Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative

Um, but yeah.

So the two case studies in my book are the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which is a cap and trade program for carbon dioxide, so the goal is to reduce, uh, carbon dioxide emissions.

And, um, so it's a partnership of, I think it's 11 or 12 states in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, and each of these states signed on to this agreement to, um, participate in an auction.

So this is a, a cap and trade model, so there's an overall cap on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants in these states.

Um, and, um, so, so, so there's an auction where the emitters can either, um, you know, reduce their carbon dioxide emissions and, and, and make money by selling their allotments.

Um, and, uh, so, so I think it's quarterly auctions, and there's, uh, it...

The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative now has like a...

It's an, a corporate entity that manages, uh, this whole process.

And so they basically split those growth assumptions up into different pockets.

One pocket where The Clean Economy Act, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, all that is off the books, as well as several more with current policies, and even one extending to no new natural gas development, no new fossil fuel development.

You know, an interesting thing that they did, which has gotten, it's risen some controversy, particularly among Republicans in the General Assembly, is they looked at potential cost impacts of each of those different sort of build-out models.

And they included in those cost estimations Something called the social cost of carbon and then expected health impacts from emissions from fossil fuel plants, from polluting power generation.

When the air is warmer, it holds more water before dumping it all out at once, right? Those summer downpours seem to be getting stronger, which causes problems with flooding and all this different stuff.

Virginia does have something like a cost of carbon attached to electricity bills now.

by being a member of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.

But the assumption used in this plan is actually a much higher cost than is currently paid for in electric bills.

A similar proposal was suggested at a state budget hearing on January twenty-eighth by Senator Thomas O'Mara, Republican of Big Flats, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee.

O'Mara noted the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority's financial plan projected more than two billion dollars in annual surpluses, which came from utility payments from ratepayers and proceeds from the multi-state Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative to cap and reduce emissions from power plants.

O'Mara, who represents Eastern Allegheny County, said NYSERDA president and CEO Doreen M. Harris asked Noreen-- Doreen M. Harris why the money couldn't go to ratepayers.

Harris responded, saying the plan contemplated fully committing the money to multi-year projects and programs.

And that's what Governor Spanberger has done.

She's rejoined the REGI, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, that's going to cost ratepayers in Virginia a billion dollars.

So that's an incredible tax that they're facing.

That means their electricity bills are going up.

And there's a great, great line in the movie The Princess Bride where he says, "You know, that, that word you keep using, it, it doesn't mean what you think it means." And what I've realized when Abigail Spanberger is talking about affordability, what she thinks is affordability doesn't exist.

She said she was gonna lower energy costs and focus on affordability, and then she promptly slapped a carbon tax on every Virginian's power bill by rejoining RGGI.

You saw Virginia Democrats propose over thirty billion dollars in new taxes in two thousand twenty-six alone, despite being left with a budget surplus from Governor Youngkin's policies, right? The regulatory burden on new hiring costs increased by twenty-two percent.

We've seen, you know, Boeing, Amazon, many others have announced layoffs or non-expansion in Virginia.