Biden Admin Freezes New Oil And Gas Drilling Leases Despite Recent Court-Ordered Injunction
As oil prices continue to rocket, now further helped along by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Biden administration is still fighting tooth and nail to freeze new oil and gas drilling leases – even after a court ruled against the administration for using a metric to estimate “the societal cost of carbon emissions” to justify their move.
Despite the court’s ruling, Biden’s administration has stopped new leases and permits for federal oil and gas drilling, MSN reported this week.
The administration was previously prevented from using the “social cost of carbon” metric in decisions regarding oil and gas thanks to an injunction issued by US District Judge James Cain of the Western District of Louisiana.
But government lawyers quickly appealed the injunction, arguing that it “necessitated a pause on all projects where the government was using a social-cost-of-carbon analysis in its decision-making”. This, in turn, allowed the Biden administration to freeze oil and gas projects.
The metric in question uses economic models to put a value on each ton of carbon dioxide emitted, MSN reported, with the intention of quantifying the economic harm of climate change.- READ MORE
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