If you feel like the cost of electricity has increased substantially over the last few years, you are not hallucinating. Thanks to New York entering the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI, often called ‘reggi’) in 2005, we have been piling on hidden taxes on energy production.
RGGI is a regional cap and trade program, just like the one proposed federally, where energy producers now must purchase credits to produce the same energy they have always generated. The idea is that, by increasing the cost of energy, people will use less, reducing the emissions that some believe are warming the planet to catastrophic levels.
However, the coalition of 10 northeast states that makes up RGGI – Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont – is starting to fall apart, and with good reason. The cost of these energy credits are passed on to the consumer, increasing the cost of electricity. This is a highly regressive tax that impacts hardest on the poor and seniors on fixed incomes.
Even worse, the money is supposed to go into a fund to help create affordable energy. That was a key selling point of RGGI, that it wouldn’t hurt consumers. Instead, the states have been raiding the fund to plug holes in their budgets. Last year, New York hit the fund for $90 million.
Worst of all, the reason for this is to fight global warming, a theory that, contrary to popular belief, is being more discredited as time goes on. Over the last 3,000 years, there have been five times when global temperatures were significantly higher than they are now, with no cataclysmic effects. And, right now we are below the average temperature for that time.
Over the last 50 years there has been virtually no change in global temperature, and all the dire circumstances that warming advocates have illustrated, like melting ice caps, have been slowly reversing. The vast majority of scientists have come out opposed to the global warming theory. A quick visit to www.petitionproject.org verifies this.
Last month, New Jersey quit RGGI. Governor Christie said, “RGGI has not changed behavior and it does not reduce emissions. RGGI does nothing more than tax electricity, tax our citizens, tax our businesses, with no discernible or measurable impact upon our environment.” Several other states have bills pending to withdraw from RGGI and attempts to bring Pennsylvania in have failed.
New York should follow suit immediately, before the summer demand drains more money from consumer’s pockets to be used by irresponsible legislators. There is no excuse to remain in this sham program, no excuse to impose this unnecessary tax, and no excuse to pretend this in an environmental issue.
Robert Hornak is a Queens-based political consultant, blogger, and an active member of the Queens Republican Party.
