Court Stops Biden Admin from Transformative Expansion in Regulatory Authority
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A federal court blocked the Biden Administration from implementing “social cost of carbon” regulations today. CEI experts reacted to the decision.
Senior fellow Marlo Lewis said:
“The Court’s decision is insightful and groundbreaking. It is a reminder that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. Agencies can ‘cause an enormous and transformative expansion in [their] regulatory authority without clear congressional authorization’ just by making seemingly small changes to accounting procedures. As the Court explains, the Biden administration’s ‘decision to drop the 7 percent discount rate [in calculating the monetary value of greenhouse gas emissions and reductions] and increase the time frame of relevant effects to three centuries, will fundamentally transform regulatory analysis and the national economy.’”
Attorney Devin Watkins said:
“President Biden had attempted to require agencies to focus on other nations’ climate costs when Congress was focused on our nation. Judge Cain, rejected Biden’s authority to issue such ‘fundamentally transformative legislative rules in areas of vast political, social, and economic importance.’ Congress creates the rules under which we live, not the President. If Biden wishes to undermine the American economy to benefit foreign nations, he has to convince the people’s representatives in Congress that is the right thing to do.”
Director of CEI’s Center for Energy and Environment Myron Ebell said:“This is a huge ruling that potentially can be used to challenge regulations already in force that use the social cost of carbon as a justification. It conceivably threatens the whole climate regulatory house of cards constructed by the Obama-Biden and Biden-Harris administrations.”
Related:
Roger Pielke, Jr. Debunks Biden Administration Social Cost of Carbon Estimates