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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. I'm June Grosso. Every

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Speaker 1: day we bring you insight and analysis into the most

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Speaker 1: important legal news of the day. You can find more

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Speaker 1: episodes of the Bloomberg Law Podcast on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud,

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Speaker 1: and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcasts. In President Obama

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Speaker 1: announced a new clean Power plan and talked about the

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Speaker 1: importance of taking care of our planet. For the first

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Speaker 1: generation to feel the impact of climate change, we're the

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Speaker 1: last generation they can do something about it. But the

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Speaker 1: Trump administration has been working to dismantle Obama's environmental legacy

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Speaker 1: and its climate legacy, and this week the administration proposed

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Speaker 1: another regulatory rollback to relax rules that were meant to

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Speaker 1: block methane leaks from oil and gas wells. Joining me

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Speaker 1: is Richard Rivez, a professor at n y U Law

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Speaker 1: School and director of the Institute for Policy Integrity. JA

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Speaker 1: tell us more about this proposal from the e p

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Speaker 1: A and the rules it would roll back. Good morning,

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Speaker 1: It's wonderful to be on the program. This proposal would

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Speaker 1: make several important changes on how oil and gas operators monitored, detect,

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Speaker 1: and repair methane leaks. Primarily, it would make the monitoring

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Speaker 1: requirements less frequent, so that leaking installations will be discovered

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Speaker 1: for a longer time, and as a result, the leak

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Speaker 1: levels would increase. And the administration acknowledges that, and acknowledges

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Speaker 1: that its proposal would have a bad impact on both

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Speaker 1: the environment in terms of its impact on climate change,

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Speaker 1: but also on public health. But nonetheless it is proposing

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Speaker 1: to do this. Well, does the administration in the proposal

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Speaker 1: explain why despite that, it's going forward? Um? Well, the

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Speaker 1: administration's argument is that this is going to a money

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Speaker 1: to the operators of these installations, and as far as

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Speaker 1: I can see, that's the main and only plausible justification.

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Speaker 1: And the administration acknowledges the negatives on the other side,

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Speaker 1: but says that, um, they're outweighed by the benefits to

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Speaker 1: these operators. The EPA did say the changes would save

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Speaker 1: the oil and gas industry about four four million dollars

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Speaker 1: in regulatory costs from Let's talk about Obama's three ports

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Speaker 1: strategy for combating climate change. This summer, there were two

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Speaker 1: proposals from the e p A to rollback climate change

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Speaker 1: regulations for carbon dioxide pollution from vehicles and coal fired

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Speaker 1: power plants added with this regulation rollback, would that completely

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Speaker 1: undo Obama's three part effort. Uh. These were the three

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Speaker 1: most important parts of President Obama's Clean Power, Clean Action initiative. UM,

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Speaker 1: and and this administration is committed to undoing them. Now,

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Speaker 1: we should remember that these are three proposals. UM. There's

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Speaker 1: their comment period. UM. I assume the administration will finalize

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Speaker 1: these in UM in a similar form to what we

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Speaker 1: see now. But then there's going to be a huge

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Speaker 1: fight in the courts. Um. Of these these three proposals

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Speaker 1: are on weak legal grounds, they're poorly justified, and there's

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Speaker 1: going to be a serious fight in the federal courts. Well.

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Speaker 1: This is actually the e p a second attempt to

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Speaker 1: suspend the Obama era methane requirements, and the first did

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Speaker 1: face problems in court last year. Tell us what happened there, well. Um,

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Speaker 1: The first round of this administration's actions has been to

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Speaker 1: suspend day or delay um the effective day or the

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Speaker 1: compliance states for Obama administration regulations, and those efforts have

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Speaker 1: almost all failed. Um. The administrative has lost a significant

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Speaker 1: number of important cases in the federal courts that have

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Speaker 1: said that the way they went around doing those suspensions

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Speaker 1: was illegal UM, and that was true for the methane

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Speaker 1: rule as well. Now the administration has undertaken the second phase,

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Speaker 1: which is to attempt to actually repeal the rules and

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Speaker 1: not just suspend or delay them. And this process is

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Speaker 1: now getting started with the proposals to UM replace the

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Speaker 1: Clean Power Plan UH and for weaken the vehicle standard

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Speaker 1: and now for a weaken the method for weakening the

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Speaker 1: methane rules. So has the administration gone gone done it

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Speaker 1: in a certain ways so that it is it will

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Speaker 1: pass the court standards. I don't think so. For example, UM,

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Speaker 1: in connection with its effort to UM replace a Clean

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Speaker 1: Power Plan, the administration has acknowledged that the net impact

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Speaker 1: on the American people will be negative, that the foregone

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Speaker 1: benefits to the American people are actually larger than the

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Speaker 1: cost saving. And from my perspective, that puts creates a

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Speaker 1: huge uphill battle for the administration. UH. It looks like

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Speaker 1: what it did is irrational, and it pretty much has

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Speaker 1: admitted that in its proposal. I anticipate a very strong

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Speaker 1: challenges and a significant probability that the challengers will prevail

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Speaker 1: on the challenges to these three rules. Now the e

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Speaker 1: p A proposal is opening the door to allowing state

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Speaker 1: mandates to take the place of federal methane requirements. What's

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Speaker 1: the problem? There is there any problem with that? Well, um,

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Speaker 1: one important problem is that many states might not do

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Speaker 1: anything UM and or might do something that's extremely weak.

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Speaker 1: And this is a national problem, the global problem. The

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Speaker 1: federal government has a responsibility to address it and has

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Speaker 1: an obligation under the Queen Air Act. The reason we

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Speaker 1: have a Queen Air Act is because Congress decided UM

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Speaker 1: in the sixties and nineteen seventy that there was an

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Speaker 1: important role for the federal government UM in air pollution,

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Speaker 1: because air pollution across the state lines, and now we

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Speaker 1: know that across the international lines. We know about global problems.

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Speaker 1: So the federal government is an important part of the

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Speaker 1: solution to this problem. States are also also have a role,

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Speaker 1: and they can also do things, but state action in

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Speaker 1: this area is not a substitute for federal action under

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Speaker 1: the statute and under any sort of plausible understanding of

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Speaker 1: environmental policy. Ricky. The agency has signaled that it's working

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Speaker 1: on a separate rulemaking effort to address whether direct rules

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Speaker 1: on methane are even necessary. Where might that end up, Well,

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Speaker 1: it might end up in a in an in an

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Speaker 1: outright repeal of the methane rules, leaving this sector of

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Speaker 1: the economy unregulated with respect to the greenhouse gas emissions.

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Speaker 1: And the Trump administration has been trying to roll back

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Speaker 1: regulations in all different areas. Has it been more successful

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Speaker 1: as far as the e p A and the Interior Department? No. Um.

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Speaker 1: The first round of the Trump administration's efforts have been

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Speaker 1: on these delays, days and suspensions, and they've lost significant

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Speaker 1: cases across a whole slew of areas. Uh, including yesterday

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Speaker 1: in a borrower rule that protected UM college student borrowers

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Speaker 1: from unscrupulous for profit lenders institutions. Uh. So they've lost

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Speaker 1: sort of across the board, not just in the energy,

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Speaker 1: natural resources, and environmental spaces on their efforts to suspend

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Speaker 1: delay um um uh, the the Obama administration's regulations. Okay,

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Speaker 1: thank you so much for being with us. That's Richard Rivez.

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Speaker 1: He's a professor at n y U Law School and

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Speaker 1: director of the Institute for Policy Integrity. Speaking at a

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Speaker 1: July hearing, Minnesota Democratic Congressman Keith Ellison asked FED Chair

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Speaker 1: Jerome Powell about the economic effects of tech giants like

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Speaker 1: Google and Amazon, we have highly concentrated markets to these days,

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Speaker 1: can you talk about market concentration in this particular economy.

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Speaker 1: It seems like every industry you look at, it has

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Speaker 1: highly concentrated markets. Look for example, you know Amazon, how

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Speaker 1: they're dominating you know online retail. And today FTC Chairman

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Speaker 1: Joe Simons began the first in a series of hearings

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Speaker 1: about this very issue. Joining me from the hearings is

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Speaker 1: David McLaughlin Bloomberg News Legal reporter Dave, So, what happened

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Speaker 1: today so far? Well, today the hearings open with remarked

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Speaker 1: by the chairman Joe Joe Diamond UM, and then they

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Speaker 1: had a panel UM including that included some economists and

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Speaker 1: lawyers UM to discuss kind of big picture issues in

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Speaker 1: competition policy. And later today they're going to be hearing

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Speaker 1: from from more economists kind of digging into the data

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Speaker 1: behind some of the concerns that were raised in the

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Speaker 1: in the clip you just played. Why is market concentration

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Speaker 1: getting so much attention now? Well, I think partly it

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Speaker 1: is due to UM big tech companies like Google and

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Speaker 1: Facebook UM and and the they're both their size and

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Speaker 1: their dominance and the their importance in our lives UH,

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Speaker 1: and as we've seen UM over the last couple of years,

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Speaker 1: there are concerns that go beyond competition UM. So that's

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Speaker 1: one thing. And secondly, there are a lot of economists

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Speaker 1: right now who in the past couple of years have

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Speaker 1: been digging into this issue UM sort of e commists

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Speaker 1: who are outside the anti trust UM world, who are

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Speaker 1: sort of questioning UM how any trust has been applied

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Speaker 1: in the past. And in point, some data that seems

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Speaker 1: to show that does show rising concentration across many industries,

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Speaker 1: not just tech, and the possibility that that means that

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Speaker 1: many markets exhibit UM or companies in many markets have

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Speaker 1: market power, which which is something that any trust enforcers

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Speaker 1: should be should be worried about. And then they're going further.

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Speaker 1: Is kind of interesting to say that some of these

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Speaker 1: markets that are concentrated, or the problem of rising UH

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Speaker 1: concentration is actually tied to sort of broader macro economic

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Speaker 1: problems like weak productivity, growth, inequality in the economy, UM,

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Speaker 1: low investment by companies. So there's a lot to dig

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Speaker 1: into and and it's got UM many economists very interested.

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Speaker 1: So there are these calls for more aggressive enforcement and

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Speaker 1: policing of mergers. But a judge just stopped the Justice

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Speaker 1: Department's attempt to derail the A. T. And T Time

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Speaker 1: Warner merger. So what is realistically within the FTC's power

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Speaker 1: in this area. Way, you're right, So that case highlighted

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Speaker 1: uh the challenges that enforcers here in the US space,

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Speaker 1: and that they if they want to get more aggressive

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Speaker 1: um on mergers or going after big companies, they have

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Speaker 1: to convince uh courts, which can be um at times

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Speaker 1: difficult to convince, as we saw in the A T.

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Speaker 1: And T case. Um. So Uh, you know that's different

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Speaker 1: than in Europe. So I think for enforcers here, part

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Speaker 1: of it is um. You know, some people would say, well,

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Speaker 1: they just need to be willing to lose cases and

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Speaker 1: try to move the courts in a certain um direction. Um.

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Speaker 1: And you know in the case of the in the

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Speaker 1: case of A T and T, the issue there was

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Speaker 1: that that was the first vertical case that was brought

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Speaker 1: in something like forty years. So that might just be

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Speaker 1: an indication that the courts hadn't seen one of those

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Speaker 1: cases in a very long time. There's also the point

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Speaker 1: that being big, or even being a monopoly is not

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Speaker 1: by itself illegal, So what other kinds of facts with

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Speaker 1: the government have to find to go after some of

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Speaker 1: these companies who have such high market concentration. Right, So

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Speaker 1: that's one of the key things to keep in mind

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Speaker 1: is that, you know, we don't want to punish companies

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Speaker 1: that are big because there are because they're successful in

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Speaker 1: selling products and services that people want. UM. So what

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Speaker 1: the government would need to find if if um UM

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Speaker 1: in any monopoly case is conduct by by by a

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Speaker 1: company that has a dominant market share, that's a monopoly

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Speaker 1: UM that amounts to basically thwarting UH competition as markets.

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Speaker 1: So you know, the big famous case from almost twenty

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Speaker 1: years ago now was Microsoft and in the issue there

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Speaker 1: was you know, that was a company at the time

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Speaker 1: dominated operating computers UM. It was using that that dominance

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Speaker 1: to harm UM competition or emerging competition from Netscape Navigator

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Speaker 1: and did lots of things to do that. And so

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Speaker 1: that's that misconduct. Those steps that it took at the

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Speaker 1: time the government said we're legal in a court agreed

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Speaker 1: just about a minute here, what do you see the

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Speaker 1: final the final event in all this being that they're

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Speaker 1: trying to break up some of the big companies like Amazon.

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Speaker 1: Is that the goal. That's not the stated goal. I mean,

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Speaker 1: you know the FTC is basically their chairman, Joe Simmons

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Speaker 1: is just saying, you know, this, this is an issue

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Speaker 1: that this is, these concerns are legitimate to be you know,

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Speaker 1: it should be debated and discussed and we should look

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Speaker 1: into them deeper. Um where it goes is unclear. All right,

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Speaker 1: Thanks so much, David, we'll catch up with you again.

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Speaker 1: That's David McLaughlin, Bloomberg News Legal reporter. Thanks for listening

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Speaker 1: to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can subscribe and listen

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Speaker 1: to the show on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and on Bloomberg

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Speaker 1: dot com slash podcast. I'm June Brosso. This is Bloomberg