15 Mar 2022 Cancelling Cap and Trade Good for Environment
Approaching the task from multiple angles, Governor Glenn Youngkin is moving forward on removing Virginia from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). The governor’s office said the policies promoted by the state-level regulatory partnership levy an “unfair burden… on Virginia ratepayers.”
Governor Youngkin issued an executive order early in his term to begin the pullout. He is now following up with regulatory actions through the commonwealth’s Air Pollution Control Board, budget actions and the help of allies in the legislature.
As described by Kevin Mooney in a Daily Signal article, the RGGI promotes a “cap and trade” regulatory regime to achieve the group’s climate-focused goals:
In these states, government regulators impose an upper limit or “cap” on the amount of carbon dioxide emissions that power plants are permitted to emit. The initiative also creates “allowances” within interstate auctions that may be traded back and forth among companies subjected to the emission caps.
Calling it “a bad deal for Virginians” and “a bad deal for Virginia businesses,” Youngkin cited the tax burden of RGGI compliance. A filing by the Virginia-based Dominion Energy utility reported customers would pay up to $1.2 billion over four years to comply with RGGI mandates.
At the beginning on the Youngkin Administration, Project 21 member Derrick Hollie praised the intention to withdraw from the RGGI, saying:
Forcing people to pay more each month to keep the lights on and the house comfortable can take a devastating toll on at-risk households…
Pulling Virginia out of the RGGI is a smart idea that puts more money in people’s pockets and more opportunities on their tables.
And National Center Senior Fellow Bonner Cohen, Ph.D. added in an interview with Mooney that the allegedly “transformative” results of RGGI membership that were touted by Youngkin’s predecessor would “not be for the better.”
Explaining the environmental problems associated with the RGGI’s so-called clean energy agenda, Bonner said:
The increased reliance on wind and solar power will transform broad swaths of Virginia’s bucolic countryside and deep-blue offshore waters into a world of unsightly and inefficient industrial-scale wind turbines and solar arrays.
The pollution potential caused by the disposal of used-up solar panels (tens of thousands of them), giant wind turbines, and dead batteries for when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow will make the worst Superfund site look like child’s play.
Click here to read all of Mooney’s article – “Youngkin Poised to Withdraw Virginia From Multistate Climate Pact” – at the Daily Signal website.
