The Biden administration can finally resume using a key metric to determine environmental regulations, thanks to a stay issued by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday. An injunction was granted by a Louisiana judge in February that prevented the Biden administration from using the “social cost of carbon” to influence its policy-making decisions when it comes to climate change. It was Louisiana, and other pollution-heavy states like West Virginia and Texas, that sued the federal government over the regulation, which the plaintiffs claimed would harm states looking to continue profiting off of fossil fuels at the expense of the planet. The nine-page order issued by Judges Leslie Southwick, James E. Graves Jr., and Gregg Costa states that “the government defendants [Biden et al.] are likely to succeed on the merits because the plaintiff states lack standing… because it is, at this point, merely hypothetical.” States claimed they would be somehow harmed by having to adhere to stricter guidelines that ensure the U.S. has at least a fighting chance in the battle against climate change. The judges rightfully took the Biden administration’s side.
The social cost of carbon is one of the most comprehensive means of calculating the financial cost of climate change—specifically, the price of one tonne of greenhouse gas emissions—taking into account scientific and economic analysis that includes questions like how much sea levels will rise and how much it will cost to address such a dire consequence of our warming planet. As the Columbia Climate School notes, it is but one of a suite of tools the U.S. and the rest of the planets must implement to properly address climate change. That includes investments in renewables and emerging technologies, according to Center on Global Energy Policy Peter Marsters. Many advocacy groups praised the order issued this week, including Environmental Defense Fund General Counsel Vickie Patton, who slammed Trump-appointed Judge James D. Cain Jr’s Feb. 11 injunction, which she said was “profoundly flawed, contrary to law, and would have put people’s lives and health at risk.”
Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry, who spearheaded the case against the government, has yet to issue a statement about his office’s latest loss but over the course of this week continued pushing the false narrative that the social cost of carbon is somehow not only a job-killer but a threat to American energy independence. Landry spewed his bullshit on OAN and Fox Business—two right-wing networks eager to promote his oil-loving dreck. He’s pushed for the resumption of the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, going so far as to sue President Biden last year over it and parrots endless oil and gas industry talking points, including the false claim that fossil fuels somehow lift communities out of poverty. This latter point, which he argued during his OAN appearance, has not only been consistently disproven but has shown to actually worsen existing inequality. According to a paper published in the Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists from 2018 on oil and extreme rural poverty, “if anything, booming countries are less efficient at converting growth to poverty reduction. These results suggest that oil booms increase regional inequality.”
Earthjustice Senior Attorney Hana Vizcarra called out Landry’s remarks for being a “misdirection” of what the social cost of carbon truly represents. “The social cost of carbon is just one additional tool building on developments in the scientific and economic communities to help agencies... It is a piece of information that gets incorporated into their analyses,” Vizcarra said. “It doesn’t dictate the outcome of any of those things, it’s just helping synthesize the best scientific and economic information.” As for the Fifth Circuit’s stay, “this is really a straightforward black-letter law decision.”
Vizcarra applauded the court for disproving the more hyperbolic claims from Louisiana, et al., and made it hard for the states to move forward with their original arguments. Landry could consider an en banc hearing that would kick the case back to the full Fifth Circuit instead of a panel of judges. Were the court to rule similarly to its recent order, “I don’t see where he goes with this,” Vizcarra admitted.