Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton secured yet another victory against the Biden Administration, this time halting implementation of a climate change agenda handed down by executive order. Attorney General Paxton joined several other states in a Louisiana-led suit challenging Biden’s directives to bureaucrats to include the “social cost” of carbon emissions when regulating pollution. If left in place, the regulation would increase energy costs and hurt key states that rely on energy production. What’s more, the method by which these harmful regulations were imposed violated federal law. The federal judge agreed with Paxton and his fellow attorneys general and issued a nationwide injunction on Biden’s order.
Relatedly, Attorney General Paxton also joined a multi-state letter, which Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar also signed, directed to the federal Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, objecting to climate-related regulatory guidance for large banks. If implemented, such guidance would unfairly single out businesses that are alleged to pose climate-related risk, including such businesses engaged in fossil-fuel production or transportation, mining, electric power companies, and many others. This would hurt such companies and their employees, as well as drive up already high energy costs to consumers.