Louisiana v. Biden

The federal district court for the Western District of Louisiana granted a motion by Louisiana and nine other states for a preliminary injunction enjoining federal agencies from relying on the work product of the Interagency Working Group on Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases (IWG) and from using any social cost of greenhouse gases (SC-GHG) estimates based on the global effects of greenhouse gases. The court ordered the federal defendants to return to using the 2003 <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/legacy_drupal_files/omb/circulars/A4/a-4.pdf">Circular A-4</a> guidance when conducting regulatory analysis, including the guidance’s recommended default discount rates of 3 and 7 percent. President Biden established the IWG in Executive Order 13990 after the Trump administration disbanded the Obama-era Interagency Working Group in 2017. The district court found that the plaintiff states had standing to bring their suit because mandatory implementation of the SC-GHG estimates would impose new obligations and increase regulatory burdens on them in cooperative federalism programs such as state implementation plans under the Clean Air Act. The court further found that these injuries were actual and imminent, that the alleged injuries were traceable to Executive Order 13990 and the SC-GHG estimates, and that a return to Circular A-4 would redress the injuries. The court also found that the SC-GHG estimates constituted final agency action under the Administrative Procedure Act, that the states’ interests fell within the “zone of interests” of the APA and other statutes under which they made claims, and that there was no statutory intent to preclude judicial review. On the merits of the preliminary injunction motion, the court found that the plaintiff states were likely to succeed on the merits. First, the court found that Executive Order 13990 exceeded the President’s authority by mandating consideration of global effects in contravention of congressional intent regarding legislative rulemaking and by promulgating “fundamentally transformative legislative rules” in violation of the major questions doctrine. In addition, the court found that the SC-GHG estimates were promulgated in violation of the APA’s notice and comment requirements and that the estimates were arbitrary and capricious and contrary to law. The court also found that the plaintiff states’ alleged harms—including harm to their economies and revenues from more stringent regulation, harm from additional duties to implement cooperative federalism programs, and harm from divestment of procedural rights—were sufficient to support injunctive relief, that the balance of injuries weighed in their favor, and that the public interest and balance of equities weighed in favor of an injunction.

Louisiana and the nine other states challenging the Biden administration’s social cost of greenhouse gases estimates in the federal district court for the Western District of Louisiana filed a motion for a preliminary injunction. The states argued that they were likely to succeed on the merits of their claims that promulgation of the estimates was beyond the authority of President Biden and the Interagency Working Group that released the estimates and that the estimates violated the Administrative Procedure Act, as well as the Energy Policy and Conservation Act, the Clean Air Act, NEPA, the Mineral Leasing Act, and the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act. The states also contended that the estimates would cause irreparable harm to their sovereign, proprietary, and parens patriae interests.

Landmark Legal Foundation filed a motion for leave to file an amicus brief in support of the preliminary injunction motion. The brief focuses on separation of powers and Administrative Procedure Act issues.

In a lawsuit filed in the federal district court for the Western District of Louisiana, Louisiana and nine other states asked the court to hold that interim estimates for the social cost of greenhouse gases released by the Interagency Working Group on Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases in February 2021 are invalid, arbitrary and capricious, and contrary to law, and to bar federal agencies from using the interim estimates. The states asserted counts under the Administrative Procedure Act and of ultra vires action. The allegations include that the interim estimates contravene federal statutes—the Energy Policy and Conservation Act, the Clean Air Act, NEPA, the Mineral Leasing Act, and the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act—by directing agencies to consider global effects of greenhouse gases. The states also alleged that no statute authorized a global-effects measure or discount rates that deviated from “the standard 3 percent and 7 percent.” They contended the interim estimates ignored positive externalities of energy production, and that the interim estimates were substantive rules that required notice and comment.