Missouri Loses Appeal Challenging Biden’s Social Cost of Carbon

by Alex Guillén (Politico Pro) The ruling marks the second red state lawsuit against the regulatory metric to fall short. -- The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit on Friday rejected a lawsuit brought by Missouri and a dozen other Republican-controlled states seeking to block President Joe Biden’s social cost of carbon, the figure used to estimate climate change-related costs and benefits of federal regulations.

The ruling marks the second red state lawsuit against the regulatory metric to fall short. The Biden administration is working on an update that is expected to significantly increase the value of the social cost of carbon — though it has been delayed for unexplained reasons.

Background: A Missouri-led coalition of states sued in 2021 over Biden's $51-per-ton social cost of carbon, arguing it violated the separation of powers and administrative procedures. Judge Audrey Fleissig of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri quickly dismissed the case after finding the states lacked standing because they could not show an actual injury attributed directly to the social cost of carbon. READ MORE

Excerpt from Reuters: The states argued in a lawsuit filed in Missouri federal court last year that the pricing system would lead to regulatory restrictions that would overburden farmers and manufacturers.

In response to a similar challenge by a group of seven Republican-led states, a Trump-appointed federal judge in Louisiana said in February the president lacks the authority to unilaterally write policies that fundamentally transform legislative rules or the economy and issued an injunction blocking the metric.

After the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that sweeping injunction, the U.S. Supreme Court in May affirmed. READ MORE

Excerpt from Bloomberg Law: Missouri and a dozen other states must wait until an agency uses the Biden administration’s interim estimates on the costs of greenhouse gases before alleging those estimates caused them harm, a federal appeals court affirmed Friday.

The states failed to convince the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit to revive their lawsuit challenging the estimates on the social costs of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide. Their case followed a similar challenge by Louisiana, Alabama, and eight others was dealt a setback when the US Supreme Court denied their bid to block use of the estimates.

The states here argued the interagency working group that created the estimates lacked legislative authority. They also said they were illegally denied the opportunity to comment on those interim estimates.

The federal government urged the panel to uphold a lower court’s decision dismissing the lawsuit. There was no evidence of an agency action that relied on the estimates and threatened to harm the states, the Justice Department argued, and the interim estimates will eventually be replaced.

The states failed to allege plausible injury that was traceable to the interim estimates, so federal courts lack subject matter jurisdiction, the Eighth Circuit said.

The economic injuries alleged by the states were only “concrete” if the court assumed that multiple agencies would issue regulations relying on the estimates in the future, that the agencies would disregard any objections to the methodology by which they were calculated, and that the regulations would then harm plaintiffs in a concrete and particularized way, the judges said.

The other dispute over the estimates currently awaits a final decision from the Fifth Circuit.

The Justice Department represented the federal government. The Missouri Attorney General’s Office led the 13 states.