Policy Integrity in the News

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

Hochul Mulls Deferring New York Climate Ambitions to 2040

2026-04-07T16:51:00+00:00

An analysis issued this month by the Institute for Policy Integrity at the NYU School of Law called for additional cost analysis of the most effective emissions reduction strategies under each accounting method. It questions whether changing the accounting method will reduce costs, as Hochul has argued.

Source: E&E News

Climate Act Greenhouse Gas Accounting Controversy

2026-04-03T15:41:00+00:00

In a new Institute for Policy Integrity report, Drs. Raimundo Atal and Al McGartland examine how [a potential] change to the CLCPA’s accounting method would affect New York’s progress toward its climate goals.

Source: Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York

Why New York’s Flagship Climate Law Is on the Rocks

2026-04-01T15:20:00+00:00

But Hochul’s proposal to switch to the U.N. based accounting methodology may not actually create the cost savings she hopes for, according to a March 24 report from New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity.

While the U.N. standard would numerically get New York’s emissions closer to the CLCPA targets, “it’s not only the distance to the targets, but how cheap it is to get to the target” that determines the cost-effectiveness of a given plan, said environmental economist Raimundo Atal, a co-author of the report.

Source: Law 360

Before We Build More Gas Pipelines, We Need Better Data

2026-03-30T15:34:00+00:00

A familiar debate is heating up about the need to build more gas pipelines. During extreme cold weather, both electric- and gas-heating demand increases. This demand from gas-heating customers and gas-fired electric generators can drive up the price for gas and potentially strain the pipeline capacity to transport it. Add inadequate winterization, freezing equipment and failures at the electric distribution level to the mix, and we get the usual headlines of thousands of people without power.

Source: Utility Dive

Protesters Rally Against Hochul’s Climate Law Delay

2026-03-27T14:20:00+00:00

Hochul has taken issues with how the CLCPA counts emissions of the greenhouse gas methane. A report released Tuesday by the Institute for Policy Integrity at the New York University School of Law analyzed the state’s unique accounting system for methane. They found that the state could close in on its targets faster were we to adopt international standards. But the researchers—led by Al McGartland, former 20-year lead economist at the Environmental Protection Agency—concluded that the emission reductions required in the CLCPA are substantial enough, warning that leaders shouldn’t let math debates derail our climate goals. Still, the Citizens Budget Commission supported changing the methane math.

Source: ABC News NY

EPA’s Misleading Claim of $1.3 Trillion in Deregulatory ‘Savings’

2026-03-18T16:42:00+00:00

“This is a very biased and misleading way to talk about the effects of this rollback,” Jason Schwartz, regulatory policy director at New York University School of Law’s Institute for Policy Integrity, told us of the $1.3 trillion framing.

Source: FactCheck.org

Electricity Bills Are High. Trump Administration Policies Are Set to Make Them Soar.

2026-03-18T16:39:00+00:00

Beyond being a staggeringly bad deal for consumers (see this tracker from the Institute for Policy Integrity for the exact cost to consumers from all these rollbacks, on the order of hundreds of millions of dollars of lost benefits per year, per rule), these actions truly beggar belief in this electricity-constrained environment.

Source: The Equation

As Gas Prices Soar, Trump Is Ignoring the Lessons of the Last Oil Crisis

2026-03-10T14:05:00+00:00

“The fact that oil prices are currently higher than they had been at the time makes the repeal [of vehicle emissions standards] even less economically justifiable,” said Richard Revesz, who oversaw vehicle regulations at the EPA under the Biden administration.

Source: Grist

What Corporate Offset Buyers Can Learn from Consumer Protection Laws

2026-03-06T16:47:00+00:00

It’s a weird time to be a corporate offset buyer. Relying largely on consumer protection statutes, some environmental advocates have criticized and sued companies for making carbon-neutral or net-zero claims based on low-integrity offsets. Meanwhile, the anti-ESG movement has used consumer protection theories to attack companies’ use of other environmental attribute certificates to make claims about their electricity consumption, raising the possibility of similar arguments about companies’ use of offsets.

Source: Trellis

Emissions Deregulation Buys U.S. Carmakers Time but Not Their Future

2026-03-02T15:37:00+00:00

“I worry [U.S. carmakers] have imperilled their long-term future in efforts to cater to the short-term whims of the Trump administration,” says Richard Revesz, an NYU law professor and former administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.

Source: Sustainable Views

Environmentalists Criticize EPA’s Risk Management Program Rollback Proposal in Early Reaction

2026-02-27T21:41:00+00:00

The New York University School of Law’s Institute for Policy Integrity said in a statement that when the 2024 rule was initially proposed, the group submitted comments highlighting that “EPA’s own data showed that between 2004 to 2020, there were more than 2,400 incidents, amounting to billions of dollars in aggregate monetized costs.”

Source: Inside EPA

NYU Law Forum Explores Changing Landscape of Climate Change Battles

2026-02-26T15:04:00+00:00

Revesz, the faculty director of NYU Law’s Institute for Policy Integrity, focused on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s recent repeal of its earlier finding that greenhouse gases endanger public health.

Source: NYU Law

Environmental Protection Agency Eliminates Emission Standards for New Vehicles, Motors

2026-02-25T16:31:00+00:00

Around the time a public comment period opened on the findings, Dena Adler, senior attorney at the Institute for Policy Integrity out of the New York University School of Law, and legal fellow Kate Welty, issued a 19-page brief, “Exhaustive Precedent: EPA’s Requirement to Regulate Motor Vehicle Emissions that Contribute to Dangerous Air Pollution” in July 2025.

Source: Coastal Review