How an NYU Law clinic is countering Trump’s attacks on climate policies

In the wake of President Donald Trump’s rollbacks on environmental policies, NYU’s Institute for Policy Integrity is gearing up to tackle the administration’s executive orders countering climate-friendly legislation. Housed at the School of Law, the institute hosts NYU researchers as they work with lawyers and economists to guide federal and state government decisions that promote sustainable environmental and energy policies. 

Since its founding in 2008, the IPI’s research has helped advocate for environmental proposals facing scrutiny in the U.S. Supreme Court, improved calculations on the impact of atmospheric carbon dioxide and more. The non-partisan think tank publishes evaluations of policies with environmental implications, such as a recently-reintroduced act requiring that Congress approve any legislation that costs over $100 million. 

Don Goodson, executive director of the IPI, said the think tank’s overarching goal is to advocate for the long-term benefits in investing in environmental policies like mitigating carbon pollution and improving electricity transmission rules in regions across the country. Goodson added that while it’s too soon into Trump’s second term to holistically assess his administration’s impact on the IPI, he anticipates cuts to academic research funding and environmental regulations to public health and climate change research. 

“If you properly accounted for the costs and benefits, you could probably support really strong policies for the environment,” Goodson said in an interview with WSN. “The end result is to try to get people that are making policy decisions to make those decisions smarter.”

The IPI hosts the Regulatory Policy Clinic at NYU Law, where students work with the institute’s lawyers to gain experience in applying administrative law, including authoring petitions and suggesting changes to state and federal law makers in court. Eight second and third-year law students can participate in the clinic each fall to earn three clinical and two academic credits.  

Since taking office, Trump has signed executive orders dismantling dozens of decades-old policies supporting environmentalist efforts, claiming his leadership will revitalize the United States’ energy economy. Most recently, the Environmental Protection Agency called the Obama administration’s assertion that carbon dioxide and other planet-warming threaten to public health a “hoax” and vowed to dispose of its “crushing regulatory regime.” 

IPI Strategy Director Derek Sylvan told WSN that during Trump’s first term, the institute successfully challenged several of his environmental policy rollbacks in court and that the institute’s research was cited over 40 times in the Biden administration’s updated guidelines for the EPA. Sylvan also expressed concern after the Trump administration announced plans to fire over 1,000 EPA employees to reduce federal funding behind the agency. 

“It’s become clear that a lot of the federal agencies that have important duties to protect clean air and clean water and other things like that were significantly understaffed before this administration came in,” Sylvan said. “So a lot of the layoffs could have some problematic impacts on public health and we’re definitely concerned about that.”

The IPI had assessed over 1,800 major rules issued from 1996 through 2023 to explore how often they were challenged in federal court and how they fared in litigation over time. The study, titled “Tracking Major Rules in the Courts,” found that the first Trump administration faced a high number of legal challenges — which it fought with a relatively low success rate. In contrast, the Biden administration saw a notable percentage of its major rules challenged and a higher success rate in court. 

“The world is changing so fast, and the ground is shifting under our feet as we talk,” Goodson said. “We will want to look for bipartisan opportunities where they exist — we will want to look for other opportunities at the state, international level and at the federal government level, to do what we can to continue improving the quality of government decision making.”

Contact Aditte Parasher at news@nyunews.com.

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