Sponsors (4)
The bill increases standardization and transparency around social-cost greenhouse-gas metrics and can simplify some agency rulemaking, but it also restricts agencies' use of those metrics and imposes reporting requirements that risk weakening climate and public-health protections, creating legal and administrative uncertainty, and shifting costs onto businesses and consumers.
Federal agencies and state governments: receive clearer, standardized definitions and expectations for how social-cost greenhouse gas metrics are identified and reported, improving consistency in regulatory analyses and cross-agency comparisons.
Taxpayers and congressional committees: will get routine disclosure and retrospective data on how often and where agencies used social-cost metrics, increasing transparency and allowing oversight and comparison across administrations and rules.
Utilities, state governments, and urban communities: enabling the use of modern social-cost estimates can support stronger climate-related regulations that internalize greenhouse-gas damages and could reduce future climate risks.
State and local governments, urban communities, and the public: preventing agencies from using social-cost greenhouse-gas metrics in rulemaking makes it harder to quantify and monetize climate harms, which may weaken pollution controls and public-health protections.
Taxpayers, state governments, utilities, and businesses: tying agencies to a wide set of valuation documents and restricting which metrics can be used could invite legal challenges and increase regulatory uncertainty and litigation over which estimates are authoritative.
Utilities, financial firms, small businesses, and consumers (including low- and middle-income households): broad definitions that accept many different social-cost estimates—or conversely rules that rely on higher estimates where allowed—could expand compliance obligations or lead to stricter rules that raise energy and compliance costs.
Based on analysis of 4 sections of legislative text.
Bars federal agencies from using monetized social‑cost estimates for greenhouse gases in analyses, rulemakings, guidance, or agency actions and requires a report on past use.
Bars federal agencies from using any monetized “social cost” estimates for carbon, methane, nitrous oxide, or aggregate greenhouse gases in cost‑benefit or cost‑effectiveness analyses, rulemakings, guidance, or other agency actions. It also defines those social‑cost terms to include specific Interagency Working Group and EPA documents (dating from 2010 through April 18, 2024) and any successors, and requires agencies to report on past uses of these metrics within 120 days of enactment.
Introduced May 1, 2025 by Richard Hudson · Last progress May 1, 2025