CASPER, Wyo. — Wyoming’s U.S. Sen. Cynthia Lummis, along with 12 colleagues in the Senate, has introduced a bill to prohibit the federal government from using social cost of greenhouse gas metrics in creating driving and other regulations.
The Transparency and Honesty in Energy Regulation Act would prohibit the federal government from using the social cost of carbon, the social cost of methane, the social cost of nitrous oxide and other metrics gauging the social cost of greenhouse gases in creating regulations.
“My home state of Wyoming is the largest net energy exporter in the United States, and the Biden Administration using the ‘social cost of carbon’ in setting regulations is crippling to not only Wyoming, but our entire country,” Lummis said in a press release Monday. “I’m proud to join my colleagues in introducing the Transparency and Honesty in Energy Regulations Act to prevent President Biden from using this misguided metric in determining the costs and benefits of proposed regulatory action.”
Metrics gauging the social cost of greenhouse gases attempt to put an economic value on the impacts of emissions. Lummis’s office argued in the press release that such metrics are unscientific and can result in burdensome regulations.
“This bill would prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy, the Interior Department, the Council on Environmental Quality, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the Department of the Treasury, the US Department of Agriculture, the Department of Commerce, and the Department of Health and Human Services from using the social cost of carbon, social cost of methane, and social cost of nitrous oxide as rationales for their regulations,” Lummis’s office said.