Institute for Policy Integrity: Power Plant Pollution is Clearly Significant
17 hours ago Guest Blogger
Roger Caiazza
The Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University School of Law recently published The Scale of Significance: Power Plants: The U.S. Power Sector’s Annual Climate Pollution Causes Thousands of Deaths and Massive Economic Damage”. The lede provoked an immediate negative reaction from this retired utility meteorologist.
Summary
The description of the report states that:
The Trump Administration is openly questioning the significance of U.S. contributions to climate change, playing down U.S. greenhouse gas emissions as contributing only “some mysterious amount above zero to climate change.” According to a leaked draft of a proposed regulatory repeal, Trump’s EPA will compare the U.S. power sector’s greenhouse gas emissions to worldwide totals and find, judged on that relative scale, the sector’s contribution to climate change is neither “significant” nor “meaningful.” That kind of skewed appraisal would produce the reductio ad absurdum under which no U.S. sector, sliced thinly enough, is ever a significant source of greenhouse gases—a clearly irrational outcome.
By any measure, emissions from major U.S. industries like the electric power sector contribute significantly to climate damages. The best available evidence shows that each year of greenhouse gas emissions from U.S. coal-fired and gas-fired power plants will contribute to climate damages responsible for thousands of U.S. deaths and hundreds of billions in economics harms.
The report was authored by Peter H. Howard and Jason A. Schwartz. The document states that “Peter Howard is the Economics Director at the Institute for Policy Integrity, where Jason A. Schwartz is the Legal Director.”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/07/03/institute-for-policy-integrity-power-plant-pollution-is-clearly-significant/
