Sec. 2. Findings

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Congress finds that— as a tool to justify Federal actions by the Secretary of Energy, the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Secretary of the Interior, and the Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality to address greenhouse gas emissions, including the regulation or prohibition of the exploration, mining, production, and use of coal and other fossil fuels as energy sources, the social cost of carbon, the social cost of methane, and the social cost of nitrous oxide represent the hypothetical cost of 1 incremental ton of carbon dioxide, methane, or nitrous oxide emissions in a given year; the document of the Office of Management and Budget entitled Circular A–4 and dated September 17, 2003— guides Federal agencies on the development of regulatory impact analysis required under Executive Order 12866 ( 5 U.S.C. 601 note; relating to regulatory planning and review) and other authorities; and instructs Federal agencies to include discount rates of 3 and 7 percent and evaluate the costs and benefits of the regulatory action that accrue to citizens and residents of the United States; first developed in 2009 by an interagency working group that included the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Council on Environmental Quality, the estimates for the social cost of carbon, as well as the subsequently developed estimates of the social cost of methane, and the social cost of nitrous oxide fail to comply with the 3- and 7-percent discount rates prescribed by the document of the Office of Management and Budget entitled Circular A–4 and dated September 17, 2003; while the document of the Office of Management and Budget entitled Circular A–4 and dated September 17, 2003, specifies that, in carrying out an evaluation of the global effects of a rule, regulation, or action, the evaluation shall be reported separately from domestic costs and benefits of that rule, regulation, or action, the social cost of carbon instead calculates the global benefits in lieu of, not in addition to, the domestic costs of a rule, regulation, or action; the use of the estimates for the social cost of carbon, the social cost of methane, and the social cost of nitrous oxide, in the rulemakings of the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of the Interior, and the Council on Environmental Quality without public notice and an adequate opportunity for comment violates scientific peer review requirements; the Environmental Protection Agency relied upon the social cost of methane, without appropriate peer review or opportunity for public notice and comment, in justifying the costs and benefits of the September 2015 proposed and the June 2016 finalized rules under the Clean Air Act for methane emissions from new, modified, and reconstructed sources in the oil and gas sector; the Department of the Interior used the social cost of methane estimate to justify the costs and benefits of the final rule entitled Waste Prevention, Production Subject to Royalties, and Resource Conservation (81 Fed. Reg. 83008 (November 18, 2016)); the Council on Environmental Quality issued final guidance on August 1, 2016, that, with respect to a monetary cost-benefit analysis for an evaluation of a proposed Federal action under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 ( 42 U.S.C. 4321 et seq.), directed the head of each Federal agency to include the social cost of carbon in any consideration of the effect of greenhouse gas emissions; the regulations of the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of the Interior, and the Council on Environmental Quality are costing families of the United States billions of dollars each year and are justified, in large part, by the social cost of carbon, the social cost of methane, and the social cost of nitrous oxide; continued use of the social cost of carbon, the social cost of methane, and the social cost of nitrous oxide by the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of the Interior, and the Council on Environmental Quality ignores sound science for the purpose of eliminating the exploration, mining, production, and use of the abundant domestic sources of fossil fuel energy of the United States;

Executive Order 13777 (82 Fed. Reg. 12285 (March 1, 2017)) states that the policy of the United States is to alleviate any unnecessary regulatory burden on the people of the United States; and Executive Order 13783 of March 28, 2017 (82 Fed. Reg. 16093 (March 31, 2017))— disbands the interagency working group referred to in paragraph (3); withdraws the social cost of carbon, the social cost of methane, and the social cost of nitrous oxide; and directs Federal agencies, in monetizing the value of changes in greenhouse gas emissions as a result of a regulation, to follow the document of the Office of Management and Budget entitled Circular A–4 and dated September 17, 2003, by using the discount rates specified in that document and evaluating only the domestic effects of the regulation.

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