Twelve states are suing Joe Biden, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, the Agriculture Department, the Energy Department, and the Environmental Protection Agency over a Biden executive order that would increase federal environmental regulations. State attorneys general in Arkansas, Arizona, Indiana, Kansas, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Utah are filing suit.
The suit alleges that not only does Biden not have the power to establish “social costs” of greenhouse gasses via executive order, his doing so violates federal law that puts procedures in place that must be followed before the law is changed. The lawsuit notes that:
“Setting the ‘social cost’ of greenhouse gases is an inherently speculative, policy-laden and indeterminate task, which involves attempting to predict such unknowable contingencies as future human migrations, international conflicts and global catastrophes for hundreds of years into the future. Assigning such vales is a quintessentially legislative action that falls within Congress’ exclusive authority.”
Meanwhile, the costs imposed in the here and now by Biden’s order would be enormous. In fact, the suit says it would damage the economies of these states for “decades to come.” The regulatory costs are expected to be $269 billion for carbon dioxide, $990 billion for methane, and $8.24 trillion for nitrous oxide. As you can see, Biden’s executive order would lead to 9 trillion dollars in new costs in return for….pretty much nothing. There is no economic benefit to the order or reason behind it other than penalizing people for creating energy in ways that liberals don’t like.
As Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich correctly noted:
“The Biden administration has exceeded its authority. Expanding federal regulations will destroy millions of jobs … and is the last thing we need right now.”
The fact that the Biden administration is ready to deal this kind of devastating hit to the post-COVID economy as nothing more than an empty gesture to environmental extremists tells you how radical Joe Biden actually is. Biden may have been portrayed as the old school, paint by the numbers liberals, but he’s been a stalking horse for the Far Left is on pace to be the most radical President in American history by an order of magnitude.
John Hawkins is the author of 101 Things All Young Adults Should Know and you can follow him on Parler here.
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