Pennsylvania’s heretofore slow – but dedicated – race to the bottom of economic and governance common sense accelerated last week when Gov. Tom Wolf’s packed Environmental Quality Board voted to publish “rules” to create the Keystone State’s framework for joining the abomination known as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI).
As the Post-Gazette tells it, the “regional initiative establishes a shrinking cap on carbon emissions from the power sector in 10 Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states.”
“The proceeds from the sale of each state’s emissions credits are invested primarily in energy efficiency, renewable energy and other projects designed to reduce the release of climate-warming gases,” the P-G says.
Never mind that an exhaustive analysis a year ago by the Allegheny Institute (in Policy Brief Vol. 19, No. 37) concluded the governor’s “desire to join RGGI seems to be more about imposing a carbon tax and little to do with actual environmental concerns. A closer look at RGGI reveals that the cooperative is more of a taxing entity and less of the environmental proponent it claims to be.”
And never mind years of scholarly research that shows RGGI to be another in a long line of “progressive” environmental farces.
Here’s how a 2018 Cato Institute review characterized RGGI:
“Although the RGGI is often called a ‘cap and trade’ program, its effect is the same as a direct tax or fee on emissions because RGGI allowance costs are passed on from electric generators to distribution companies to consumers.”
And for all the positive program reviews (which the think tank’s analysis found to be largely self-generated), the truth about RGGI unmasks the farce that it is.
As the Cato review found:
• “There were no added emissions reductions or associated health benefits from the RGGI program.”
• “Spending of RGGI revenue on energy efficiency, wind, solar power and low-income fuel assistance had minimal impact.”
• “RGGI allowance costs added to already high regional electric bills. The combined pricing impact resulted in a 12 percent drop in goods production and a 34 percent drop in the production of energy-intensive goods. Comparison states increased goods production by 20 percent and lost only 5 percent of energy-intensive manufacturing. Power imports from other states increased from 8 percent to 17 percent.”
And as last autumn’s Allegheny Institute white paper concluded:
“The increased energy prices for taxpayers, loss of jobs due to mounting energy costs and second-order effects resulting from higher electricity costs are strong arguments against joining RGGI.
“Joining RGGI would be an ill-advised decision that would undermine much of the economic and environmental success the state has enjoyed in the last decade thanks to natural gas production in the electricity market.”
Remember the axiom about not buying a pig until you see it? That is, never buy the proverbial pig in a poke. The continuing, emerging problem with RGGI is that you can see the pig and, as a matter of sound economics and sound public policy, it just gets uglier and uglier.
And yet the Wolfpack continues to push it?
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
