Law360 Publishes Akin Gump Article on Return of Greenhouse Gases Working Group
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“How GHG Working Group's Return Will Change Climate Policy,” an article by Akin Gump partner Stacey Mitchell, firm consultant Kenneth Markowitz and associate Bryan Williamson has been published by Law360. The article originated as an Akin Gump client alert.
The article discusses what the authors call the “resurrection” of the Interagency Working Group on the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases, a cross-agency group tasked with quantifying the U.S.’s contribution to climate change. They note that this little-known group “ultimately may have a greater impact across the federal government than anything else the Biden administration does in pursuit of its climate goals.”
The article provides background into the working group, convened by the Obama administration in 2009, and discusses its findings concerning the social cost of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. They note, “While courts have upheld the use of the working group's social cost estimates in agency rulemakings, President Donald Trump nonetheless disbanded the working group, and withdrew its social cost estimates, in a 2017 executive order.”
The authors discuss the Biden "Executive Order on Protecting Public Health and the Environment and Restoring Science to Tackle the Climate Crisis" and its effort to “embed climate considerations throughout the federal bureaucracy.” Part of these efforts include the reestablishment of this working group, whose primary charge is to establish updated interim and final social costs of carbon, nitrous oxide and methane.
The article discusses the implications of measurement of greenhouse gases across government agencies and concludes by noting, “The working group's interim and final social costs of GHGs will face close public scrutiny, and likely judicial challenge, once agencies begin to rely on them in regulatory decisions as the Biden administration seeks to implement a plan to achieve its GHG mitigation objectives.”
To read the original client alert, click here.
