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Environmental activists said they were pleased with the pause in new leases and permits, but were concerned that Judge Cain’s decision would ultimately undermine the administration’s ability to issue aggressive climate policies.
“It’s a mixed bag,” said Brett Hartl, director of government affairs at the nonprofit Center for Biodiversity. “At some point they will have to make the leases and not be able to tap into the social cost of carbon.”
Calling the social cost of carbon the “voodoo economy,” Louisiana attorney general Jeff Landry argued that Mr. Biden overstepped his authority by applying the social cost of carbon to his decision-making. Attorneys general of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, South Dakota, Texas, West Virginia, and Wyoming attended.
Judge Cain sided with Republican attorneys general, arguing that using a social carbon cost was unconstitutional because Congress never passed legislation that allowed it.
Yet Congress has passed almost no legislation addressing how an administration should conduct economic analysis, as it has done for years. In a statement ridiculed by some lawyers, the judge referred to a “separation of powers clause” in the Constitution. There is no such provision.
“This term in the opinion is one of the most embarrassing parts of an extremely embarrassing view,” said Amit Narang, an expert on federal regulatory issues with the government watchdog group Public Citizen. He described the judge’s opinion as “a partisan political hit business dressed as a legal opinion”.
Meanwhile, the decision abruptly stopped the work of the administration. this Interagency working group pending to update social cost of carbonAccording to an email from the Environmental Protection Agency and the Justice Department, other policies could be delayed as well. The Competitive Enterprise Institute opposed to addressing climate change, the EPA’s repeal a new regulation on vehicle exhaust gas emissions, Arguing that the analysis using the social cost of carbon, based on Judge Cain’s decision, is now flawed.
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