(Renewable Fuels Association) In a detailed brief submitted late Friday to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, the Renewable Fuels Association and 55 other parties argued that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency unlawfully exceeded its statutory authority and acted arbitrarily and capriciously by
social cost
Back TO HOMEBiden’s EPA Can Justify His New EV Rules Only by Cooking the Books
Benjamin Zycher (American Enterprise Institute/The Hill) Before federal regulations are implemented, they must be justified with an extensive analysis of costs and effects. The new Environmental Protection Agency rule forcing a massive shift toward electric vehicles is no exception. Weighing in at 1,181
April 03, 2024 Read Full Article
Cellulosic Biofuels Win for Ground Transportation
by Lauren Quinn (University of Illinois Agri-View) Despite the fervor around electric vehicles and their potential to reduce the transportation sector’s carbon footprint, 2023 projections suggest electric vehicles won’t edge out gas-powered vehicles for decades to come. With conventional vehicles
March 28, 2024 Read Full Article
Social Cost of Carbon Goes Shopping
by Jean Chemnick (Politico's Power Switch) ... That’s new territory for an old regulatory staple that has been in use since the George W. Bush administration, which started developing the social cost of carbon after a federal court ruled that the
January 12, 2024 Read Full Article
Biden Admin Floats Idea of Adding Climate Impacts to Fines, Penalties
by Jean Chemnick (Politico Pro Climatewire) The proposal comes from a White House directive highlighting the social cost of greenhouse gases. -- Breaking the law soon could get more expensive for companies and people who violate U.S. environmental regulations. That’s based on a
October 06, 2023 Read Full Article
Biden Broadens Use of Social Cost of Carbon
by Jean Chemnick (E&E News Climatewire) The Biden administration announced plans Thursday to consider climate costs in a much broader swath of government policies and decisions than ever before — including how the federal government wields its massive buying power. The social
September 25, 2023 Read Full Article
SAF in the IRA Era – How Do the Incentives Stack up?
by Megan Boutwell (Stillwater Associates) The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA) provides for a two-phased approach to incentivize sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) production. The first phase, 2023-2024, expands the biomass-based diesel blenders tax credit (BTC) to include a separate per-gallon incentive
April 13, 2023 Read Full Article
Why EPA’s Huge Social Cost of Carbon Might Fail to Halt CO2
by Jean Chemnick (E&E Climatewire) EPA is about to finalize a sky-high value for carbon that could be used whenever the federal government leases land to oil drillers or buys new mail trucks. But its effect on actual policymaking may be limited. The
March 09, 2023 Read Full Article
Senate Committee Considers National Clean Fuel Standard
by Mike Lee (E&E News Climatewire) A federal standard has "enormous potential" if it improves on state-level programs, industry and trade officials told the Environment and Public Works Committee. -- Senators debated the merits of a national clean fuel standard Wednesday,
February 16, 2023 Read Full Article
EPA Floats Sharp Increase to Social Cost of Carbon
by Niina H Farah and Lesley Clark (Politico) The agency quietly proposed a new price tag for the damages caused by greenhouse gas emissions, as the Biden administration faces ongoing Republican lawsuits over its use of the metric in crafting
November 21, 2022 Read Full Article
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
October 21, 2022 Read Full Article
Costs Associated with Carbon Emissions Three Times Federal Estimate: Study
by Zack Budryk (The Hill) The social cost of carbon is significantly higher than the federal estimate, according to a study published Thursday in the journal Nature. Researchers put the financial toll associated with projected future carbon emissions at $185 per ton of carbon pollution
September 02, 2022 Read Full Article
Supreme Court Rejects Red States' Plea to Block Biden Climate Metric
by Alex Guillen (Politico) -The decision means the White House can move forward with its plans to overhaul and likely significantly increase the number known as the social cost of carbon. -The Supreme Court’s refusal to get involved in the
May 27, 2022 Read Full Article
Court Ruling on Social Cost of Carbon Upends Biden’s Climate Plans
by Maxine Joselow (Washington Post) 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
February 22, 2022 Read Full Article
Auto Rule Targeted after Climate Injunction
by Matthew Choi (Politico's Morning Energy) The fallout has started arriving following last week's court order blocking the Biden administration from using its social cost of carbon metric in rulemakings. The conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute on Tuesday sent a letter asking EPA
February 16, 2022 Read Full Article
Request for Nominations of Experts for the Review of Technical Support Document for the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases DEADLINE February 15, 2022
(Environmental Protection Agency/Federal Register) The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) National Center for Environmental Economics (NCEE), on behalf of the co-chairs of the Interagency Working Group on the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases (IWG), including the Chair of the Council of Economic
January 25, 2022 Read Full Article
U.S. to Sharply Cut Methane Pollution that Threatens the Climate and Public Health Public Comments DEADLINE: January 31, 2022
(Environmental Protection Agency) Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) took an important step forward to advance President Biden’s commitment to action on climate change and protect people’s health by proposing comprehensive new protections to sharply reduce pollution from the oil and natural gas industry –
November 02, 2021 Read Full Article
RFA Stresses Tech-Neutral, Market-Based Approach to California Emissions Reduction
(Renewable Fuels Association) In comments submitted late last week, the Renewable Fuels Association reminded the California Air Resources Board that the state’s path toward achieving its carbon reduction targets should be technology-neutral, inclusive of a broad array of low- and zero-carbon technologies. RFA
October 26, 2021 Read Full Article
Notice of Proposed Rulemaking: Corporate Average Fuel Economy Standards for Model Years 2024-2026 Passenger Cars and Light Trucks Public Comment DEADLINE: September 27, 2021 Hearing: August 25, 2021
(National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) NHTSA, on behalf of the Department of Transportation, is proposing revised fuel economy standards for passenger cars and light trucks for model years 2024-2026. On January 20, 2021, President Biden signed Executive Order (EO) 13990, “Protecting
August 13, 2021 Read Full Article
Study: Cost of Carbon Emissions Measured in Lives Lost Is High
by Andrew Freedman (Axios) ... Adding projected heat-related deaths into cost-benefit analysis of federal rules would tilt policymaking in favor of more aggressive carbon emissions cuts, a new study finds. Why it matters: The social cost of carbon helps determine the outcome of cost-benefit analyses that underpin
July 29, 2021 Read Full Article
Biden Is Hiking the Cost of Carbon. It Will Change How the U.S. Tackles Global Warming.
by Juliet Eilperin and Brady Dennis (Washington Post) President Biden on Friday dramatically altered the way the U.S. government calculates the real-world cost of climate change, a move that could reshape a range of consequential decisions, from whether to allow new coal
February 26, 2021 Read Full Article
Researchers Challenge the CRP Status Quo to Mitigate Fossil Fuels
(University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment/Phys.Org) ... (A)llocating CRP land for high-yielding energy biomass might eliminate the need for bioenergy crops and food crops to vie for space. A team led by CABBI Sustainability Theme Leader
February 26, 2021 Read Full Article
Social Distance, Meet Social Carbon
by Zack Coleman (Politico's Morning Energy) The White House is expected to sharply raise the government’s calculation of how much greenhouse gases will cost the U.S. in the future, a policy change that will make it easier for his administration
February 19, 2021 Read Full Article
John Kerry's Climate Plan, in His Own Words: In an Interview with Amanda Little, He Promises a "Total Rethink" and Trillions in Global Investment as He Works to Speed the Shift from Fossil Fuels.
by Amanda Little (Bloomberg Opinion) As President Joe Biden's Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, John Kerry will play perhaps the most critical role internationally in managing a planetary crisis. ... AL: Yet progressive climate activists have said that “climate delay-al” is
January 29, 2021 Read Full Article
Updating the United States Government’s Social Cost of Carbon
by Michael Greenstone and Tamma Carleton (Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago) This paper outlines a two-step process to return the United States government’s Social Cost of Carbon (SCC) to the frontier of economics and climate science. The first
January 20, 2021 Read Full Article
Updating the Social Cost of Carbon
by Kelsey Tamborrino (Politico's Morning Energy) New analysis this morning recommends a two-step approach for the Biden administration to immediately update the social cost of carbon. First, the report calls for using a "discount rate" of no higher than 2
January 16, 2021 Read Full Article
Biden Climate Team Says It Underestimated Trump's Damage
by Adam Aton (E&E News) President-elect Joe Biden's transition team says the Trump administration has done more damage than anticipated to the government's ability to address climate change. Potentially lowering expectations for the incoming president's early climate efforts, Biden officials say their
January 07, 2021 Read Full Article
ESG Investing and the Bioeconomy: Part 1 – Impact and ESG Investing Through the Financier’s Eyes
by Cynthia Thyfault and Gerard J. Ostheimer (Global Biofuture Solutions/Biofuels Digest) Due to a wide range of global challenges including climate change, environmental sustainability, social inequality, and the need for ethical corporate governance, ESG investing and reporting has become the “new
August 26, 2020 Read Full Article
Trump Administration Has Been Underestimating Costs of Carbon Pollution, Government Watchdog Finds
by Rebecca Beitsch (The Hill) The Trump administration has been systematically underestimating the damage caused by carbon pollution, slashing figures used under the Obama administration to weigh the impacts of policy, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office
July 14, 2020 Read Full Article
Country-Level Social Cost of Carbon
by Katharine Ricke, Laurent Drouet, Ken Caldeira and Massimo Tavoni (Nature Climate Change) The social cost of carbon (SCC) is a commonly employed metric of the expected economic damages from carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Although useful in an optimal policy context, a
October 03, 2018 Read Full Article
Emissions, Energy, and Economic Implications of the Curbelo Carbon Tax Proposal
(Columbia University's Center on Global Energy Policy) In July 2018 Representative Carlos Curbelo proposed legislation that would put a price on US carbon dioxide emissions (“Curbelo proposal”). A carbon price is widely viewed as a necessary part of a cost-effective national
July 23, 2018 Read Full Article
How Induced Innovation Lowers the Cost of a Carbon Tax
by Joe Kennedy (Information Technology and Innovation Foundation) Evidence shows a carbon tax will induce innovation that will lower the cost of reducing CO2 emissions. If the revenues are recycled to expand tax incentives for research and capital investment, a modest
June 25, 2018 Read Full Article
GAO to Look into Trump's Reduction of Carbon Social Costs
by Miranda Green (The Hill) A government watchdog has agreed to review the Trump administration's method for calculating the social cost of carbon, including examining the decision to drop the rate as first determined during the Obama's administration. The Government Accountability Office
June 18, 2018 Read Full Article
EPA to Change How It Considers Costs, Benefits of Regulations COMMENTS DEADLINE: July 13, 2018
by Erin Voegele (Ethanol Producer Magazine) On June 7, the U.S. EPA issued an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking, announcing the agency is soliciting public input on whether and how to change the way it considers costs and benefits in making
June 08, 2018 Read Full Article
Drills and Pipelines May Pollute Our Climate but Words Will Break or Make Us
by Michael Eggleston* (Advanced Biofuels USA) Carbon is the backbone of the fossil-based economy and feedstock to a bio-based economy. However, how exactly this carbon is handled continues to divide people regarding what the development of a bio-based economy is
May 03, 2018 Read Full Article
California Says a Car-Emissions Deal With Trump Could Be Doable
by Mark Chediak, Ryan Beene, and John Lippert (Bloomberg) ‘Reason could prevail,’ chair of Air Resources Board says; State is considering a lawsuit to preserve its options -- California’s top air-quality regulator sees hope for a deal with the Trump administration over fuel
April 11, 2018 Read Full Article
EPA Publishes CAFE Standards Mid-Term Evaluation Final Determination
(U.S. Environmental Protection Agency) On April 2, 2018, the Administrator signed the Mid-term Evaluation Final Determination which finds that the model year 2022-2025 greenhouse gas standards are not appropriate in light of the record before EPA and, therefore, should be revised.
April 02, 2018 Read Full Article
Regulating Indirect Land Use Carbon Emissions Carries Cost to Consumers
by Deborah Gertz Husar (Herald-Whig) ... University of Illinois agricultural economist Madhu Khanna said the low-carbon fuel standard creates incentives to switch to low-carbon advanced biofuels, but including the indirect effect makes compliance more costly and fuel more expensive for consumers. "What
December 30, 2017 Read Full Article
Schneiderman Backs Carbon Tax
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman became the first New York statewide elected official to back a carbon tax this week, POLITICO New York's Danielle Muoio reports. "That includes passing legislation to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions, including a carbon
December 27, 2017 Read Full Article
GAO to Look at Social Cost of Carbon
by Arianna Skibell (E&E News) An independent government watchdog has agreed to examine how the Trump administration uses the social cost of carbon, the metric used to calculate the impact of greenhouse gas emissions. READ MORE WATCHDOG AGENCY TO STUDY TRUMP CHANGES
December 22, 2017 Read Full Article
Mail Call! Don't Turn the Car (Standards) Around
by Anthony Adragna (Politico's Morning Energy) At least 22 Democratic senators, led by Ed Markey, Sheldon Whitehouse and Kamala Harris , are sending Pruitt a letter this morning urging him not to weaken emissions standards for model years 2021 through
December 06, 2017 Read Full Article
True “Social Cost Of Carbon” Is More Than Double Earlier Estimates, Study Finds
by James Ayre (Clean Technica) The true “social cost of carbon” is more than double earlier estimates — with even just an updated accounting of the agricultural sector on its own more than doubling earlier estimates in aggregate — according to
November 30, 2017 Read Full Article
Does Regulating Indirect Land Use Change Work? The Digest’s 2017 Multi-Slide Guide to ILUC Reform
by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana professor Madhu Khanna has been raising issues with including an indirect land use change factor for compliance with low carbon fuel standards. Why, since ILUC is a required calculation for the Renewable Fuel
November 20, 2017 Read Full Article
Failure to Set Cost of Carbon Hampers Trump’s Effort to Expand Use of Fossil Fuels
by Andrew Revkin (ProPublica) The Trump administration plans to sharply reduce the government’s estimate of how much each ton of carbon emissions harms the planet. It hasn’t done so yet, and that delay is slowing Trump’s effort to expand coal mining
August 28, 2017 Read Full Article
Cash for Carbon: A Randomized Trial of Payments for Ecosystem Services to Reduce Deforestation
by Seema Jayachandran, Joost de Laat, Eric F. Lambin, Charlotte Y. Stanton, Robin Audy, Nancy E. Thomas (Science Magazine) Trees take up a lot of CO2, so one approach to reducing the rate of increase in atmospheric CO2 levels is to reduce
July 21, 2017 Read Full Article
Regulating the Indirect Land Use Carbon Emissions from Biofuels Imposes High Hidden Costs on Fuel Consumers
(Phys.Org/ University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) ... To penalize the carbon emissions from this so-called indirect land use change, the USEPA and California Air Resources Board include an indirect land use change factor when considering the carbon savings with biofuels for
June 28, 2017 Read Full Article
Updating and Improving the Social Cost of Carbon
(Resources for the Future) The social cost of carbon is an economic tool used to quantify the societal benefits of reducing —or conversely the damages of emitting—one ton of carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere. The estimate informs billions of dollars
June 09, 2017 Read Full Article
Trump Releases "An America First Energy Plan"
(White House) Energy is an essential part of American life and a staple of the world economy. The Trump Administration is committed to energy policies that lower costs for hardworking Americans and maximize the use of American resources, freeing us
January 20, 2017 Read Full Article
Scientists Have a New Way to Calculate What Global Warming Costs. Trump’s Team Isn’t Going to Like It.
by Chelsea Harvey (The Washington Post) How we view the costs of future climate change, and more importantly how we quantify them, may soon be changing. A much-anticipated new report, just released by the National Academy of Sciences, recommends major
January 13, 2017 Read Full Article
The Coming Battle between the Trump Team and Economists over the True Cost of Climate Change
by Chelsea Harvey (The Washington Post) ... It seems increasingly likely that the Trump administration would either alter, or attempt to stop using entirely, an Obama-era metric known as the “social cost of carbon” in its federal rule-making processes. And that could have have
December 22, 2016 Read Full Article
Blog: Competing with Sub $50 Oil - a Strategy for Biofuels
by Irshad Ahmed (Lee Enterprises Consulting/Biofuels International) If bioenergy represents a sustainable energy future for the planet, then why must it compete with oil prices to be deemed a feasible energy alternative for the society? The answer is simple: It is because
September 03, 2016 Read Full Article
Court Upholds Obama's Social Cost of Carbon Accounting for Federal Regulations
by Robert Walton (Utility Dive) The Obama Administration has won a significant victory for its use of a social cost metric to determine the impacts of new environmental and efficiency rules, in a unanimous circuit court decision that appeared to leave opponents with little
August 23, 2016 Read Full Article
Court Backs Obama’s Climate Change Accounting
by Timothy Cana (The Hill) A federal appeals court is upholding the Obama administration’s accounting of the costs of greenhouse gas emissions as applied to a Department of Energy (DOE) regulation. In a unanimous decision late Monday, the Chicago-based 7th Circuit
August 15, 2016 Read Full Article
Fossil Fuel Companies Impose More in Climate Costs than They Make in Profits
by David Roberts (Vox) ... People sometimes refer to the unpaid cost of carbon pollution as a subsidy, or an "implicit subsidy," to polluting businesses. The IMF recently issued a report saying that total worldwide subsidies to energy, mainly fossil fuel
July 06, 2016 Read Full Article
Proxy Carbon Pricing: A Tool for Fiscally Rational and Climate-Compatible Governance
by Alison Cassady and Gwynne Taraska (Center for American Progress) ... By putting a price on carbon, governments can correct the market’s failure to account for the climate costs of burning fossil fuels; in so doing, carbon pricing mechanisms
April 18, 2016 Read Full Article
Ted Cruz on Energy and Climate: Free Market Directions
by Robert Bradley Jr. (Master Resource) ... 1) Do you support ending all energy subsidies, including cleaning up the tax code to treat all types of energy the same? A: Yes, I support a true all-of-the-above approach to energy, ending all
April 04, 2016 Read Full Article
Modeling Climate Change and its Social Costs
by Osaretin Oghomwen Omorodion* (Advanced Biofuels USA) On November 13th, the National Academies of Science's Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education convened with its board of Environmental Change and Society to assess current trends in monitoring climate change
December 17, 2015 Read Full Article
Everyone’s Favorite Climate Change Fix
by Cristina Maza (The Christian Science Monitor) Economists, officials, and executives across the globe increasingly support carbon pricing to stem the rise of greenhouse-gas emissions. Can it work? --- ... “Pricing carbon obviously adds a cost to our production and our products,”
October 29, 2015 Read Full Article
Canada Could Slash CO2 Emissions with Existing Technologies, Proven Policies
by Emily Chung (CBC News) Regulation or pricing of emissions is key, Council of Canadian Academies suggests -- Canada could drastically cut its greenhouse gas emissions and meet international climate change commitments using existing commercially available technologies and policies that have
October 28, 2015 Read Full Article
Working Paper: Implementing Effective Carbon Pricing
by James Rydge (New Climate Economy) Support for carbon pricing is growing around the world. Governments, businesses and investors are recognising that nationally-appropriate taxes and trading schemes, as part of a well-aligned package of policies for low-carbon change, can reduce greenhouse gas (GHG)
October 27, 2015 Read Full Article
After Pope’s Speech, House Turns to Bill That Bars Tallying “Social Cost” of Carbon
by Ben Geman (National Journal) ... Later Thursday, the House is slated to begin debating GOP legislation to streamline environmental analyses and permit decisions for projects “undertaken, reviewed, or funded by Federal agencies.” Tucked into the bill, called the Rapid Act, is a
September 28, 2015 Read Full Article
EPA’s Estimate of the “Social Cost of Methane” Used to Justify New Source Performance Standards for the Oil and Natural Gas Industry
by Wayne J. D'Angelo (Fracking Insider) On Tuesday, August 18, 2015, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) issued proposed New Source Performance Standards (“NSPS”) under the Clean Air Act covering methane and volatile organic compound (“VOC”) emissions for certain equipment, processes,