Court ruling on social cost of carbon upends Biden’s climate plans

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By Maxine Joselow, The Washington Post. 

Excerpt: A recent court ruling that bars the Biden administration from accounting for the real-world costs of climate change has created temporary chaos at federal agencies, upending everything from planned oil and gas lease sales to infrastructure spending. The Feb. 11 decision by a Louisiana federal judge blocked the Biden administration from using a higher estimate for the damage that each additional ton of greenhouse gas pollution causes society. This formula, called the social cost of carbon, applies to consequential decisions affecting fossil fuel extraction on public lands, infrastructure projects and even international climate talks. ...President Biden last year directed federal agencies to applyan interim social cost of carbon of $51 per ton — the figure used under former president Barack Obama — while his administration weighed whether to raise itto as high as $125 per ton. Under former president Donald Trump, that figure had fallen as low as $1 per ton, as his appointees recalculated the impacts of climate change on present and future generations.…

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