Biden Halts Oil, Gas Leases Amid Legal Fight On Climate Cost

The Biden administration is delaying decisions on new federal oil and gas drilling and other energy-related actions.

That comes after a federal court ruling that has blocked the way officials were calculating the real-world costs of climate change.

The administration said in a legal filing that a Feb. 11 ruling by a Louisiana federal judge will affect dozens of rules by federal agencies.

This will indefinitely delay oil and gas lease sales on public lands in a half-dozen Western states.

A federal judge in Louisiana had blocked federal agencies from using an estimate called the “social cost of carbon” to assess the costs of pollution.