The highest-ranking Republicans on nine Senate committees are pressing Biden administration officials to detail long-awaited recommendations from an inter-agency working group (IWG) on how the federal agencies should use of the social cost of carbon (SCC) metric, alleging an “opaque decision-making process on the issue.”

 

A Nov. 4 letter from the lawmakers responds to a Biden executive order (EO) from early this year that set a September deadline for a revived IWG to provide recommendations on “areas of decision-making, budgeting, and procurement by the Federal Government” where the SCC should be a factor.

 

“As the Working Group continues to work behind closed doors, agencies are already using [SCC] calculations in regulatory actions that impact all Americans,” the senators argue in their letter to the IWG chairs -- Council of Economic Advisers chief Cecilia Rouse, Office of Science & Technology Policy Director Eric Lander, and Office of Management & Budget acting director Shalanda Young.

 

“That [September] deadline has lapsed, and no insights have been offered to Congress or the American public on when and what to expect in these recommendations,” the senators say.

 

The letter is signed by Environment & Public Works Committee ranking member Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), agriculture panel ranking member John Boozman (R-AK) and top Republicans on the banking, budget, commerce, energy, finance, health and homeland security panels.

 

The request for more information comes amid a broader battle in which industry groups including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and American Petroleum Institute are urging that use of SCC be confined to federal rulemakings. Meanwhile, environmental groups are urging the SCC’s use in “all relevant decisions and processes,” including environmental reviews and federal procurement.

 

Some agencies are already signaling a broader role for the SCC. The Interior Department, for instance, last week said it would consider the SCC in environmental reviews of several pending oil and gas lease sales.

 

Also, federal procurement agencies recently floated a preliminary rulemaking that suggests giving preference to contractors with a lower “social cost” of greenhouse gas emissions than their competitors.

 

The Biden administration has sought to revive and expand the carbon damages metric after the Trump administration slashed the tool by relying on domestic rather than global climate damages and using higher discount rates for downplaying the current cost of climate damages that occur in the future.

 

The GOP senators request that the IWG detail its recommendations on the SCC’s use by Nov. 11.

 

They cite as one example of their concerns an EPA recommendation that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission use the SCC in “certifications for natural gas infrastructure and environmental impact statements.”

 

“As a critical part of our oversight responsibilities, we need to know whether, how, and when the Administration plans to use these figures moving forward.”

 

Economic Claims

 

But the letter also signals a broader political effort to frame the SCC as economically harmful, by linking it to the increasingly salient issue of inflation due to the coronavirus pandemic.

 

“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.”

 

The September deadline for the IWG’s recommendations on the SCC’s role was on part of a broader to-do list for the IWG ordered by President Joe Biden in a January EO.

 

Other assignments include the generation of now in-use “interim” estimates for the SCC that essentially revived an Obama-era approach while correcting for inflation -- for example $51 in estimated per-ton carbon dioxide control benefits in 2020 -- and development by January 2022 of revised SCC figures.

 

Many experts predict that the follow-up numbers will lead to at least a doubling of the SCC, which essentially measures the per ton benefits of curbing CO2 and other GHGs.