Just Documenting The Atrocities -- Digby

[erronis]

https://digbysblog.net/2025/05/11/just-documenting-the-atrocities/

Yet another one. And it’s lethal:

The White House has ordered federal agencies to stop considering the economic damage caused by climate change when writing regulations, except in cases where it is “plainly required” by law.The directive effectively shelves a powerful tool that has been used for more than two decades by the federal government to weigh the costs and benefits of a particular policy or regulation.The Biden administration had used the tool to strengthen limits on greenhouse gas emissions from cars, power plants, factories and oil refineries.

[…]

During the Obama administration, White House economists calculated the social cost of carbon at $42 a ton. The first Trump administration lowered it to less than $5 a ton. Under the Biden administration, the cost was adjusted for inflation and jumped to $190 per ton.

But “it is no longer federal government policy to maintain a uniform estimate of the monetized impacts of greenhouse gas emissions,” Jeffrey B. Clark, the acting administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, wrote in a May 5 memo.

Ok, but why?

In his memo, Mr. Clark doubted the scientific consensus that pollution from things like transportation and industry is heating the planet. He argued that there were too many “uncertainties” in calculating the figure, including “whether and to what degree any supposed changes in the climate are actually occurring as a consequence of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.”

Scientists and environmental groups say that the Trump administration is denying reality.

They deny reality in every way possible.