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Missouri's attorney general and his Republican peers from a dozen states have appealed the ruling of a St. Louis federal judge who tossed their claims alleging that President Joe Biden exceeded his powers in an executive order that restored Obama-era levels of the costs of climate change when making policy.
In a Wednesday filing, Missouri's Attorney General Eric Schmitt and attorneys general from states including Alaska and Montana asked the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to review a lower court ruling that, on Tuesday, dismissed their March lawsuit over Biden's order. The order allowed the administration to restore values for the costs of climate change, also known as "social cost of greenhouse gases," to an interim figure of about $50 per ton of greenhouse gases. Former President Donald Trump had slashed that figure.
The Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the appeal.
Schmitt's spokesperson Chris Nuelle said that the attorney general would continue to fight such "attempts to impose massive federal regulations — in this case or any other instance — that could crush farmers and manufacturers in Missouri."
In Tuesday's ruling, U.S. District Judge Audrey Fleissig said the plaintiffs lack standing to bring the lawsuit because they have not been injured by Biden's Executive Order 13990, which re-upped the social cost of greenhouse gases. That cost is a metric that helps calculate if and to what extent regulatory actions like government permitting and investment cause economic damages by contributing to climate change. The metric must be used when conducting cost-benefit analyses tied to the regulatory actions.
The coalition of attorneys general's complaint says the higher social cost of greenhouse gases will discourage agricultural and certain energy activities that generate the targeted emissions.
The complaint claims, among other things, violations of the Administrative Procedure Act because the values the Interagency Working Group on Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases issued in response to the Jan. 20 executive order did not seek public input.
In her ruling, Fleissig said the states asked the court to "assume that at some point in the future, one or more agencies will 'inevitably' issue one or more regulations that rely in some way upon the" newly adopted social cost of greenhouse gases.
But the metric, "alone, do(es) not injure plaintiffs" in a concrete way, the judge wrote. "Their injuries are merely speculative, which is insufficient for standing," she added
Fleissig also concluded that the states' claims were unripe because no "harmful regulation" had yet been issued based on the new social cost of greenhouse gases values.
The case is State of Missouri et al v. Biden et al, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, No. 4:21-cv-00287.
For State of Missouri et al: Dean Sauer, Office of the Attorney General of Missouri.
For Biden et al: Cody Knapp with the U.S. Department of Justice.
Read more:
14 Republican AGs say Biden can't use EO to restore social costs of greenhouse gas
White House restores key climate measure calculating carbon's harm
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