Can the Governor Veto RGGI?
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41 responses to “Can the Governor Veto RGGI?”
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We need to be removed from a tax, along w/illegals, PPP, etc.
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I am keeping this essay for my records. Well done.
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The Regent law review article he linked to, by Bernie McNamee, is very, very useful background. Check that out, too.
The howling if he vetoes the whole budget would be something, wouldn’t it? Still makes my conservative soul a big queasy.
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Vetoing the whole budget would be unprecedented. He would then need to call a special session for the GA to pass another budget. There would be no guarantee that he would get a budget bill any better than he has now. There is a question of time. The current budget expires on June 30, although we could as the feds do–pass temporary extensions.
If he is going to veto anything, I think he would be better off vetoing the sales tax extension as a unconstitutional violation of the single-object rule. After doing the research, I don’t think it woud qualify as an item veto. The Court might not go along with it, but at least we would know if the single-object rule imposes any meaningful limits. And the governor would have to eat a little politicial crow since the bill he introduced had tax provisions in it.
He could deal with the revenue shortfall administratively under the power granted to him in Sec. 4-1.02 of the Appropriation Act.
I am even happier that I am retired and not working in DPB now.
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that would be a pretty good “WOW”… for Virginia
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Dick, you outdid yourself. Excellent job of research & analysis.
Funny how both political parties jump from one side to the other on issues when it suits their immediate needs.
The problem with the climate change believers is not the need to address greenhouse gas emissions, improve the efficiency and effectiveness of renewable energy sources, have devices become more energy efficient and address infrastructure needs negatively affected by climate change, it’s the financial fleecing of most Americans by government officials in the name of saving the planet.
Let’s look at the issue of rising ocean levels and private property likely to be flooded if and when such rising water levels arise. Common sense and basic fairness would lead one to grandfather existing ocean front improvements. They can remain in place but not rebuilt. No other buildings should be permitted to be constructed in an area expected to be flooded. Will this happen? Of course not. As Larry has pointed out many times, Congress will not even end taxpayer subsidies of flood insurance. But the question remains, why should people pay more for energy to enable people to own expensive homes and other structures located in areas expected to be flooded?
Then there are structures built on reclaimed land. While the U.S. is not Holland, we have many coastal developments built on landfill. The areas in Manhattan flooded in Hurrican Sandy were built on landfill. One-third of San Francisco, including almost all of the Financial District, is built on landfill. Should ordinary people pay higher energy prices to protect the owners of these structures?
And one of my favorites. The higher carbon footprints of illegal immigrants in the United States versus their carbon footprints in their native lands. More money means more carbon. Clearly, the carbon footprint of a family illegally in Chicago or Denver is greater than the carbon emissions from a gas range. But the climate fanatics and their minions in Congress is silent about the former but not about the latter.
Had these issues been raised in the 1950s or 1960s, we’d read about them in newspapers and magazines or hear about them on radio or TV. But now, media silence.
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I don’t think individual properties are going to get “saved” by the Federal flood program per se because the Feds are pulling back on it as they should but that insurance does not cover all aspects of storm damage anyhow and the private insurance companies are also pulling back such that only the rich and hard-core dumb will continue to build and/or try to maintain properties that are clearly at greater and greater risk.
The other problem is public infrastructure, like roads, bridges, tunnels, etc which Hurricane Sandy did tremendous damage to – public infrastructure. Some estimate are 30 billion. Someone will have to pay for that and RGGI IMO is not such an awful thing if it’s a way to do that for Virginia.
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I agree that the government (and taxpayers) have the responsibility to protect needed government facilities. But I’m still waiting for a government announcement that it will not protect private buildings constructed on landfill or that beachfront homes will be grandfathered. Walk your talk.
Of course, there will be screaming but it’s time for the screaming to begin if elected officials believe what they preach.
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two different issues TMT. When and if the govt announces programs for public infrastructure, it will be apparent that it’s not for private land.
Separately from that, there are ongoing changes to the flood insurance program that will put more and more of the burden on the property owner as it should.
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State and local governments are regularly operating programs that bring in sand to elevate beaches and constructing other facilities that protect water-fronting structures.
And if governments believed that certain structures located on landfill, for example, should not be protected against climate change generated flooding, there would be no reason to fortify public infrastructure serving those private properties.
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There is an abundance of economic analyses that RGGI and its net zero companions is a waste of resources because the cost far exceed the benefits.
The Governor and Attorney General should be able to come up with a creative way to veto either this provision or the entire budget to force the democrats to go on record that they favor waste. -
So is the argument that greenhouse gas concentrations in the environment are not going up; or that the concentrations are going up but will have no impact on the climate;or that the concentrations are going up but the impact will be less than the economics impact of trying to limit the increase; or that concentrations are going up, there were will massive impacts, and that nothing can be done about it but adaption?
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https://budget.lis.virginia.gov/amendment/2024/1/HB29/Introduced/CR/381/1c/
You have selectively quoted the language, which can be read in full at the link above. In the second part of the language it clearly orders money to be spent. That is an appropriation, a sum sufficient one with no specific numbers, but an appropriation none the less. I think it subject to veto if he strikes out the whole item. Such arguments keep lawyers going….and I ain’t one.
Does put our fellow W&M grad Paul Nardo in an interesting spot. And I thank you for researching the legal history, which I had hoped to do. But I think the cases help the Governor more than hinder him.
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You may have a point, although the a sum sufficient is not “an indivisible sum of money.”
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I think you outdid Haner on the deep in the weeds stuff in terms of the mechanics but the issue itself is not.
Thanks for the analysis and reporting though.
So, the GOV IS contemplating a veto? And there are not enough votes to override it?
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I think all the R’s voted to remove this paragraph from the budgets when they were on the floor, so they would presumably all vote to sustain a veto. And when the Governor complains about $2.6B in tax increases, he is including the RGGI carbon tax.
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Whew….glad to read your comment. Dick’s splendidly detailed, exacting, monumental article was more than my frail mind could bear. Cannot adequately debate such, so:
VETO AYE, Honorable Governor of the Great Commonwealth!
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Should the Governor’s advisors agree with Dick, which I doubt, there is of course the option of vetoing the entire budget. I’m personally getting more comfortable with that drastic idea. If he kills the digital sales tax too then the whole document is badly out of balance and needs to be renegotiated. The idea that the Assembly can create an entirely new tax and bury it in the budget to emasculate the governor turns the constitution on his head.
Preview of a column in drafting…The RGGI compact held an auction last week and the carbon tax reached $16 per ton of CO2, a record. That is 28% higher than last year at this time ($12.50) and 111% higher than the tax imposed in the first auction Virginia joined three years ago ($7.60). It will only keep rising.
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What a history lesson. I was thinking of the veto of the entire budget as well. Politically it would make sense. It might be a great strategy over the Dems.
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Dick, there’s RGGI and then there’s pure RGGI. In one of your cited sources, JB’s 2018 summary, he says, “The biggest difference between Virginia and other RGGI states is that Virginia’s “consignment” auction revenues will not flow into state coffers. Money will go back to the power companies that paid for them; in turn, regulated utilities will be required to rebate the funds to rate payers. The downside: Virginia loses the ability to fund its own energy-efficiency programs as other states do..”
Do you know if the terms of Virginia’s rejoining RGGI would remedy this difference from the other RGGI states?
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I’m not that well-versed on RGGI; my focus was the legal and constitutional framework. That being said, it is my impression that JB’s article is a little outdated. I think the money from the auctions goes into a special fund whose main purpose is floor prevention and resilence building. Steve could answer this question better than I can.
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Obsolete, Acbar. In 2018 McAuliffe proposed that the money would return to ratepayers, but that never happened. The 2020 GA legislation made it a pure tax and dedicated the cash to energy conservation projects and flood prevention/mitigation. There is still cash in the account to be spent as a matter of fact. New cash would be spent that way, too.
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Fascinating read. Enjoyed this very much Mr. Dick. This could end up on the syllabus at UVA Law School.
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On the politics of it :
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A good tell on climate change is whether the person says that they do not believe in climate change as if belief and faith is needed to understand that CO2 levels are going up. After the initial statement, the conservative person usually resorts to hand waving that amounts to nothing more than saying “lets kick the can down the road so that my standard of living will be not affected today.”
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Seems like some Conservatives say that the Climate issue is a complete hoax, scientists lying about it, etc, and so they dispute doing anything at all in response to it.
Other conservatives seem to equivocate a little on it so it varies from “maybe real” to “perhaps real” but doing anything about it that costs money or changes to policy and infrastructure is too much and not justified.
Both kinds comment here.
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Back to Teddy’s question. Climate change is real. It is also constant, a given really, especially over long periods of time. (Ice ages come and go, for example). No question it has natural causes and no question human activity contributes. It is the climate catastrophe narrative that I consider a hoax based on very shaky modeling. The real data does not support the claims of increasing storms, fires, droughts, plagues, inundated cities, all the other nonsense that fills the MSM and click bait web stories. The whole panic is based on a degree or two (C) of temp variations and mere millimeters of steady sea level rise.
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Then why is their sunny day flooding in the tidewater area and why is homeowners insurance going up in Florida and California? Remember, Phoenix set heat records in 2023 during the summer.
Yet, people are still moving to Florida and Arizona while depending on HVAC to life in such places.
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You don’t actually think high tides only started in the past 50 years, do you? Hampton Roads is sinking! The land has been subsiding for eons. You are far too accepting of a MSM narrative that is not just a hoax, but a highly subsidized and coordinated hoax. Hot in Phoenix….what a surprise!
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You don’t actually think high tides only started in the past 50 years, do you? Hampton Roads is sinking! The land has been subsiding for eons. You are far too accepting of a MSM narrative that is not just a hoax, but a highly subsidized and coordinated hoax. Hot in Phoenix….what a surprise!
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And the Seychelles?
“Honey? Wasn’t there a rock sticking up out there?”
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So I guess one can be placed in the CO2 is going up but it will have no real effects crowd or minimal effects that can be deal with with higher insurance premiums.
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Never underestimate the left’s commitment to the absurd. Reagan National Airport’s weather gauge is right next to the runway. Per plan.
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A degree, or two, in SST is a big deal. It’s the sink.
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changes in the Atlantic ocean currents ought to worry even the skeptics.
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Nah, nothing worries the skeptical.
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So, if we KNOW there IS going to be damage to public infrastructure as a result of climate change (regardless of what caused it), having a mechanism for building up a fund to pay for upgrading the ones identified for risk and/or repairing it after doesn’t seem to be such a radically bad idea to me.
There are some existing examples.
collecting fees for upgrading storm water infrastructure.
special funds to upgrade water/sewer plants
collecting fees to dig up and remediate old service
station fuel tanks.collecting tire disposal fees to clean up tire dump sites.
it’s actually a “conservative” approach to planning!
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All those programs already exist. Look it up. UST has been an issue for decades.
https://www.epa.gov/ust
https://archive.epa.gov/epawaste/conserve/materials/tires/web/html/basic.html
https://www.epa.gov/emergency-response-research/water-infrastructure-resilience-
All those programs already exist.
Yes. And he stated as much in his comment.
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But UST has nothing to do with climate change. UST fall into the areas regulated by CERCLA and RCRA.
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Re: Notwithstanding any other provision of this act, or any other law, no expenditures from general, special, or other non-general fund sources shall be used to take any action that impedes or otherwise interferes with Virginia’s rejoining of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative or continued participation therein.
How much, if anything, did Youngkin include in his budget proposal for this? Is any legwork for not rejoining (research, OAG expenses, etc.), something that can be privately funded?
Probably just reaching here, but if liberally construed the budget language itself seems problematic to me. The pending court cases are actions that could impede or interfere with rejoining; but wouldn’t this language prevent any action (including judicial action–with courts paid from GF–leading to VA not rejoining)?
Finally, VA is not currently a member of RGGI? If so, then what does maintaining the status quo and doing nothing cost? What funds would be expended?
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