Biden halts oil, gas leases amid legal fight on climate cost

By MATTHEW DALY
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — 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.