Youngkin ignores facts to reject RGGI’s market-based solutions
It is hard to explain why Gov. Glen Younkin is so determined to pull this state out of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a market-based pollution program patterned after the Reagan and Bush administrations’ successful approach to reducing acid rain.
Essentially, what RGGI does is create a market incentive for pollution reduction. Utilities that reduce carbon pollution below their emission allowance can sell credits to those who have not. What is more conservative than a merit-based system that rewards accomplishment?
Furthermore, the money states raise from the auction of allowances fund flood control and energy efficiency programs. In Virginia’s first year participating, RGGI generated $228 million in proceeds for those initiatives in the commonwealth. Without those proceeds, Virginia taxpayers would be shouldering that expense.
Despite RGGI being a successful merit and market-based program that has reduced the tax burden for state residents, Youngkin is trying everything in his power to kill the program in its infancy.
Is this knee-jerk extremism, where the governor is deliberately ignoring facts to oppose anything climate-related, or is he carrying water for the fossil fuel industry and monopoly utilities like Dominion Energy?
The answer is likely both. Youngkin has filled his administration with folks closely tied to Dominion and fossil fuel interests — and according to OpenSecrets, he has received $1.4 million in campaign contributions from the energy industry.
Youngkin’s latest salvo at
RGGI is a deeply flawed report produced by his special advisor, Andrew Wheeler, attempting to justify pulling Virginia out of the program.
Instead of honestly evaluating RGGI’s first-year performance, the report falsely associates
RGGI with longstanding flaws in the way Virginia regulates its monopoly utilities. If Dominion is trying to evade the market forces brought on by RGGI, all the State Corporation Commission has to do is just say no.
Far from increasing electricity cost as Youngkin claims, electricity prices in states participating in RGGI have fallen by 5.7%, while electricity prices in the rest of the country increased by 8.6%. That is a 14.3% savings for folks living in RGGI states.
And that is only the tip of the iceberg. Today’s energy market strongly favors clean energy. For example, solar generated electricity paired with storage is selling for below $25 per megawatt hour (MWh), while electricity generated by burning coal and natural gas costs double, triple or sometimes even quadruple that.
Even nuclear generation, which has not always been cost competitive, is now cheaper than coal and gas in some cases.
This disparity is only going to grow with the new European demand for U.S. natural gas poised to drive up consumer prices further, and with our coal and gas plants getting more expensive to operate as they age.
RGGI, by encouraging monopoly utilities to diversify with cheaper solar, wind, and nuclear power, is perfectly in tune with the current energy market — in stark contrast to the tone-deaf governor.
Like the Reagan-Bush acid rain program before it, RGGI has been a tremendous success.
In addition to helping reduce electricity costs, the program has generated nearly $5 billion in revenues for states in the northeast and mid-Atlantic since 2008 while cutting carbon pollution from power plants in half.
Thanks to RGGI generated revenue in Virginia, communities from Hampton Roads to Winchester are improving their flood protection and making themselves more resilient to extreme weather events.
It is no wonder that a recent statewide poll by Christopher Newport University’s Watson Center found that Virginians favor staying in RGGI by a wide margin, 67% to 26%.
In his haste to leave the program, Youngkin is not only turning his back on a Reaganstyle market approach to pollution reduction and ignoring the clear realities of today’s energy market, he is also going against the wishes of most Virginians.
If the governor actually wants to reduce folks’ electric bills and stimulate Virginia’s economy, he should fully embrace RGGI, and start favoring markets over monopolies.