While the social cost of carbon (SCC) is still being mulled over by the Office of Management and Budget, other federal agencies continue to push ahead with using the SCC to help justify their many regulations.

The way this works is that for every ton of carbon dioxide (CO₂) that any new regulation is supposed to keep from being emitted into the atmosphere, the proposing agency gets about $32 credit to use to offset the costs that the new regulation will generate. This way, new regulations seem less costly—an attractive quality when trying to gain acceptance.

The idea is that the damage resulting from future climate changes will be decreased by $32 for every ton of carbon dioxide that is not emitted.

There is so much wrong with the way the government arrives at this number that we have argued that the SCC should be tossed out and barred from use in all federal rulemaking. It is far better not to include any value for the SCC cost/​benefit analyses, than to include one which is knowingly improper, inaccurate and misleading.

Further, that the federal regulations limiting carbon dioxide emission will have any detectable impact on future climate change is highly debatable. To see for yourself, try out our global warming calculator that lets you select the magnitude of future carbon dioxide emissions reductions as well as which countries participate in your plan. The best that the U.S. can do—even if it were to halt all CO₂ emissions now and forever—is to knock off about 0.1°C from the total climate model-projected global temperature rise by the year 2100. In other words, U.S. actions are not very effective in limiting future climate change.

Apparently, the feds, too, agree that their plethora of proposed regulations will have little impact on carbon dioxide emissions and future climate change. But that doesn’t stop them from issuing them.

The passage below is from the proposed rulemaking from the Department of Energy to alter the Energy Conservation Standards for Commercial and Industrial Electric Motors (this is only one of many proposed regulations making this claim):

The purpose of the SCC estimates presented here is to allow agencies to incorporate the monetized social benefits of reducing CO₂ emissions into cost-benefit analyses of regulatory actions that have small, or “marginal,” impacts on cumulative global emissions.

In other words, DoE’s regulations won’t have any real impact on global CO₂ emissions (and, in that manner, climate change), but nevertheless they’ll take a monetary credit for reduced damages that supposedly will result from the non-effective regulations.

(I wonder if can try that on my taxes)

It seems a bit, uh, cheeky, to take credit for something that you admit won’t happen.

But that’s the logic of the federal government for you!