Congress moves to hide climate costs from pollution rules
S. 1584 — Transparency and Honesty in Energy Regulations Act of 2025 · Filed by James Lankford (R-OK) · Introduced May 1, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill prohibits federal agencies from using the 'social cost of carbon' and related greenhouse-gas damage estimates in regulatory decisions, cost-benefit analyses, or guidance documents. It requires agencies to report on past use of these estimates since 2009 and mandates that environmental considerations in permitting and regulation be limited to those explicitly required by statute, using only 'robust' (non-ideologically motivated) methodologies aligned with a 2003 OMB circular.
Why we flagged it
The bill's stated purpose is 'transparency and honesty,' but its functional effect is to remove quantified environmental-damage estimates from regulatory analysis—making it harder to justify pollution controls and easier to approve fossil-fuel projects. The mechanism is deregulatory, not transparency-enhancing.
What the text implies
- Agencies will no longer be required to monetize climate and air-quality harms in cost-benefit analyses, shifting the burden of proof: projects that harm public health become easier to approve because the damage is no longer quantified in official decision-making.
- The bill's requirement to use 'robust' methodologies and align with a 2003 OMB circular (predating modern climate science) effectively locks agencies into outdated discount rates and damage estimates, preventing them from incorporating newer scientific consensus.
The full analysis lists 4 implications of this text.
Who stands to gain
fossil fuel producers and refiners; coal-fired power generators; natural gas utilities