Republican-led states sue President Joe Biden over climate change order
On Monday, according to local media twelve Republican-led states charged U.S. President Joe Biden over his first executive order that aimed at climate change. In the order, Biden alleged that he lacked the constitutional authority to enforce new rules about greenhouse gases.
The Republican Attorney General Eric Schmitt of Missouri-led federal lawsuit argues that Biden infringed the separation of powers clause in the Constitution because Congress has the power to regulate and not the president.
On Biden’s first day in the White House, he signed Executive Order 13990, which directed the federal agencies to calculate the “social cost” of greenhouse gas pollution by estimating “monetized damages” to inform future federal regulations. Changes in net agricultural productivity, human health, property damage from increased flood risk, and the value of ecosystem services are included in the order.
But the 12 states that sued Biden say appointing such values is a “quintessentially legislative action that falls within Congress’s exclusive authority.” They also say the economic ramifications of the order will be disastrous.
“If the Executive Order stands, it will inflict hundreds of billions or trillions of dollars of damage to the U.S. economy for decades to come,” the suit reads.
The suit also states that the executive order will weaken jobs, stifle energy production, strangle America’s energy independence, suppress agriculture, disturb innovation, and impoverish working families. It damages the sovereignty of the States and tears at the fabric of liberty.
🚨TODAY I led a 12 state coalition in filing suit against President Biden's administration over the massive expansion of federal regulations through executive order.
We’re fighting back against this unlawful federal overreach.
See more on the lawsuit. https://t.co/38lhpHurEr pic.twitter.com/S2PhXLdRGH
— Eric Schmitt (@Eric_Schmitt) March 8, 2021
The suit was joined by Republican state attorneys general from Arkansas, Arizona, Indiana, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Utah.
However, the Department of Justice and The White House declined to comment on the suit.
The suit has asked the court to issue an order that prohibits federal agencies from using the “social cost” estimates and to declare they are “arbitrary, capricious, unreasonable and contrary to law,” among other relief.
