Obama Just Slipped the Economy a Mickey

This is where and how the Obama administration is so dangerous...stealth maneuvers that dictated from on high based that go against the public will and interest.

Buried in a little-noticed rule on microwave ovens is a change in the U.S. government’s accounting for carbon emissions that could have wide-ranging implications for everything from power plants to the Keystone XL pipeline.

The increase of the so-called social cost of carbon, to $38 a metric ton in 2015 from $23.80, adjusts the calculation the government uses to weigh costs and benefits of proposed regulations. The figure is meant to approximate losses from global warming such as flood damage and diminished crops.

 With the change, government actions that lead to cuts in emissions -- anything from new mileage standards to clean-energy loans -- will appear more valuable in its cost-benefit analyses. On the flip side, environmentalists urge that it be used to judge projects that could lead to more carbon pollution, such as TransCanada Corp. (TRP)’s Keystone pipeline or coal-mining by companies such as Peabody Energy Corp. (BTU) on public lands, which would be viewed as more costly.

And here is the kicker.

“As we learn that climate damage is worse and worse, there is no direction they could go but up,” Laurie Johnson, chief economist for climate at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in an interview. Johnson says the administration should go further; she estimates the carbon cost could be as much as $266 a ton.

Really?  As we learn damage is "worse and worse"?  Wait, global temperatures have remained stagnant for over a decade.  Even dyed-in-the-wool lefties at The Economist (they of the "fiddly bits") and the New York Times (they of the "important gaps") admit that we just know a damned thing about what's going on.  But this nimrod seems to know that things are worse and worse.

UPDATE:  Also, from IBD today and item that would be funny if it wasn't so depressing. Laugh, cry, your preference.