Justices won’t block Biden policy on ‘social cost of carbon’

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has allowed the Biden administration to use a higher estimate than Republican-led states want for calculating damages to people and the environment from greenhouse gas emissions. A federal judge had blocked the government from putting greater emphasis on potential damage from greenhouse gas emissions when creating rules for polluting industries. The justices didn’t comment Thursday in refusing to put that order back in place. The damages approach uses the “social cost of carbon” to calculate future climate damages to justify tougher restrictions for  fossil fuels, transportation and other industries. Louisiana led nine states in asking the high court to in to intervene.