E&E DAILY | Senate Republicans are demanding the Biden administration be more transparent about the underpinnings of its greenhouse gas regulations, a common theme in the running GOP campaign against the president’s climate policies.
A letter released yesterday from the top Republicans on nine Senate committees targets the Interagency Working Group on the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases. It was created during the Obama administration and reconvened by President Biden in a January executive order.
The group was tasked with drawing up a social cost of carbon, methane and nitrous oxide and offering recommendations to the president by the end of last month. The Republicans — including Environment and Public Works ranking member Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) and Energy and Natural Resources ranking member John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) — want the working group co-chairs to give them a copy of those recommendations.
“The opaque decision-making process this Administration has chosen on this significant issue will result in policies that ultimately hurt American consumers who are already facing rising energy and grocery prices, slow economic growth, and uncontrolled inflation,” they wrote to Council of Economic Advisers Chair Cecilia Rouse, Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Eric Lander and acting Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young.
The metric they are referring to quantifies climate impacts by measuring the economic impact of emitting another ton of a given greenhouse gas. That metric weighs heavily in decisionmaking on greenhouse gas regulations and across the federal government, making it the subject of a yearslong controversy.
The Obama administration pegged the social cost of carbon at $50 per ton, but former President Trump’s EPA slashed that number dramatically — to as little as $1 per ton — which helped it justify weakening a range of climate regulations.
The current administration raised it back to around $51 per ton on an interim basis shortly after taking office, with much higher figures for methane and nitrous oxide, both more potent planet-warming gases. A coalition of state attorneys general has sued in federal court, arguing that Biden lacked the authority to raise the social cost metric under the Constitution, which gives that power to Congress (Energywire, Aug 26).
The Interagency Working Group is expected to publish final social cost numbers next year.
“Given the potential wide-reaching application of the SC-GHG in decision-making, budgeting, and procurement, it is critically important for the Working Group to be transparent and accountable in its actions,” the Republicans wrote.
It’s not the first time the GOP has accused the Biden administration of lacking transparency. Congressional Republicans have also gone after President Biden’s emissions targets and climate envoy John Kerry’s role in the administration (E&E Daily, May 5).