(CNN)A Trump-appointed judge dealt another blow to Biden's climate agenda on Friday, barring the administration from using a metric that estimates the societal cost of carbon emissions.

US District Judge James Cain of the Western District of Louisiana issued an injunction on Friday that prevents the Biden administration from using what's known as the "social cost of carbon" in decisions around oil and gas drilling on public land or in rules that govern fossil fuel emissions.

The metric uses economic models to put a value on each ton of carbon dioxide emissions, to help quantify the economic harm caused by the climate crisis: sea level rise, more destructive hurricanes, extreme wildfire seasons and flooding, for example.