Policy Integrity in the News

The Supreme Court Gave Trump a New Way to Break the Government

2026-07-13T13:27:00+00:00

As Max Sarinsky recently noted in Slate, reform of multimember commissions may be possible if Democrats take the Senate in this year’s midterms, creating conditions for a compromise.

Source: Slate

Todd Blanche Has Already Flunked His Confirmation Hearing

2026-07-09T17:35:00+00:00

Friend of Slate Max Sarinsky, the legal director of the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University School of Law, argues that when a presidency changes hands, Congress will ultimately hold the power to confirm the president’s nominees.

Source: Slate

Trump Push To Slash Regulatory Red Tape Opens a Crucial Chapter

2026-07-09T13:45:00+00:00

Roughly two-thirds of the major rules issued during President Donald Trump’s first term that were challenged were either fully or partially struck down by the courts, according to New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity.

Source: Bloomberg Law

Department of Energy Advances ‘Sunset’ Proposal Despite Withdrawing Direct Final Rule

2026-07-08T14:15:00+00:00

The “larger problems” with [the Department of Energy’s] sunset initiative is that it “bypasses both meaningful public input and true consideration of whether the sunsets comport with statutory mandates or improve overall public welfare,” writes the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University’s School of Law in June 29 comments on the May direct final rule.

Source: Inside EPA

Opinion — The Supreme Court Just Made It Easier for Presidents To Sabotage Their Successors

2026-07-07T14:07:00+00:00

Last week, the Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution grants the president broad power to remove the heads of “independent” federal agencies. Chief Justice John Roberts’ opinion for the 6–3 majority largely framed the decision, Trump v. Slaughter, as tightening presidential control over agencies that safeguard key aspects of the national economy.

Source: Slate

Trump Plans Rollbacks as Rules Agenda Piles High

2026-07-07T13:50:00+00:00

Richard Revesz, who led [the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs] during the Biden administration, said Trump’s rulemaking agenda for EPA would continue “the deregulatory rampage” prevalent throughout his second term.

“The repeals will cause enormous damage to the health of the American people — including a large number of additional premature deaths, severe asthma attacks, and hospitalizations — for comparatively small cost savings to the regulated community,” Revesz said.

Source: E&E News

Opinion — The Energy Department Is Trying To Rewrite the Federal Power Act

2026-07-02T13:48:00+00:00

For the past year, the U.S. Department of Energy has ordered coal plants across the country to continue operating past their scheduled retirement dates. The Energy Department claims that an “emergency” shortage of electricity generation makes these orders necessary. But that conclusion disregards the findings reached by state electricity regulators and regional grid operators, which are responsible for ensuring that there is enough energy supply to meet demand. The Energy Department’s orders do not just elbow into state decisionmaking; they flip the Federal Power Act’s 100-year-old balance of authority on its head, making the Department the sole final arbiter in matters of electricity generation.

Source: The Regulatory Review

Opinion — U.S. Energy Regulator Can’t Cast Aside Cumulative Impacts Analysis

2026-07-01T13:55:00+00:00

Infrastructure that causes pollution, such as gas installations, can be more or less harmful depending on its location and who’s affected. Different pollutants can combine to become more harmful than the sum of each individual pollutant’s harms, and communities may also have different underlying susceptibilities. So it’s critical that federal agencies, including the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, analyze cumulative impacts when siting, permitting, or authorizing new sources of pollution.

Source: Bloomberg Law

Energy Regulator Staves off Critique in New Data Center Orders

2026-06-23T15:45:00+00:00

“The advantage is that each RTO will need to respond specifically with facts and data from their region—there will be a chance for the states to weigh in if they have any lingering concerns,” said Jennifer Danis, federal energy policy director at the Institute for Policy Integrity, referring to regional transmission organizations.

“It will give a much more robust and detailed administrative record, so I think it really reduces future litigation entry points,” she said.

Source: Bloomberg Law

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Slashes Cumulative National Environmental Policy Act Environmental Reviews

2026-06-22T14:26:00+00:00

Jennifer Danis, Federal Energy Policy Director at the Institute for Policy Integrity, said she did not take FERC's order to mean the commission is no longer obligated to consider issues specific to a particular project's siting.

Source: E&E 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