The Supreme Court sided with the Biden administration on Thursday when it declined to reinstate an order blocking the administration from using its calculations of the social cost of various climate pollutants when crafting regulations. Ten GOP attorneys general are challenging the administration’s calculations of the “social cost” of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide emissions and sought to reinstate a far-lower calculation imposed by the previous administration.
The Biden administration is using an interim value of $51 per ton of CO2 emitted (the amount used by the Obama administration) while an interagency working group formulates an updated amount, which experts say could be as high as $200 or more. The order blocking the use of social costs of pollutants, in place for 33 days, substantially reduced the amount of benefits EPA could count from the implementation of a draft ozone pollution rule it released in March. (AP, SCOTUSblog, Washington Post $, New York Times $, E&E News, Politico, Bloomberg $, The Hill; EPA Ozone Rule: E&E News)