The White House has ordered federal agencies to stop considering the economic damage caused by climate change in writing regulations, except in cases where it is “clearly required” by law.
The guideline effective shelves A powerful tool that has been used by the federal government for more than two decades to weigh the costs and benefits of a certain policy or regulations.
The BIDEN administration had used the tool to strengthen the limits of greenhouse gas emissions, power plants, factories and oil refineries.
Known as the “Social costs of carbon,“The statistics reflects the estimated damage due to global warming, including forest fires, floods and drought. It confirms a costs for the economy of a ton of carbon dioxide pollution, the most important greenhouse gas that the planet heats.
When considering a regulation or policy to limit carbon pollution, policy makers have weighed the costs for an industry of complying with that requirement against the economic impact of that pollution on society.
During the Obama administration, economists of the White House calculated the social costs of carbon at $ 42 per ton. The first Trump administration reduced it to less than $ 5 per ton. The costs were under the Biden administration adapted for inflation and jumped up to $ 190 per ton.
But “it is no longer the federal government policy to maintain a uniform estimate of the candied effects of greenhouse gas emissions,” wrote Jeffrey B. Clark, the acting manager of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, in a memo of 5 May.
In his memo, Mr. Clark doubted the scientific consensus that pollution through things such as transport and industry heats the planet.
He argued that there were too many ‘uncertainties’ in calculating the figure, including ‘or and to what extent assumed changes in the climate will actually take place as a result of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.’
Scientists and environmental groups say that the Trump government denies reality.
“It is very clear that climate change is damaging people in the United States and all over the world, and that this damage is getting worse with increasing warming,” said Robert E. Kopp, a climate scientist at Rutgers University. “By effectively saying that the social costs of carbon must be treated as zero, this policy ignores randomly and on whimsical science and economy of climate change on whimsical policy.”
Michael Greenstone, an economist at the University of Chicago, who first came up with the idea of the social costs of carbon as a justification for climate policy, said that the new guidance means that “feelings, no facts” would guide federal policy.
“The decision is like Alice in Wonderland’s Humpty Dumpty, who said:” Words can mean what I choose to mean, “said Mr. Greenstone.” So yes, it is possible to have a policy that climate change will not have any consequences, but that doesn’t make it. “
The American Petroleum Institute, which lobbys on behalf of the oil and gas industry, has called “Limit the application of the social costs of carbon” to only the construction phase of certain oil and gas projects. Republican lawyers -general have fought at the social costs of carbon and described it as an attack on industry.
That is because when the metric is used, the economic benefits of, for example, reducing the emissions of cars or power plants is rising drastically. The higher the estimate of the benefits, the greater the government’s justification to force industries to reduce pollution.
“This number means that the government has a weapon that can use it to justify everything it wants to do,” said Elizabeth Murrill, when the lawyer of Louisiana, in 2023, while the Biden administration increased the cost estimate of the costs.
Richard L. Revesz, an expert in the field of climate legislation who served as a regulatory leader in the BIDEN administration, said that the new policy would make it easier for the Trump government to reverse climate regulations.
It remains unclear whether environmental groups will sue the administration for not considering the social costs of carbon. But analysts said that the approval of projects, such as pipelines or power plants, would most likely be confronted with legal challenges based on the fact that the administration would not take climate change into account.
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