On the recordSeptember 25, 2015
The amendment seeks to strike the bill's prohibition against agency use in permitting reviews of the Obama administration's pronouncements on the social costs of carbon, but this prohibition was adopted last term for a very good reason. The administration's social cost of carbon estimate is junk science. To be specific, multiple commentators on the administration's findings about the social cost of carbon argue that carbon's social cost is an unknown quantity, that social cost of carbon analysts can get just about any result they desire by fiddling with nonvalidated climate parameters, made-up damage functions, and below-market discount rates, and that social cost of carbon analysis is computer-aided sophistry, its political function being to make renewable energy look like a bargain at any price and fossil energy look unaffordable, no matter how cheap. Junk science and sophistry has no place standing between hard-working Americans and new, high-paying jobs. I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
