GAO: Trump administration has been underestimating costs of carbon pollution

According to a new report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office—which provides fact-based, nonpartisan information to Congress—the Trump administration has been systematically underestimating the damage caused by carbon pollution in order to justify a host of environmental rollbacks, many of which impact federal public lands and federal public land-management agencies.

In fact, the GAO wrote in its report that “The current federal estimates, based on domestic climate damages, are about 7 times lower than the prior federal estimates.”

Rebecca Beitsch reports for The Hill.

4 thoughts on “GAO: Trump administration has been underestimating costs of carbon pollution”

  1. Thanks for posting this Matthew

    Why am I not surprised by this news? This administration doesn’t give a rip about our public lands, clean air & water or countless other things that each of us depends on!

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    • To be fair, no one including GAO nor Hill reporters know who may be underestimating or overestimating, because they are all ..well.. unknown

      Reply
  2. As noted above, GAO reported current estimates are… “about 7 times lower than the prior federal estimates.” I don’t think any reasonable person can aver that such estimates are both accurate and precise. But “unknown”? Hardly. GAO is noting that previous administration efforts to apply scientific rigor to the question have been modified significantly downward by Trump adm officials. Which begs the question: Why? Either Obama deliberately inflated the numbers, or Trump deliberately reduced them. As for me, I suspect the latter is a much more logical supposition.

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