About this Site

This site was designed to highlight some of the most significant efforts to incorporate the federally developed social cost of greenhouse gases (SC-GHG) in policymaking across the United States, so that decisionmakers, advocates, and other stakeholders better understand new ways to advance progress on climate change.

The SC-GHG was developed by the federal government’s Interagency Working Group on the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases (Working Group or IWG), whose work began in 2009. The official IWG SC-GHG estimates have been updated over time, most recently in 2016. The IWG, which was was reconvened by President Biden's Executive Order 13,990, released interim estimates, based on the 2016 values and inflated to 2020 dollars, in February 2021. The IWG's technical support documents can be found on the Resources page of this website.

The IWG’s SC-GHG has been used in over 100 federal actions, including regulations and environmental impact statements, in an effort to internalize climate effects into the decisionmaking process. A number of states now also use the IWG SC-GHG. The contents of this website refer to the SC-GHG estimate developed by the IWG, for reasons discussed here.

About the Institute for Policy Integrity

The Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University School of Law has been at the forefront of advocating for the use of the social cost of greenhouse gases in policymaking. Staff members at the institute have published extensive research on the SCC and engaged in dozens of policy proceedings to encourage its proper use in regulations, environmental impact statements, and a variety of policies. More detail about our work on the SC-GHG and numerous other issues can be found at policyintegrity.org. 

The Institute for Policy Integrity is a non‐partisan think tank dedicated to improving the quality of government decisionmaking through advocacy and scholarship in the fields of administrative law, economics, and public policy.