"WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Friday blocked the Biden administration’s attempt to put greater emphasis on potential damage from greenhouse gas emissions when creating rules for polluting industries.
U.S. District Judge James Cain of the Western District of Louisiana sided with Republican attorneys general from energy producing states who said the administration’s action to raise the cost estimate of carbon emissions threatened to drive up energy costs while decreasing state revenues from energy production.
The judge issued an injunction that bars the Biden administration from using the higher cost estimate, which puts a dollar value on damages caused by every additional ton of greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere.
President Joe Biden on his first day in office restored the climate cost estimate to about $51 per ton of carbon dioxide emissions after the Trump administration had reduced the figure to about $7 or less per ton. Former President Donald Trump’s estimate included only damages felt in the U.S. versus the global damages captured in higher estimates that were previously used under the Obama administration."
Matthew Brown, Matthew Daly, and Kevin McGill report for the Associated Press February 11, 2022.
SEE ALSO:
"Judge Blocks Key Biden Climate Metric" (E&E News)
"States Win Bid to Freeze Biden’s Interim Social Cost of Carbon" (Bloomberg Environment)
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