policy director at the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University’s School of Law, said the repeal will result in higher fuel costs for consumers and make them more vulnerable to “price shocks” in the cost of gasoline ...

The Institute for Policy Integrity says more than $17 billion in projected annual consumer savings are now at risk due to regulatory rollbacks by the Trump administration.

Source: Inside Climate News

U.S. Nuclear Regulator Turns To A.I. To Speed Policy Change

2026-09-25T18:10:00+00:00

Legal and policy experts say they’re cautious about the potential for hidden prompts to bias an AI analysis.

“Hidden prompts are a real risk, but it's the kind of risk that's well understood,” said Burçin Ünel, research and policy director at the Institute for Policy Integrity. “The bigger question isn't whether this kind of manipulation can happen, it's whether agencies are building AI-assisted processes carefully enough to catch it before it matters.”

Source: Politico

First, Do No Harm: Four Questions Government Reformers Must Ask To Avoid Counterproductive Changes

2026-09-24T14:38:00+00:00

Federal decisionmaking under the Trump administration has raised a host of procedural, scientific, and ethical concerns. Agencies have bypassed processes for public input, interfered with grant management, shuttered long-standing public data resources, and ignored well-established scientific findings when they contradicted policy aims, among other troubling occurrences.

Source: Just Security

Volts Community Thread #30

2026-09-21T14:44:00+00:00

Where to find David this week. He’s in New York for Climate Week, four stops ...

Thursday, 12:45pm: a moderated discussion with Maxine Joselow of the New York Times, about “opportunities for progress in a divided politics,” at the Institute for Policy Integrity’s Climate, Energy, and the Political Divide.

Source: Volts

Opinion — Trump Is Aiming Again at a Familiar First-Term Target. The Consequences Could Be Deadly.

2026-09-17T14:09:00+00:00

Last week, the Trump administration proposed a regulation that, if not undone by the president taking office in 2029, would end the uninterrupted practice—one almost as old as our nation—of collecting race and ethnicity in the decennial census. This proposal would impair public health and cost numerous Americans their lives.

Source: Slate

EPA Repeals Major Greenhouse Gas Emission Limits for U.S. Fossil Fuel Power Plants

2026-09-16T16:13:00+00:00

“This is a final action, so it officially strikes the standards from the books,” said Dena Adler, senior attorney focusing on federal environmental regulation at the non-partisan Institute for Policy Integrity and adjunct professor of law at New York University School of Law.

Source: The BMJ

What EPA’s Climate Denial Means for the Energy Transition

2026-09-16T13:36:00+00:00

EPA is effectively saying it’s futile to control emissions from power plants because climate change is such a big, global problem, according to Dena Adler, a senior attorney at Policy Integrity and an adjunct professor at New York University’s law school.

“This claim runs contrary to everything the Clean Air Act stands for and decades of past agency practice recognizing that even a small portion of a very large pollution problem can itself be enormous,” Adler said.

Source: Latitude Media

Trump Administration Further Curtails Limits on Coal, Gas Plants

2026-09-15T15:38:00+00:00

Dena Adler, a senior attorney at the Institute for Public Integrity, said her organization would not let the EPA’s actions go unchallenged.

“The Supreme Court has made clear that EPA has an obligation to control greenhouse gas emissions from power plants under the Clean Air Act,” Adler wrote in a statement following the repeal. “Leaving this pollution unchecked ignores the Supreme Court, puts the public at risk, and flagrantly violates EPA’s legal responsibilities.”

Source: Dairyland Patriot

Groups Cite Huge Health Costs from EPA’s Power Plant Greenhouse Gas Rollback, Vow to Sue

2026-09-15T15:36:00+00:00

According to a recent study by the Institute for Policy Integrity, the U.S. power sector contributed 5% of global greenhouse gas emissions between 1990 and 2002. If it were a country, the sector would have been the sixth-biggest global emitter of greenhouse gas emissions in this time frame.

Source: Chemical & Engineering News

Final EPA Greenhouse Gas Repeal Spurns Replacement Limits, Teeing Up Legal Fight

2026-09-15T15:28:00+00:00

New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity in a Sept. 14 statement likewise attacked the rule’s omission of estimated costs from increased greenhouse gas emissions. “This is like an insurance agent saying that your home burning down is costless because you don't know the exact dollar value of the damages.”

Source: Inside EPA

Opinion — Clarifying the Office of Information and Regulatory Affair’s Role Will Yield More Durable, Responsive Policy

2026-09-15T13:39:00+00:00

The federal rulemaking process is the common pathway for many major policies that shape the lives of Americans, such as pollution limits, food safety requirements, or worker protection standards. Debates over this process—and in particular, the White House and interagency review facilitated by the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA)—have for decades been part of larger discussions of how to make government more effective.

Source: The Regulatory Review

Trump Guts Climate Rules for Coal and Gas Power Plants

2026-09-14T14:04:00+00:00

A report from New York University School of Law’s Institute for Policy Integrity found that if the U.S. power sector were a country, it would be the world’s sixth-largest emitter, contributing more to climate change than the entirety of nations such as Canada, Japan, Brazil and Mexico ...

“The public health and welfare toll of this deregulation is just going to be staggering,” said Jason Schwartz, one of the report’s authors and regulatory policy director at the Institute, told The Hill.

Source: The Hill

U.S. EPA Repeals Carbon Emission Limits for Power Plants at G20 Meeting

2026-09-14T14:02:00+00:00

But environmental and public health advocates said removing the regulations will lead to billions in public health and environmental damages ...

“EPA has treated this harm as essentially zero in recent analyses, including ignoring its prior estimates based on uncertainty,” said Dena Adler, senior attorney at the Institute for Policy Integrity.

Source: Reuters

6 Takeaways as Trump Takes Sledgehammer to Power Plant Climate Regs

2026-09-14T13:59:00+00:00

Opponents of the Trump administration’s move are expected to sue to try to block it.

“I would expect that the final repeal will be pretty immediately challenged,” said Dena Adler, senior attorney at the Institute for Policy Integrity.

Source: The Hill

Opinion — Getting the Most Out of the Congressional Review Act

2026-09-08T14:12:00+00:00

Republicans are using the Government Accountability Office to expand the reach of the Congressional Review Act.

Source: The Regulatory Review

Judge Decries ‘Gamesmanship’ in Nixing EPA Waiver Moves

2026-09-03T14:16:00+00:00

While Judge Howell's decision is a judicial strike against efforts by administration and congressional Republicans to expand the Congresional Review Act's reach, the legal battles are far from over, said Max Sarinsky, legal director of the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University School of Law.

Source: Law360

Trump Administration Relied on Flawed Logic To Justify Scrapping Vehicle Emission Rules, Study Says

2026-08-27T14:52:00+00:00

“They pretty effectively proved that the rollback is really based on several fundamental flaws, and any one of these mistakes alone is enough to change the sign of the cost-benefit analysis and show that this is a bad deal, not just for the environment, but a bad deal for drivers,” said Jason Schwartz, regulatory policy director at the Institute for Policy Integrity at the New York University School of Law.

Source: AP

Trump Move To Weaken Air Rules Limits Tool To Fight Data Centers

2026-08-26T13:48:00+00:00

The EPA’s January rule centers around another important distinction: mobile versus stationary sources.

If the agency classifies gas combustion turbines as mobile sources, it could exempt those units from “longstanding pollution limits and the stationary source permitting regime,” said Dena Adler, an attorney at the Institute for Policy Integrity. That would have “serious pollution ramifications, especially if data centers have a turbine construction boom,” she said.

Source: Bloomberg Law