BATON ROUGE, LA – Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry is
leading a 10-state coalition in suing to prevent the Biden Administration from
carrying out an act of executive order that will kill thousands of jobs
throughout the country and impose significant burdens on the American people.
“With the stroke of his pen – Joe Biden is bypassing our
elected representatives to impose the Left’s radical, self-defeating green
agenda on the American economy and people,” said Attorney General Landry. “This
‘social cost’ overreach revives an Obama-era scheme that unnecessarily forces
the monetary cost of a global issue on American governments, businesses, and
families.”
The “social cost of carbon” has been called “the most
important number you never heard of” by economists because carbon dioxide,
methane, and nitrous oxide are by-products of everyday activities in America.
In Executive Order 13990, the President established a “working group” of
federal appointees to establish a damage value, or “social cost,” based upon
global environmental damages from climate changes.
Through this executive fiat, federal agencies are required
to immediately begin applying these numbers in regulatory actions and “other”
decision-making – paving the way for the most expansive and expensive federal
regulatory initiative in history. The order has wide-ranging impacts on
decisions made by virtually every federal agency, including the Departments of
Interior, Commerce, Energy, Agriculture, Transportation, Environmental Protection, Defense,
Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, and the U.S. Treasury.
“Joe Biden’s executive order should alarm every American. If
left unchecked, the President could use this destructive cost structure to
justify almost anything,” said Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry.
“Louisiana produces crucial natural and manmade resources for our nation and
enjoys a rich, storied way of life. From timber and food stocks to oil and
natural gas, chemical and industrial products to recreational sportsmanship and
outdoor activities – nearly every aspect of our economy and culture is at risk
under this unconscionable policy.”
The President’s actions illegally force this destructive
cost-benefit analysis on nearly every meaningful federal action. This will
fundamentally transform the entire federal regulatory structure by empowering
agencies to arbitrarily assign massive cost or benefit to any activity under
their authority.
“Biden's unacceptable and unauthorized executive overreach
touches every part of American life: the generators powering our homes, the
dishwashers cleaning our tableware, the lawnmowers cutting our grass, the
firewood keeping us warm, the livestock and produce feeding our families, and
every breath we exhale,” concluded Attorney General Landry. “By executive fiat,
the Biden Administration is not only arbitrarily and improperly taxing American
productivity and everyday life in the community; but it is also creating a
scheme that can justify virtually any decision.”
In addition to Louisiana – the following states joined in
the lawsuit filed this morning in the United States District Court for the
Western District of Louisiana: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky,
Mississippi, South Dakota, Texas, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
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Carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide are by-products
of everyday activities in every developed economy like the production of
electricity to light our homes and highways, natural gas for our buses and
plant operations, farming operations, a wide variety of industrial activities,
the production of cement and other construction materials, and waste disposal.
They are among the most common and prevalent by-products of human economic
activity.
The President’s actions improperly and illegally change the
way federal decision-making is conducted, including changing the cost-benefit
analysis for nearly every significant agency action. This means federal
agencies could use these estimates to arbitrarily assign massive costs or
massive benefits, whichever they choose, to every regulatory action,
environmental impact studies, mitigation costs, and more. These values have the
ability to fundamentally transform the entire regulatory structure of the
federal government, as well as the way States conduct business, and Americans
live.
Agricultural activities, like soil and waste management,
result in roughly 75% of our nitrous oxide emissions, while 27% of methane
emissions stem from livestock excretions. Methane also emits from using
petroleum and natural gas, the latter of which is a significant driver in the
reduction of American carbon emissions over the past decade.