This New Climate-Change Rule Would Cost Taxpayers Billions

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Almost anytime federal bureaucrats across multiple agencies can agree on something, it is bad news. That is certainly the case for a recent proposed regulation from the Biden-Harris administration, which would require almost all federal contractors to make voluminous disclosures regarding greenhouse-gas emissions and “climate-related financial risk.”

Though ostensibly intended to improve the climate, the rule wouldn’t help anyone except lawyers, accountants, and climate consultants. It certainly wouldn’t help taxpayers, who would be asked to pay more as contractors attempt to recover costs.

If finalized before the close of the Biden administration, the proposed rule would require detailed reporting by federal contractors regarding three types of greenhouse-gas emissions: Scope 1 (direct emissions by the contractor), Scope 2 (emissions related to electricity and other utilities used by the contractor), and Scope 3 (those of the contractor’s customers and suppliers).

While each of these is unnecessary, the Scope 3 emissions are the most onerous and expensive. Worse still, most of the information reported would simply be guesses, since the contractor has only very limited information about the emissions of its customers and suppliers.

The agencies, however, are attempting to downplay costs. Their one-page analysis estimates that the rule would impose 3,265,025 hours of additional work annually on contractors — resulting in an annual increase in costs of $653 million if monetized at $200 an hour. But this is no doubt a gross underestimate. A very similar proposed SEC rule involving a similar number of regulated entities was estimated to cost over $6 billion a year. And the agencies’ economic analysis fails to even consider the adverse impact on the number of contractors who would choose to compete for federal contracts.

This new proposed rule is just the latest example of the Biden-Harris administration using climate change as an excuse to expand the power of the federal government.

Requiring federal contractors to spend billions of dollars on lawyers, accountants, and climate consultants to file reports with the federal government would have literally no impact on the climate. It would, however, have a substantial impact on federal spending, the deficit, and our economic future.

This New Climate-Change Rule Would Cost Taxpayers Billions | National Review

It’s just the latest example of the Biden-Harris administration using climate change as an excuse to expand the power of the federal government.

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