Tag Archives: RGGI

Under RGGI Virginia Releases More CO2, Not Less

Posted on March 13, 2023 by | 33 comments

With the March 8 RGGI results, Virginia power producers have now paid $590 million in carbon taxes. Click for larger view.

by Steve Haner

Since Virginia joined the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) compact at the start of 2021, according to data reported by the U.S. Energy Information Agency, the amount of carbon dioxide emitted to provide electricity to customers in the state has grown. Despite two years of RGGI caps and taxes, total CO2 emissions did not shrink, but grew by 3.7 million tons.

That is because the emissions total includes tracking all power producers providing electrons to the state, which is not the same as emissions from power producers located within the state. Virginia’s membership in RGGI is having the exact opposite effect from what its adherents claim it does because, as many predicted, it has forced Virginia to import far more electricity than it used to.

During the two-year period, electricity consumption within the state grew to 130 million megawatt hours, up 11%. Electricity imports grew from 14 million megawatt hours in 2020 to more than 39 million MWH in 2022, up 280%. RGGI has simply driven power production from fossil fuels used by Virginia to other states. As it has for the other RGGI member states.

These conclusions come from EIA data compiled by David Stevenson, director of the Caesar Rodney Institute in Delaware, and long a skeptic on the benefits of RGGI in this region. He added them to the growing list of public comments on the Virginia Air Pollution Control Board’s pending proposal to take Virginia out of RGGI at the end of 2023. More details and citations from Stevenson are contained in a longer discussion which you can read here; and in a table he created, which is reproduced below. Continue reading →

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Posted in Energy, Environment, Regulation, Utilities

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Dominion Seeks Return of RGGI Tax to Its Bills

Posted on February 1, 2023 by | 43 comments

The states currently in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative CO2 emissions compact.

by Steve Haner

The on again, off again, direct tax on Dominion Energy Virginia bills to pay for the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) may be on again. If you feel like you are watching a shell game and just cannot find the pea, that is intentional.

In its sales pitch for its latest effort to create a more favorable regulatory environment, Dominion Energy Virginia is touting its proposal to take several of its existing stand-alone rate adjustment charges (RACs) and roll them into its base rates. The claim is that will save ratepayers $350 million. Continue reading →

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Posted in Energy, Environment, General Assembly, Regulation, Taxes, Utilities

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Support Governor Youngkin’s RGGI Repeal 

Posted on January 25, 2023 by | 17 comments

by Colin M. Kelly

I can only laugh at the headlines and statements being made by the media and climate alarmists about Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s efforts to pull Virginia out of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI).

The headline “Returning Millions to Virginia” really grates: The state takes money out of the consumer’s pocket with the RGGI tax, divides it up among cronies and supporters by issuing contracts for various studies, and then somehow claims a victory for the consumer! I guess the politicians assume you and I don’t need the money.

In the two years since former Gov. Ralph Northam implemented this tax, the state has collected over $500 million from consumers via this back-door tax embedded in our electric bills. Can you imagine the outrage if Dominion Energy had over-collected that much!

Further, the claims of reducing health costs and helping to weatherize homes are simply ridiculous. “Come on man,” I’ve been hearing these claims since the oil embargoes of the 1970’s. I would bet my dog that if you added up all the deaths supposedly avoided thanks to proposed government regulations over the last 50 years, the average John/Jane Doe’s lifespan would be 110. But sadly we are the only Western country with a declining life expectancy.

If our elected officials believe the projects to be funded by the RGGI tax have merit, then they should be funded through the state’s General Fund. However, the 5% overhead charge by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality to manage RGGI is clearly outrageous. Continue reading →

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RGGI Tax, On Path to Repeal, Reaches $524 Million

Posted on December 12, 2022 by | 33 comments

Virginia’s two year take of carbon taxes under RGGI. RGGI table.

by Steve Haner

First published this morning by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy.

The tax on each ton of carbon dioxide emitted by Virginia electricity plants dropped to below $13 a ton in the most recent sale of CO2 allowances conducted by the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). That meant Virginia collected only $71 million in tax revenue for the fourth quarter, the lowest amount of the four auctions in 2022. Continue reading →

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Posted in Energy, Environment, General Assembly, Regulation, Taxes, Utilities

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Consequences of the Zero Carbon Fantasy

Posted on September 6, 2022 by | 77 comments

By Steve Haner

First published this morning by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy.

Virginians may finally be waking up to the consequences of the headlong rush to adopt utopian energy policies under our previous governor. The issues are getting more attention than ever before, and now people need to realize that all the issues are really just one issue.

  • A California regulatory board’s decision to ban new gasoline vehicle sales by 2035 is finally being widely reported as binding on Virginia. This has angered many but was actually old news. Under a 2021 Virginia law, our Air Pollution Control Board had already imposed the future sales restrictions, and it was some new amendments that sparked the news coverage. Various political leaders have now promised to stop it but a bill to reverse it died in the 2022 General Assembly when Democrats rallied to save the mandate.
  • Our dominant electric utility has finally acknowledged that its planned $10 billion offshore wind facility is a gigantic financial risk and is now refusing to build it unless the State Corporation Commission (SCC) places 100 percent of the construction and performance risk on its customers. Dominion Energy Virginia knows many things about this proposal it has not told us.
  • Governor Glenn Youngkin (R) is trying to remove Virginia from an interstate compact that mandates a carbon tax on electricity, imposed under former Governor Ralph Northam (D). Advocates for the tax are pushing back and will fight, delay and likely sue to preserve the tax, which costs Virginians $300 million per year at current levels and will continue to rise. Without explanation, the Governor did not keep his initial promise to promulgate an emergency regulation that could remove it quickly, so the tax lingers.
  • Governor Youngkin has opened the process for developing a revised statewide energy plan document, a political process to produce what in the past has been merely a political document. The public comment portal has already become an ideological fistfight. Northam’s 2018 plan had no engineering or economic detail.  It simply praised the legislative efforts to erase fossil fuels which had been adopted to that point and outlined the next steps his administration would take (couched as recommendations.)

Continue reading →

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Posted in Business and Economy, Energy, Environment, General Assembly, Regulation, Utilities

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Fuel Costs Explode on Dominion Bills in July

Posted on June 12, 2022 by | 75 comments

by Steve Haner

Are you enjoying paying more for gasoline? Have you noticed how that works its way through and inflates the price of just about everything else you buy? The other shoe drops in July when Dominion Energy Virginia increases its prices to reflect the rising cost of fuel. It will also spread more inflation virus throughout the economy.

The cost of fuel and purchased electricity is a separate charge, designated Rider A, on every monthly electric bill, residential and commercial. The annual fluctuations are usually small, and can go either way, but the increase this time will hit everybody hard and may hold for years. (Here is the case file.) Continue reading →

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Posted in Business and Economy, Energy, Regulation, Taxes

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You Just Paid More RGGI Tax, Virginians

Posted on June 5, 2022 by | 24 comments

Six RGGI auctions have reaped Virginia $378 million.

by Steve Haner

Last week Virginia collected another $76 million in carbon tax dollars through the ongoing Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative allowance auction. That was the sixth such sale since Virginia joined RGGI, and the state’s total tax take is now $378 million in 18 months.

Do not for one minute allow yourself to be fooled into thinking this money is not coming out of the pockets of Virginia’s citizens or businesses. Do not fall for the ploy Dominion Energy Virginia is attempting by claiming it will charge it off to “base rates.” The pea is still under your walnut shell.  Continue reading →

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Posted in Budgets, Energy, Environment, General Assembly, Regulation, Taxes

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Weather Writer/Climate Warrior Defends RGGI Tax

Posted on February 6, 2022 by | 24 comments

Sean Sublette, staff meteorologist for the Richmond Times Dispatch.

by Steve Haner

The Richmond Times-Dispatch weather reporter has entered the political debate over Governor Glenn Youngkin’s efforts to exit the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). But is he really a weather reporter, or a climate warrior?

Sean Sublette’s on-line report on RGGI is packaged as a simple recitation of facts, but it is the selection of which facts to include and exclude that makes it interesting, and he gets many facts wrong. At the start, he makes one central claim which I have disputed: that Virginia entered RGGI “through an act of the General Assembly.”

Virginia entered RGGI through a regulation adopted by the Air Pollution Control Board, which was followed by Virginia signing a contract. The legislature authorized but did not mandate RGGI participation and the carbon tax. It mandated carbon reductions, but not the method. His opening assertion takes a side in the argument, against the current Governor.

Actually this is his opening assertion, after noting that the program exists to reduce carbon dioxide releases: “These gasses are directly tied to observed planetary warming.” From the same level of scientific certainty that brought you cloth masks against a virus.

No one should be surprised that this is his first premise. Sublette came to the newspaper last year from an organization called Climate Central, part of the climate catastrophe-industrial complex that promotes the wind and solar industries. Here’s a pretty typical example of his output there, this on “the hottest global year on record.” Continue reading →

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Posted in Energy, Environment, Regulation, Taxes

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Do Not Move RGGI Tax Into Utility Base Rates

Posted on January 25, 2022 by | 24 comments

by Steve Haner

Governor Glenn Youngkin (R) is seeking to get Virginia out of a regional carbon tax compact, yet inexplicably has offered supporters of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) a path to protect it.

His proposal would remove the tax on monthly electric bills which has galvanized opposition and move the cost of the mandated carbon allowances into the base rates of Dominion Energy Virginia. If somebody told Youngkin that was a benefit to the taxpayers, he was misled. It still costs us money.

Who benefits from his move, especially if it becomes a long-term approach? The utility does, as it is still using ratepayer money, and also the various special interest spending programs now being supported with the RGGI taxes. The state collected $228 million last year and will likely collect $300 million in 2022.

The proposal is in the form of a budget amendment to House and Senate Bills 29, the so-called “caboose” bill that makes amendments to the budget now in force. As a language amendment to the caboose bill, if adopted, it technically would expire as of June 30, 2022.

The danger, and do not think for a moment I’m the first to see this, is that the amendment could migrate to House and Senate Bills 30, the new budget, and be in force from July 1, 2022, to June 30, 2024. By then, the RGGI tax costs would be established as a regular cost of doing business. It would reduce the excess profits that fund the customer rebates like those the State Corporation Commission just ordered and reduce the chance future excess profits might spark a rate cut. Continue reading →

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Posted in Budgets, Energy, Environment, General Assembly, Regulation, Taxes

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A Regulatory Path to End the RGGI Carbon Tax

Posted on January 18, 2022 by | 22 comments

The states currently in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative compact.

by Steve Haner

First published today by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy.

Governor Glenn Youngkin (R) will proceed to remove Virginia from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative carbon tax compact by the same route Virginia entered it: he will push to repeal the underlying regulation.

As with much else in his promised “Day One” agenda, it will actually take time. What he gave Virginia on Day One was an executive order outlining the coming steps, which still must follow the letter of Virginia’s administrative process rules. Regulations are created, amended and repealed routinely.

His administration will also notify the RGGI organization of Virginia’s intent to withdraw, a step contemplated and allowed under the governing memorandum of understanding.

It was a vote of the Air Pollution Control Board, citing authority over airborne carbon dioxide emissions, that implemented the cap and trade rules that require electric power producers to buy carbon allowances. That allowance cost is then passed on to power customers, in the case of Dominion Energy Virginia customers, directly on every month’s bill. Continue reading →

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Posted in Energy, Environment, Flooding, Regulation, Taxes

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Our Media Trusts “The Smart Ones”

Posted on December 13, 2021 by | 36 comments

by Steve Haner

Not every policy imposed by government is subject to public hearings or votes. That’s one reason to vote for smart candidates who have the country’s best interests at heart and not for those who rant about personal liberty without accepting any social responsibility for individual decisions.

That was part of a response I received by email from somebody who read Friday’s post on the Air Pollution Control Board’s new regulation which ties Virginia’s auto market to emissions rules promulgated by California. I had noted how the state’s usual and statutory requirements for notice and comment had been bypassed on the orders of the General Assembly.

Clearly this reader thought that was just fine, which floored me. My respondent was a member of the working news media. If anybody should be standing up for transparency and public participation, it would be news reporters, editors and producers, right? Not this person, not on this issue. (I’ll withhold the name.)

The comments from a “journalist” about “smart candidates” versus “those who rant about personal liberty” speak for themselves. Note they would apply equally to COVID mitigations and efforts to eliminate carbon dioxide, with disdain poured on skeptics in either case. It was a refreshingly honest admission that explains the selective coverage we must wade through on so many issues. It came at a time when I was already shaking my head over the media coverage of Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin’s proposal to exit the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. Continue reading →

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Posted in Energy, Environment, General Assembly, Media, Science & Technology

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Youngkin to Withdraw From RGGI, End Carbon Tax

Posted on December 8, 2021 by | 24 comments

The RGGI member states.

By Steve Haner

First published by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy.

Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin told a business audience Wednesday afternoon that he intends to withdraw Virginia from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. His decision came two days after Dominion Energy Virginia filed a petition to increase the RGGI tax on its bills by 83% next year.

“RGGI describes itself as a regional market for carbon,” Youngkin told a meeting of the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce. “But it is really a carbon tax that is fully passed on to ratepayers. It is a bad deal for Virginians. It is a bad deal for business and as governor, I will withdraw us from RGGI by executive action. I promised to lower the cost of living in Virginia and this is just the beginning.”

The Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy sought to dissuade the state from joining RGGI and imposing this carbon tax and has reported often on the development and imposition of Dominion’s bill adder to collect it. We applaud this decision, knowing that Youngkin may face a struggle to implement it.

Virginia has been part of the interstate tax, cap and trade compact for a year now. Every large electrical generating facility in the state must buy allowances in a multi-state auction equal to the number of tons of carbon dioxide its operations will emit. With the only large fleet of Virginia coal and gas generators, this is basically about Dominion Energy Virginia and its 2.6 million customer accounts. Continue reading →

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Posted in Energy, Environment, General Assembly, Regulation, Taxes

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Conference Explores VA Rush to Copy CA Energy

Posted on September 10, 2021 by | 34 comments

by Steve Haner

Californians were again this week under an electricity “flex alert,” a conservation order required because of its reliance on unreliable solar and wind energy. They often cannot keep up with demand on the hotter days. Is this Virginia’s future? The government is telling Californians:

  • Set your thermostat at 78° or higher
  • Avoid using major appliances
  • Turn off unnecessary lights
  • Use fans for cooling
  • Unplug unused items.

The return of this power shortfall comes just days before Governor Gavin Newsom faces a recall vote, with this growing crisis being cited by some of his opponents. It is also a distant cloud on Virginia’s horizon as early voting begins here next week in the elections for statewide offices and the House of Delegates.

Virginia has rushed to copy California’s climate-fear and rent-seeking driven solar and wind energy scheme. Continue reading →

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Posted in Energy, Environment, Regulation, Resilience, Taxes, Transportation, Unions

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Surprise! State Underestimated Carbon Tax Cost

Posted on March 14, 2021 by | 40 comments

by Steve Haner

Virginia has collected its first wave of carbon taxes from the state’s electricity generators, costs which will eventually show up on future bills. The $43.6 million take just about doubles the revenue estimates used when participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative was being approved by the Virginia General Assembly last year. Surprise!   Continue reading →

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Posted in Business and Economy, Energy, Environment, General Assembly, Regulation, Taxes

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The Wildest Energy Whirlwind Ever is Underway

Posted on January 6, 2020 by | 17 comments

by Steve Haner

If Bacon’s Rebellion at times has been “Dominion Pravda,” providing a window into that corporate giant’s C suite, our friends at the Virginia Mercury sometimes take the opposite role of “Environmental People’s Daily.”

Its story today is a good example, for what it includes and what it does not. The long, detailed and worthwhile summary of energy and environment issues coming to the 2020 General Assembly has a glaring omission. It makes no reference to the Transportation and Climate Initiative. If anybody could get a straight answer out of the Northam Administration, you’d think it would be Virginia Mercury. The silence is deafening and perhaps significant.

At some point soon somebody has to say something, wouldn’t you think? In others states in the proposed interstate compact, governors are being pinned down, actual TCI bills are pending, legislators are taking positions, coalitions are forming. This will have to happen in Virginia soon if the organizers of TCI want their proposed memorandum of understanding signed by enough states to actually impose the carbon caps and taxes by 2022.  Continue reading →

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Posted in Energy, Environment, General Assembly, Taxes

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