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Supreme Court Denies Review of Social Cost of Carbon Challenge
The Court saw no reason to consider the Eighth Circuit's conclusion that the states lacked standing.
Today the Supreme Court denied certiorari in Missouri v. Biden, one of multiple cases challenging the Biden Administration's use of estimates of the "Social Cost of Carbon" in environmental rulemakings and policy development. The Court's decision was no surprise.
Missouri led a coalition of states challenging the Biden Administration's use of Social Cost of Carbon estimates. The suit foundered on standing grounds. The district court dismissed the suit for lack of standing and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed. A parallel suit filed by another group of states led by Louisiana produced the same result in the Fifth Circuit.
That the Supreme Court had no interest in Missouri v. Biden should have been expected. There is no circuit split, and the Eighth Circuit's decision is clearly correct. The states did not challenge a particular regulatory action that allegedly harmed them, but rather sort to enjoin the executive branch from considering things (in this case the anticipated effects of greenhouse gas emissions) in developing administration policy. Add to that the Court's apparent disinterest in buttressing "special solicitude" for state standing, and there was no reason to take the case.
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Two points
A) Standing is a difficult hurdle to overcome and thus the SC was likely correct.
B) the “social cost of carbon” is for all intents and purposes a fictitious number with no relationship to reality. It also fails to take into the account the social benefit for carbon.
Life expectancy sky rocketed from the mid 40’s in the 19th century to nearly 80 years old today with one of the major driving forces being the increases and improvements due the use of energy. circa 1800 it took approx 20 minutes of human labor to produce enough wheat to make one loaf of bread, by 1900, it still took approx 10 minutes of human labor to grow harvest enough wheat to make a single loaf of bread. Today it takes approx 2 secs of human labor. While improvements in sanitation and medicine certainly helped, it was the use of energy that gave the human population the time and freedom to make the improvements in medicine and sanitation.
SCOUTS should never ever be allowed to deny cert when a state asks for review of anything. Period.
This isn’t the same Missouri v. Biden case that deals with state laws regulating Internet forum moderation, is it?
Correct; it’s a different case.
Typo: “…but rather sort to enjoin the executive branch…”
Should be “sought”.