The Republican attorneys general (AGs) from 12 states are challenging the constitutionality and legality of the Biden administration's interim social cost of carbon (SCC) metrics that will be used to calculate the benefits of climate change rules, signaling that the AGs plan to challenge much of the administration's climate change agenda. In a March 8 suit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, the AGs charge that the action exceeds the administration's constitutional authority by acting on matters reserved for Congress. "Setting the 'social cost' of greenhouse gases is an inherently speculative, policy-laden, and indeterminate task," the suit says. "Assigning such values is a quintessentially legislative action that falls within Congress's exclusive authority." The complaint also charges that the administration's actions violate various statutes, including the Administrative Procedure Act. At issue is President Joe Biden's Executive Order 13990 that reconstituted an Obama-era interagency working group that had first crafted the metrics, and required the group to quickly issue a new, interim value while taking up to a year to craft a final value.
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