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Bill banning social cost of carbon in policymaking gets House panel's OK

A U.S. House committee has voted to pass a bill that would ban federal agencies from taking into account the social cost of greenhouse gas releases in policymaking.

At a Nov. 30 bill markup, the House Committee on Natural Resources voted 18-15 to pass H.R. 3117, introduced by Rep. Evan Jenkins, R-W.Va., to prohibit the Energy and Interior departments, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Council on Environmental Quality from considering the social cost of carbon, methane or nitrous oxide when taking any action.

"The Obama administration used biased estimates like the social cost of carbon to push through its anti-coal regulations. These models hide the true economic costs of the EPA's energy and environmental rules, which have eliminated jobs in West Virginia and raised the price of electricity for families. We are now one step closer to ensuring that no future administration can hide behind flawed formulas to justify their job-killing regulations and bring more transparency to the rule-making process," Jenkins said in a Nov. 30 press release.

The committee also voted to adopt an amendment suggested by Rep. Greg Gianforte, R-Mont., that would require any use of the social cost of carbon metric to exclude the indirect cumulative effects of resources extracted and would instead focus only on those of the proposed action itself.

He said the measure would avert situations such as the uncertainty affecting Signal Peak Energy LLC, whose planned expansion of its Bull Mountains operation stalled after a federal court ruled in August that the U.S. Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement did not conduct an adequate analysis of the possible climate effects from burning the coal that would be mined.

"Signal Peak Energy has said that it would cost the company about 50 jobs immediately and if it isn't resolved by 2019, over 160 of the 250 jobs at the Bull Mountains mine would be lost," Gianforte said.

In October, another judge ruled that development work could continue at Bull Mountains as it underwent an environmental review after Signal Peak argued in an appeal that the injunction could force it to lay off about 30 employees.

Rep. Alan Lowenthal, D-Calif., said Gianforte's amendment made a bad bill even worse.

"Decisions we are making today on whether to confront this problem or bury our heads in the sand will have phenomenal impacts that last beyond our lifetime. Dumping carbon pollution into our atmosphere has great societal costs that we are poised to pass on to your children and to our grandchildren," he said.

"We should make fiscally responsible decisions based on our best understanding of all the costs and benefits of a project using tools such as the social cost of carbon."

Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colo., questioned Lowenthal on his ability to predict the future.

"Since you don't have a crystal ball and you can't see the future, how do you expect bureaucrats to see the future?" he said.

Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., responded that "thinking long-term about what climate change is going to do is part of our central responsibility as leaders."

Conservative witnesses said at a hearing on the bill in July that considering the social cost of carbon would cost the U.S. jobs and affect the economy.

In October, the EPA dropped the social cost of a ton of carbon from about $51 to $1 in its proposal to repeal the Clean Power Plan.

The House committee also passed a bill that would prohibit future federal coal lease moratoriums without congressional approval. Both pieces of legislation will now go to the U.S. House of Representatives for a full vote.