![]() ![]() That value leaves out co-benefits of the rule, or additional reductions in ozone, fine particulate and hazardous air pollutants not directly targeted by EPA’s regulation, Newell added.ĮPA’s move is noteworthy because the agency has faced criticism in the past for focusing on indirect benefits. "One could imagine if it was close, that might be a basis for questioning the level of stringency of the rule," Newell said. The agency had found that the net climate benefits alone of its proposed methane rules for new and existing sources would be $48 billion - meaning the benefits outweighed the costs at a margin of 7-to-1, he said. "On the other side, industry folks and states are going to say, ‘Do the inputs properly account for the economic and societal benefits of energy production?’"īarron noted that administrations have come up with vastly different values for greenhouse gases, depending on the parameters federal officials set in the calculation.ĮPA appears to have a strong defense for the cost-benefit calculation behind its proposed methane rules because the agency’s predictions of future benefits are so high, said Newell of Resources for the Future. The conflict would be over the government’s accounting of "the potential ecological and economic impacts of the emissions," he said. Under the standing doctrine, a court can scrap lawsuits in their early stages if it finds that a legal challenger has not presented a concrete harm eligible for judicial review.Īny suit on the social cost of methane would likely come down to a fight over whether the inputs into the metric were reasonable, said Mark Barron, a partner at the firm BakerHostetler. "It’s a less of an obvious question, whether a regulatory impact analysis at the agency does impart procedural rights that are afforded by the, whether that can afford standing," he said. If groups were to say the Biden administration’s use of the social cost of methane was not legitimate, they would probably have to sue in the context of the agency’s analysis, said Andres Restrepo, a senior attorney at the Sierra Club. "While it is an important ingredient in the impact analysis that EPA has done to evaluate the benefits and costs of the proposed rule, the value itself is not determinative in setting the stringency of the actions," he said. States or industry groups may have a difficult time establishing harm from the use of the Biden administration’s metric in regulatory cost-benefit analyses, said Richard Newell, president and CEO of Resources for the Future. "I don’t think EPA would have much to worry about on the social cost of greenhouse gases front," said Richard Revesz, a law professor and director of New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity.īut he noted that any EPA rule of "any consequence" is going to be challenged in court. Some legal and regulatory experts are skeptical that EPA’s methane rules - once they are finalized - could be the best path for the red states to reinvigorate their challenge to the Biden administration’s emissions metric. ![]() An interagency working group is expected to announce the Biden administration’s final value next year. The Biden team’s interim number is a slightly updated version of an Obama-era metric that has been upheld in the courts, legal experts note. Federal agencies under former President Trump had placed the cost of a metric ton of carbon emissions at just $1 and considered only domestic, not global, economic impacts. A higher estimate of the value of controlling carbon, methane or another greenhouse gas helps federal agencies make a stronger case for stricter rules on regulated industries.īiden’s team is using interim values of about $51 per metric ton of carbon and $1,500 per metric ton of methane. 31).Ī similar lawsuit led by Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry (R) is scheduled for a hearing next month in another federal district court.Īt issue in the states’ challenges is a metric that is used in cost-benefit analyses that federal agencies draw up to support major rules they write. The challenge led by Schmitt is currently on appeal after Fleissig, an Obama appointee, said that the states didn’t have grounds to sue over Biden’s metric before it even appeared in any regulations ( Greenwire, Aug. A new lawsuit opposing EPA’s methane rules is "certainly something that we will look into as we move forward with our appeal on the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases case," Chris Nuelle, a spokesperson for Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt (R), wrote in an email.
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