Court temporarily blocks key Biden climate accounting measure

 A federal court has temporarily blocked the Biden administration’s use of a key climate accounting measure — a decision that could have major effects on climate change regulations. 

Judge James Cain, a Trump appointee in Louisiana, issued a preliminary injunction against the use of the “social costs of greenhouse gases” that were instated under the Biden administration. 

The Biden administration last year temporarily returned to Obama-era figures for calculating the costs of these planet-warming gases, and it was expected to soon issue its own findings. 

These “social costs” have been used to help quantify the climate benefits of regulation, or conversely, the climate costs of deregulation, in agency rulemaking. Higher costs of greenhouse gases can be used to justify more stringent regulations...MORE