Category Centers and Institutes

Entries 11 Total

Institute for Policy Integrity Submits Public Comments

Sep 5, ’12

The Institute for Policy Integrity uses economic analysis and law to promote better environmental, health, and consumer protection regulations.  During the past year, Policy Integrity submitted 12 sets of detailed public comments to federal regulatory agencies on issues like mercury controls, fuel efficiency standards, and criminal sentencing guidelines. The organization was also the only non-profit permitted to submit an amicus brief for EPA on its tailoring rule, designed to exempt small polluters from strict Clean Air Act permitting requirements.

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Cass Sunstein Discusses Cost-Benefit Analysis in Regulation

May 7, ’12

Cass Sunstein, the administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) in the Office of Management and Budget and one of the most prolific and frequently cited legal academics, detailed some of the positive results of using cost-benefit analysis in overseeing the Obama administration’s regulatory agenda when he spoke at NYU Law on April 30.

Cass Sunstein, Administrator of OIRA

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Regulatory Red Herring: The Role of Job Impact Analyses in Environmental Policy Debates

Apr 3, ’12

The current debate on jobs and environmental regulation too often relies on thinly-supported forecasts about jobs “killed” or “created” by public protections. In this debate, the larger costs and benefits of protections for clean air or water can get lost.

In Regulatory Red Herring, the Institute for Policy Integrity at NYU Law looks at how economics can be used to estimate or distort the effects of environmental regulation on layoffs and hiring. Through the choice of datasets or economic models, job impact analyses used in advocacy can tell widely different stories. These modeling tools have important limitations that are rarely communicated, leading to misunderstanding and counterproductive political debates.

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Furman Center wins prestigious MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions

Feb 16, ’12

On February 16, the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy received the MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions in recognition of its excellence in providing policymakers with objective, relevant research to address pressing issues for neighborhoods in New York City and nationwide. The award’s $1 million grant will allow the Furman Center to expand its research and policy analysis focus beyond New York City.

Robert Galluci, president of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, said that the 15 honored organizations “demonstrate exceptional creativity and effectiveness. They provide new ways to address old problems. They generate provocative ideas and they reframe well-worn debates. And their impact is altogether disproportionate to their size.”

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Rethinking Climate Change: Towards an Advisory Opinion from the International Court of Justice

Feb 5, ’12

On February 2, Johnson Toribiong, president of Palau and Tillman Thomas, prime minister of Grenada hosted a diplomatic reception at the law school to build support for a UN General Assembly resolution reqesting International Court of Justice advisory opinion on the legal responsibility of countries for climate change under international law. An ICJ advisory opinion may be requested by a simple majority of UN members. This effort by Palau and Grenada is in conjunction with a number of other small island countries, who are concerned about the impact of rising sea levels that are resulting from climate change.

President of Palau Johnson Toribiong

“The truth is that nothing we or other Pacific countries do will stem the rising tides or the flood of global emissions. We need everyone to buy in or it won’t work. An ICJ advisory opinion would give us the guidance we need on what all States must do,“ said President Toribiong. “I am pleased that deliberations on a possible resolution have begun here in New York. But there is a long way to go.”

The UN General Assembly resolution is expected to be introduced in the autumn. Attending the reception along with the President and Prime Minister were their Ambassadors to the UN, Stuart Beck (of Palau) and Dessima Williams (of Grenada). They were joined by nearly 100 other UN Ambassadors, Deputy Permanent Representatives and legal advisors.

NYU law students Julian Arato and Ben Heath with Palauan Ambassador to the UN, Stuart Beck and President Toribiong

Two NYU law students and IILJ scholars, Julian Arato (’11, LL.M.’12) and Ben Heath (’11, LL.M.’12) have been assisting the Mission of Palau by providing legal advice on the issue. Since the Mission of Palau was opened in 2004, NYU law students have provided legal assistance on a number of issues, including international environmental law and law of the sea.

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Global Climate Finance Project holds workshop in Abu Dhabi

Jan 20, ’12

Institutions for climate finance and the new Green Climate Fund were the two main topics of discussion at the workshop on Climate Finance held in Abu Dhabi last week, hosted at the NYU Abu Dhabi campus by the Global Climate Finance Project, together with the UAE’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This was the Project’s third workshop in the UAE.

The workshop started on Monday, January 9th, bringing local UAE government officials together with an impressive group of experts drawing from academia, the World Bank, various NGOs and the private sector. The workshop heard from three panels discussing the global architecture; the new Green Climate Fund; and tracking climate finance flows. Discussion was so lively that the second day began with a panel originally intended to be on the first day: making transformative investments in climate technologies. The rest of the day was devoted to discussing a paper that will form the opening chapters of a new book on institutions for climate finance that the workshop participants will contribute to. Over the two days, participants engaged in a comprehensive discussion, identifying a number of pressing issues for resolution, areas in which further research is required, and various opportunities for both the UAE and the global community more broadly, to build an effective regime for climate finance.

After the first day of the workshop, Professor Richard Stewart, Professor Daniel Bodansky of Arizona State University and Smita Nakhooda of the Overseas Development Institute held a public discussion on “The Future of International Climate Action,” as a part of the public lectures hosted by NYU Abu Dhabi. The lecture was well attended and was followed by a spirited question and answer session and reception.

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European Climate Change Ministers Hold NYU Workshops

Oct 30, ’11

Over the last year, Connie Hedegaard (EU Commissioner for Climate Action), Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet (French Minister for Ecology) and Serge Lepeltier (French Ambassador for Climate Negotiations) each held workshops on current climate policy at NYU, continuing the Global Climate Finance Project’s series of meetings between leading international policy-makers and NYU faculty and students.

Connie Hedegaard, European Commissioner for Climate Action participating in a roundtable discussion.

Commissioner Hedegaard, who was chair of the Copenhagen climate conference in December 2009, came to campus in September 2010 after asking the Global Climate Finance Project to gather a group of experts to discuss issues relating to climate finance. In addition to Hedegaard and the European Commission’s Director of Climate Strategy and International Negotiations Artur Runge-Metzger, NYU professors and fellows participated along with colleagues from Columbia University, Dartmouth College, Environmental Defense Fund, Peterson Institute for International Economics, World Resources Institute, and the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative

The workshop engaged in lively debate on a number of contentious issues, including the institutions and MRV structures for climate finance, the use of border carbon adjustments, the U.S. domestic political obstacles to implementing proposed international levies (for example, on bunker fuels), and the role of corporations in the current climate change negotiations and in any future climate finance regime.

Professor Richard Stewart, French Minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet and Robert Orr, Assistant UN Secretary General discuss the future of climate finance

In March 2011, French Minister for Ecology, Sustainable Development, Transport, and Housing Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet was the lead speaker at “From Fast-Start to Long-Term Finance for Climate Protection: The Need for New Funding Sources,” a panel discussion involving the Assistant UN Secretary General Robert Orr, Professor Richard Stewart and others.

Following the public panel, a small private workshop was held on climate finance issues and opportunities in the upcoming international meetings and U.S. climate regulation. Participants included the panelists, the French ambassador to the United States, the French ambassador for climate change negotiations, the deputy governor of the Banque de France, and additional experts.

Serge Lepeltier (third from right) and NYU professors and fellows

In September 2011, Serge Lepeltier, the French Ambassador for Climate Negotiations returned with his climate advisors from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to discuss climate finance in the lead up to the Durban climate conference. Participating were professors and fellows from NYU and its research partners, World Resources Institute and Environmental Defense Fund.

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Furman Center Launches Affordable Housing Map of NYC

Sep 30, ’11

The Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy and its Institute for Affordable Housing Policy recently launched the Subsidized Housing Information Project (SHIP), an interactive database with extensive information on nearly 235,000 units of privately-owned subsidized rental housing in New York City. The database consolidates information from 50 separate public and private data sources into one searchable website, now available at: www.furmancenter.org/data/search.

A portion of the Subsidized Housing Information Project (SHIP) map--here, the East Village, NYC.

The new resource—which provides the most comprehensive overview of subsidized housing in New York City available — is the result of an ongoing, multi-year partnership with the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD), the New York City Housing Development Corporation (HDC), New York State Homes and Community Renewal (HCR), the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

SHIP allows government agencies, housing and community advocates, the media, and the public to access information on every privately-owned, publicly-subsidized affordable property developed with four key government programs: HUD financing and insurance, HUD project-based rental assistance, the New York City and New York State Mitchell-Lama programs, or Low-Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC). The Institute for Affordable Housing Policy’s accompanying report, State of New York City’s Subsidized Housing: 2011, uses SHIP data to identify 227 properties throughout the city that are at-risk of expiring out of affordability programs by the end of 2015, as well as outlining opportunities for preservation.

The Institute also released a set of online resources to help users navigate the SHIP database, including a Directory of New York City’s Affordable Housing Programs.

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Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy

Sep 28, ’11

Through a series of events and publications, the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy has explored the impact of New York City’s recent rezonings on development, transportation and park accessibility.  Policymakers are rewriting the City’s land use map through an unprecedented series of neighborhood-level rezonings.  The Furman Center publication, Matching Words and Deeds? How Transit-Oriented are the Bloomberg-era Rezonings in New York City?, explored the cumulative impact of rezoning actions on residential capacity, and assessed how the rezonings match the city’s stated development, environmental and transportation goals. The authors found that, consistent with desired development patterns, there has been a modest overall increase in residential capacity concentrated in neighborhoods near rail transit stations, but that a significant amount of land near transit also had been downzoned.  In February, the article “How do New York City’s Recent Rezonings Align with its Goals for Park Accessibility” was published in the journal Cities and the Environment. The authors found a mixed picture: the net impact of the City’s rezonings was a modest increase in residential capacity for the city as a whole, but the increases were disproportionately focused in areas further from parks.

The Furman Center also has been focusing on how the City’s parking policies affect both its sustainability goals and its efforts to ensure the availability of affordable housing.  In April, the Center convened leaders from government, academia, community-based groups and the private sector for two events to debate parking policy—including the city’s minimum parking requirement for residential development. Research on this topic, led by Faculty Director Vicki Been and Research Fellows Josiah Madar and Simon McDonnell, found that developers tend to build only the minimum parking required by zoning, suggesting that the requirements may be more stringent than is necessary to meet market demand.

For more information on the Furman Center and links to its publications, see www.furmancenter.org.  For an overview of the Center’s work over the past fifteen years, see http://furmancenter.org/files/publications/15Report_Small.pdf

 

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Global Climate Finance Project

Sep 28, ’11

The Guarini Center’s Global Climate Finance Project continues its international work on climate finance with legal and policy publications and a series of workshops, lectures and consultations with governments and environmental NGOs. The legal study of climate finance, which barely existed before the late 2009 publication of the Project’s highly influential book (Climate Finance: Regulatory and Funding Strategies for Climate Change and Global Development, NYU Press), has seen an explosion of interest from policy-makers and think tanks. By the UNFCCC Conference in Cancun in December 2010, climate finance had become one of the key issues to achieving a global deal for climate change.

The Project’s research over the past year has focused on the institutional and governance requirements for the nascent and highly decentralized climate finance institutional regime. While most attention has targeted the UNFCCC, the Project is premised on the need to build a much more comprehensive global regime to deliver huge amounts of climate financing to developing countries, including multilateral development banks, developed country development aid programs, and the private sector. The project focuses on the legal and governance arrangements needed to build trust between developed and developing counters and further effective use of financing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and strengthen adaptation. The Project has just published an overview of the institutional challenges in the World Bank Legal Review, as well as a series of policy papers on particular institutional topics including the need for a comprehensive global registry to track climate finance flows from various developed countries and sources to various developing countries.

Members of the Project attended the Cancun climate talks in December 2010 and hosted an official side-event with Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business. The event focused on the institutional requirements for climate finance, and featured talks by Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; Bryce Rudyk (LL.M ‘08), coordinator of the NYU Global Climate Finance Project and speakers from the World Resources Institute, Tuck School of Business and Carbon Disclosure Project.

In January 2011, the Project hosted a follow up workshop to its 2009 conference on climate finance, again in Abu Dhabi. Held at the new NYU Abu Dhabi campus and working with members of the Directorate of Energy and Climate Change of the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the workshop brought together leading international thinkers on climate finance for two days of discussion and joint papers.

More information about the Climate Finance Project and our publications can be found at www.climatefinance.org.

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