The NEPA review for those APDs would have used the now-enjoined carbon estimates. The Louisiana district court’s injunction has also halted the Bureau of Land Management’s work on applications for permits to drill (APDs) for 18 wells on oil and gas leases in New Mexico, according to court documents. “evising the NEPA analysis would be a burdensome and time-consuming process for the BLM, and, following those revisions, the Agency anticipates subsequently recirculating the revised analyses for 30 days public comment,” he said. In some cases, Mancini said, Interior had already finalized its responses to comments on the analyses and had revised environmental assessments for planned onshore oil and gas lease sales. The social cost of carbon ruling has undermined those auctions. These would be the first onshore lease auctions of this administration, which instituted a leasing moratorium shortly after President Biden took office-until a separate federal lawsuit forced Interior to resume auctions. Interior has been preparing for a suite of onshore oil and gas sales across several states since late last year. These included environmental reviews for “several planned and potential oil and gas lease sales,” Mancini said. The department’s preliminary review identified three pending rules and 27 analyses mandated under the National Environmental Policy Act affected by Cain’s ruling. The scramble to comply with Cain’s decision could have far-reaching implications for the already contentious federal oil and gas programs managed by the Interior Department, slowing leasing and, in some cases, new drilling. “Agencies are now struggling to reconcile their conflicting obligations to comply with the Court’s order and with the requirements of the and other relevant statutes.” Delay for oil and gas “In some instances, the burdens imposed by the Preliminary Injunction go well beyond delay and waste of resources,” Mancini said. If the judge declined to block his order by that date, DOJ attorneys said they would ask the 5th Circuit to intervene.Īn initial tally by federal agencies revealed a wide-ranging impact from Cain’s order, including on rulemakings being drafted in response to earlier court orders that had required more thorough climate analyses. The federal government also requested that Cain, a Trump pick, stop his ruling from taking effect no later than Feb. Justice Department attorneys stated in a filing over the weekend that the federal government plans to fight Cain’s ruling in the 5th U.S.
The social cost of carbon puts a dollar value on a metric ton of emissions and is used to assess the societal benefits of imposing stricter regulation of emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrogen oxides.Ĭain dismissed the metric’s incorporation of global emissions and sided with Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry (R) and other challengers’ arguments that the metric would cause harm by increasing states’ regulatory costs. Judge James Cain of the Louisiana district court stunned legal observers last week when he issued an order preventing the Biden administration from using an interim social cost of carbon metric developed by an interagency working group ( Energywire, Feb. Mancini later added, “gencies are spending considerable resources and delaying a myriad of regulatory actions as they fully consider the implications of a changed scope of analyses.” “The cumulative burden of the Preliminary Injunction is quite significant,” he said. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana.
The decision would also affect dozens of pending agency analyses-including those for federal oil and gas activity-leading to increased costs and more uncertainty for industry, Mancini said in a declaration filed Saturday with the U.S. A judge’s order blocking the Biden administration’s application of an interim climate metric will cause sweeping delays in agency rulemaking and stall planned projects requiring new environmental reviews, a White House official said this weekend.ĭominic Mancini, the deputy administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, said a recent preliminary injunction barring the Biden administration from using an interim calculation of the social cost of greenhouse gases could slow finalization of at least 38 pending rules from four different agencies.
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