Assertion Supported AI assessment confidence: 95% certainty 4/5 debate potential 2/5

CBO completely ignores the social cost of carbon in legislative budgetary scoring

Dr. Mark Paul · The obscure federal agency hindering climate legislation · Jun 1, 2022 · at 11:28

Economist Dr. Mark Paul explains to Stephen Lacey how federal agencies differ from the Congressional Budget Office regarding climate cost metrics.

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“The social cost of carbon doesn't factor into the CBO analysis. The social cost of carbon is utilized for regulatory analysis, not for legislative budgetary analysis as done by the CBO. So they're essentially used in two different branches of government, but as of right now, the CBO just ignores it.”

quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →

The claim, plainly

The Congressional Budget Office does not factor the social cost of carbon into its legislative budgetary scoring.

a quote alone can be ambiguous, so this restates it with the references and context of the conversation around it resolved. AI-written; the tape below the player is the source.

Assessment

Official Congressional Budget Office (CBO) methodology, established under the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 and reiterated in CBO's April 2021 and August 2022 publications, confines legislative cost estimates strictly to direct federal budget cash flows (outlays and revenues). While CBO recognizes the Social Cost of Carbon (SCC) as an economic metric used by executive agencies for regulatory cost-benefit analyses under executive orders, it does not incorporate monetized societal damages or the SCC into standard legislative budgetary scoring.

CBO's April 27, 2021 report ('Budgetary Effects of Climate Change and of Potential Legislative Responses to It') confirmed that standard legislative scores are restricted to direct federal fiscal flows and exclude broader societal externalities and environmental damages.
CBO publications note that the federal Interagency Working Group's SCC estimates are designated for executive branch regulatory cost-benefit analyses rather than legislative budget estimates.
Independent analyses by the Environmental and Energy Study Institute (August 2020) and the Brookings Institution (March 2023), alongside legislative findings from the Carbon Scoring Act of 2024, confirm that CBO scoring does not incorporate the social cost of carbon.

Checked against

[1] cbo.gov [2] cbo.gov [3] eesi.org [4] cbo.gov [5] cbo.gov [6] cbo.gov [7] cbo.gov [8] eesi.org

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assessed as of 2026-09-02

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Mentioned

Congressional Budget Office social cost of carbon

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