Challenge to Biden ‘cost of carbon’ policy tossed

NEW ORLEANS — A lawsuit that Louisiana and other Republican-leaning states filed challenging figures the Biden administration uses to calculate damage from greenhouse gases was dismissed Wednesday by a federal appeals court.

The unanimous decision by three judges on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans was the latest defeat for states challenging the Biden “cost of carbon” policy. It leaves the administration able to continue using a damage cost estimate of about $51 per ton of carbon dioxide emissions as it develops environmental regulations. That estimate is under review by the administration and could increase.

The Biden cost estimate had been used during former President Barack Obama’s administration. President Joe Biden restored it on his first day in office after the administration of former President Donald Trump had reduced the figure to about $7 or less per ton.

A federal judge in Louisiana had ordered a halt to the administration’s approach early last year after the states filed a lawsuit. The states said the policy threatened to drive up energy costs while decreasing state revenues from energy production.

The 5th Circuit blocked the judge’s order and the Supreme Court declined to intervene.

On Wednesday, the appeals court dismissed the case, saying the 11 states challenging the cost estimate had no standing to sue because they had not shown that the regulations caused the economic harms their lawsuit cited.

“Plaintiffs contemplate harms that are several steps removed from — and are not guaranteed by — the challenged Executive Order,” wrote Judge Jacques Wiener, appointed to the court by former President George H.W. Bush, on behalf of a panel that also included Obama appointee Stephen Higginson and Trump appointee Cory Wilson.

The other states whose officials sued are Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, South Dakota, Texas, West Virginia and Wyoming.