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Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, the Obama administration is advancing something under the Council on Environmental Quality known as a ``guidance on the social cost of carbon.'' This would be undertaken while doing environmental impact studies.

At the same time the administration claims that it is trying to advance more oil and gas by using those reserves to further help the energy economy in this country, it is also advancing this, but it claims it has not yet been adopted. Yet, some Federal agencies are already using it in order to block the development of this and of other important infrastructure. This will be yet another tool to stop either needed energy policy or other infrastructure projects that need to be done around this country.

We cannot afford to have these regulators coming out using a policy that has not been passed by the Congress but, indeed, is something that has been adopted by the administration on its own in order to block projects that are especially needed in rural areas for our energy economy in this country, for nonreliance on foreign energy, and for the jobs that are so desperately needed. This is a wrong-headed approach to adopt policy without the word of Congress--the people's Representatives--on this issue.

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