Supreme Court passes on red state challenge to Biden ‘social cost of carbon’ rule

The Supreme Court will not take up a lawsuit led by the state of Missouri that sought to block the Biden administration’s “social cost of carbon” measure.

The court denied a writ of certiorari Tuesday in the case, Missouri v. Biden, without further explanation. In the case, 11 Republican-led states, guided by Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey (R), challenged the formula used by the administration to determine the financial costs associated with greenhouse gases, which are considered the primary cause of climate change. 

After the Trump administration significantly slashed the cost measure to around $1 per metric ton, the Biden administration increased it to around $51 — using the Obama administration’s measure adjusted for inflation.

In the lawsuit, state attorneys general claimed the rule would be associated with “a host of injuries that relate to the fact that the Interim Values will inevitably expand the federal regulatory burdens on the States and their citizens in virtually every major sector of American economic life.”

Other plaintiffs in the case included Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Utah.

Although the court’s conservative majority has frequently rebuffed President Biden and his administration on environmental policy, the ruling Tuesday was widely expected. Last year, the court rejected an emergency request from the state of Louisiana to block the rule. 

The Republican attorneys general in the Missouri case were turned away last year by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis, which ruled that they lacked standing.

“[I]f the States believe that specific agency actions justified by the interim [social cost of carbon] estimates inflict concrete and particularized injury, they may challenge the actions, and the interim … estimates themselves, in federal court,” the appeals court wrote in its decision.

“We will continue to combat government overreach at every turn,” Bailey’s office said in a statement to The Hill.

— Updated at 3:10 p.m.