Biden’s social cost of carbon math is challenged in court
Tom KirkmanIndependent Project Manager
Biden’s carbon math is being called out as bullpoop in court.
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“Louisiana is at the center of a lawsuit against the Biden administration over how much planet-warming emissions cost society.
Joined by nine other Republican-led states, Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry is leading a challenge against increasing the estimate of damage caused by greenhouse gas emissions amid speculation that he plans to run for governor.
… In their unanimous decision, the three circuit court judges called the states’ concerns over immediate harm “merely hypothetical.”
What is the social cost of carbon?
At the crux of the legal battle sits a little-known, wonky economics concept that plays a critical role in balancing the generational impact of climate change in federal policy and regulations.
The social cost of greenhouse gasses assigns dollar figures to the long-term damage caused by the emission of three contributors to global warming: carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide.
“It’s the cost that we impose on society by emitting one additional ton of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere,” said Greg Upton, an associate research professor at Louisiana State University’s Center for Energy Studies. “And that cost on society is the cost not only on today’s society but also future generations.”
The federal government first started using the metric under the Bush administration after a court ruled that officials failed to adequately consider the damages posed by climate change in a new fuel economy standard.
The Obama administration then looked to standardize the tool and improve models for calculations by creating an Interagency Working Group to figure out how much the emissions cost people.
… Landry’s lawsuit calls the social cost of greenhouse gasses “made-up,” “arbitrary” and crafted “out of whole cloth.”
… “The government can justify killing cows (because they emit methane), pipeline projects (because pipeline-related projects might contribute to downstream consumption of oil or gas), road projects (because concrete and traffic contribute to GHGs), … and so on,” stated Landry’s Supreme Court application.