Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed a district court's dismissal of Missouri v. Biden, in which several states sought to enjoin the Biden Administration's use of interim estimates of the Social Cost of Carbon (i.e. the costs of greenhouse gas emissions) in agency proceedings. This decision was unsurprising and accords with the conclusion reached by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in a parallel suit.
The Eighth Circuit's opinion by Judge Loken is short and to the point. It quickly and efficiently dispatches with Missouri's attempts to demonstrate standing to challenge an estimate approved by a working group (the IWG) that may, at some future date in a future proceeding, influence a final agency action, such as a permitting decision or a new regulation. While Missouri and the other plaintiff states might well have standing to challenge such actions when they occur, Judge Loken explains that the effort to shallenge the social cost of carbon up front is, (in the words of the Fifth Circuit) an attempt to force "the current administration to comply with prior administrations' policies on regulatory analysis [without] a specific agency action to review," and that is something beyond the power of federal courts. Further, Judge Loken notes, the states are also, in effect, asking the Court to prevent a President from directing the policies of executive branch agencies.
we reject the States' broad contention that the IWG's SC-GHG estimates are invalid because the IWG possesses "no delegation of any legislative authority" by Congress. The IWG was formed by the President to communicate his policies to agencies in exercising their delegated legislative authority. We may not prohibit this sensible exercise of the President's executive power.
