During Revesz's tenure as dean of NYU Law School, NYU raised over $500 million and attracted 46 new faculty members, including fellow Argentine-American academic Samuel Issacharoff.[9] While dean, Revesz presided over various free-speech controversies: he criticized but did not discipline a student who asked Justice Antonin Scalia about his sex life,[10] and defended Singaporean jurist Thio Li-ann's right to express controversial views about criminalizing consensual sexual acts between men.[11]
In 2008, Revesz and Michael Livermore co-founded the Institute for Policy Integrity, a NYU Law-affiliated think tank and advocacy organization dedicated to improving the quality of governmental decision-making. Revesz directs the institute, which contributes original research in economics, administrative law, and public policy, and advocates for reform before courts, legislatures, and executive agencies. The institute’s work focuses primarily on energy and climate issues, consumer protection, and public health.[14]
Scholarship
Revesz has published numerous books and articles in major law reviews and journals, focusing on federalism and environmental regulation, the design of liability rules for environmental protection, and the role of cost-benefit analysis in shaping administrative and environmental regulation. His most recent book, Reviving Rationality: Saving Cost-Benefit Analysis for the Sake of the Environment and Our Health, which he co-wrote with Livermore, argues that the Trump administration destabilized the bipartisan consensus that federal agencies must base their decisions on evidence, expertise, and analysis, and explores how future administrations can restore cost-benefit analysis.[15]
Reviving Rationality: Saving Cost-Benefit Analysis for the Sake of the Environment and Our Health with Michael Livermore. (2020).
Retaking Rationality: How Cost-Benefit Analysis Can Better Protect the Environment and Our Health with Michael Livermore. (2008).
Environmental Law and Policy. (2008).
Grandfathering and Environmental Regulation: The Law and Economics of New Source Review with Jonathan Nash. 101 Northwestern University Law Review 1677 (2007).
Centralized Oversight of the Regulatory State, with Nicholas Bagley. 106 Columbia Law Review 1260 (2006).
Anti-Regulation Under the Guise of Rational Regulation: The Bush Administration's Approaches to Valuing Human Lives in Environmental Cost-Benefit Analyses, with Laura Lowenstein. 34 Environmental Law Reporter 10,954 (2004).
Foundations of Environmental Law and Policy. 2nd Ed.(2000).
Federalism and Interstate Environmental Externalities, 144 U. Pa. L. Rev. 2341 (1996) cited by the Supreme Court in EPA v. EME Homer City Generation, 572 U. S. ____ (2014).