Attorney General Jeff Landry will seek to overturn a federal appeals court decision this month that allows the Biden administration to apply its more costly formula for estimating the social costs of greenhouse gas emissions (SC-GHG).
The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals denied Landry’s petition for an en banc rehearing in the wake of a Fifth Circuit three-judge panel’s opinion last month blocking a lower court’s injunction that barred the administration’s greenhouse gas cost formulas.
“Because no member of the panel or judge in regular active service requested that the court be polled on rehearing en blanc … the petition for rehearing en banc is denied,” the Fifth Circuit said in its April 14 opinion.
Louisiana’s attorney general said he would continue to battle the Biden administration over its climate-change rules.
“We are disappointed in the Fifth Circuit’s decision, and we will appeal to the Supreme Court,” Landry’s press secretary, Cory Dennis, told the Louisiana Record in an email. “Attorney General Landry will continue fighting the Biden administration’s attempts to inject the government into the everyday lives of Americans.”
Landry filed the litigation on behalf of Louisiana and nine other states, including Texas and Florida. The social cost calculations at the center of the lawsuit are used by federal agencies in making cost-benefit analyses of rules and regulations.
Continuing to block the preliminary injunction against the SC-GHG formula strikes at the sovereign powers of states, according to Landry’s motion to the Fifth Circuit for an en banc hearing.
“By staying the injunction, the panel lets one of the most consequential regulations in history remain in effect despite the lack of any statutory authorization or notice and comment, despite its fundamental arbitrariness and despite the irreparable harm it’s causing the states right now,” the motion said.
The administration’s positions on climate-change mitigation will lead to more energy jobs losses in Louisiana and other states and increase U.S. dependence on foreign sources of energy, the plaintiffs have argued.