Tag Archives: TCI

TCI is Now Dead. Happy to Have Helped.

Posted on November 19, 2021 by | 11 comments

by Steve Haner

You’re welcome.

Well, nobody is likely to thank me actually, but why not take a bow. After Connecticut’s governor announced he would give up on imposing the Transportation and Climate Initiative on his citizens, Massachusetts’ governor made a similar announcement yesterday.

Governor Charlie Baker of that state was the driving force behind TCI, one of the few Republican governors pushing it. TCI is dead. It was a bad idea a decade ago, and now is a bad idea that has totally lost relevance. Time and reality have passed it by.

The drumbeat against it in Virginia started softly with this article on Bacon’s Rebellion in March of 2019, and I’ve written about it often here and for the Thomas Jefferson Institute. Those stories, and some polling, legal and economic analysis published by the Jefferson Institute, successfully tagged TCI for what it was: a big fuel tax increase coupled with a government-mandated rationing scheme. Continue reading →

11 Comments

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

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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 →

34 Comments

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

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With Defeat in Connecticut, Will Virginia Drop TCI?

Posted on June 15, 2021 by | 99 comments

By Steve Haner

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

Why do Virginia’s leaders run away from the Transportation and Climate Initiative? Could it be because the first state legislature to consider it, in reliably Democratic Connecticut, just adjourned without even taking a vote on the proposed carbon tax compact, despite strong support from Democratic Governor Ned Lamont?

The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality has called a June 24 public meeting to discuss efforts to ramp down carbon dioxide emissions from transportation sources, but it made no mention of the pending TCI interstate compact. Instead it focused on the General Assembly’s approved 2045 goal of “net zero” emissions in all sectors of the economy, including transportation. Continue reading →

99 Comments

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

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TCI Debate Rages in Comments on Proposed Rule

Posted on May 10, 2021 by | 29 comments

by Steve Haner

The political wannabes in both parties and the state’s media are continuing to ignore it, but the argument over the proposed motor fuel carbon tax called the Transportation and Climate Initiative rages in comments on the proposal flowing into its advocates.

The Thomas Jefferson Institute has also launched a short video (above), perhaps just the first, to alert the public through more populist means. It features owners of two regional fuel businesses, well known as major local employers and taxpayers. Without doubt, Virginia’s membership in TCI would shrink and perhaps severely damage those businesses.

The video was actually ready to use had the 2021 General Assembly taken up the issue, but Governor Ralph Northam did not ask for legislative permission to join the interstate compact involved. The state remains involved in the planning for the cap and tax and ration scheme, now set for 2023 in the states who agree to the compact.

If put in place, all fuel Virginia wholesalers would need to buy government-issued allowances to sell gasoline or diesel, in effect a carbon tax. The amount of allowances will be frozen to prevent the any growth in fuel sales, and then decline annually to force down consumption, in effect rationing.  Continue reading →

29 Comments

Posted in Economic development, Environment, Finance (government), General Assembly, Taxes, Transportation

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TCI Model Rule Ready for Study, Comment

Posted on April 13, 2021 by | 8 comments

by Steve Haner

First published this morning by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy.  (Happy birthday, Mr. President.)

Read the governing document for the Transportation and Climate Initiative and it becomes clear there is more going on than just an effort to reduce motor fuel use with a combination of taxes and shrinking caps. That may really be a secondary goal. Continue reading →

8 Comments

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

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CO2 Taxes, Gas Rationing Poll Badly With Voters

Posted on January 4, 2021 by | 65 comments

By Steve Haner

The Transportation and Climate Initiative plan to tax and ration motor fuels suffered a major setback just before Christmas, when eight of the eleven states considering it decided not to move forward in 2021. Less than two weeks earlier, advocates had released polling that claimed to show overwhelming popularity for the idea.  Continue reading →

65 Comments

Posted in Environment, Regulation, Taxes, Transportation

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Virginia and Other States Pass on Carbon Tax Pact

Posted on December 21, 2020 by | 90 comments

by Steve Haner

The organizers of the Transportation and Climate Initiative announced Monday that only four of the twelve jurisdictions involved have agreed to move forward and implement the carbon tax on motor fuels, and Virginia is not one of them.  Not yet.

The 2021 Virginia General Assembly could consider legislation to join the interstate compact in 2022, but the memorandum of understanding as it stands now only includes Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, which are contiguous, and the District of Columbia.

New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and Pennsylvania were conspicuously absent along with Virginia.  One surprise that emerged, however, is that North Carolina is now part of the planning group.  The states that didn’t sign anything yet issued a statement of “next steps” that leaves the door open for the future.  Even those that did sign pushed the implementation back one year to 2023, reducing the need to act now.

The Governor Ralph Northam Administration has been silent so far on its plans or reasoning.  His apparent decision to at least delay a year on acting is prudent but leaves the issue alive for debate among 2021 candidates for statewide or legislative offices.  Continue reading →

90 Comments

Posted in Energy, Environment, General Assembly, Regulation

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Tufts Study Projects Major TCI Carbon Taxes

Posted on December 20, 2020 by | 74 comments
Abandoned Gas

An abandoned gasoline station in North Carolina that failed after that state raised its fuel taxes substantially higher than Virginia’s.

By Steve Haner

Monday the organizers of the Transportation and Climate Initiative, a carbon tax and rationing regime for Virginia motor fuels, will be announcing details of the underlying interstate compact, according to media reports.

The media in Virginia has been disinterested in the issue, but the debate is raging in New England. The Boston Globe set the stage with a story last week. While 12 states and the District of Columbia have been involved in the planning, there remains some suspense over which states will press forward. New Hampshire is already out, and some other governors have expressed concerns.  Continue reading →

74 Comments

Posted in Energy, Environment, General Assembly, Poverty & income gap, Taxes

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EPA: PM 2.5 At Current Levels is No Threat

Posted on December 10, 2020 by | 157 comments

Source: EPA Website.  Click to expand.

By Steve Haner

“Everything is a poison, nothing is a poison. It is the dose that makes the poison” – Paracelsus (1493-1541 AD)

A micron is a tiny thing. A grain of beach sand is about 90 microns, and a human hair 50 to 70 microns in diameter. In the coming session of the General Assembly, you are about to hear that micron-sized particles are sickening and killing you. Do not believe it.    Continue reading →

157 Comments

Posted in Energy, Environment, General Assembly, Regulation, Science & Technology, Taxes

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Does a $9 Billion Carbon Tax Get Your Attention?

Posted on December 3, 2020 by | 214 comments

by Steve Haner

The 2021 General Assembly is now six weeks away, with the holidays in between.  We know no more about the coming Northam Administration proposal to impose a carbon tax and rationing scheme on our motor fuels than we did months ago. Keeping you uninformed may be part of the plan.

All we have is the Transportation and Climate Initiative organization’s own data and modeling, which are quite extensive.

The initial added tax per gallon of gasoline in Virginia could range from 17.5 cents to 28 cents per gallon, depending on which of the 25% reduction scenarios the still-unseen TCI memorandum of understanding uses. By 2032 the tax could range between 36 cents and 57 cents per gallon, TCI projects.  Continue reading →

214 Comments

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

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Carbon Tax Advocates Who Lost in November

Posted on November 30, 2020 by | 6 comments

From the Collins-Gideon contest in Maine this year, won by Senator Susan Collins.

Editor’s Note:  A cautionary tale as the 2021 Virginia General Assembly prepares to debate another major carbon tax? 

By Paul D. Craney

One of the most overlooked stories on Election Day was the defeat of pro-carbon tax politicians across the nation and here in New England.

The most notable carbon tax proponent to seek office in New England was Sara Gideon, the speaker of the Maine House who was challenging moderate incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins. As speaker, Gideon in 2019 supported the imposition of a carbon tax that’s end effect on fuel prices bore a striking similarity to the Transportation and Climate Initiative, or TCI, a regional effort to place a price on the carbon in vehicle fuels. The carbon tax proposal went nowhere in Maine and Gideon did not embrace it during her run for U.S. Senate.  Continue reading →

6 Comments

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

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TCI: Taxing the Poor to Benefit the Rich

Posted on November 20, 2020 by | 52 comments

New Jersey environmental justice advocate Maria Lopez-Nunez, lower left, speaks with organizers of the Transportation and Climate Initiative on September 29. Hear her here.

By Steve Haner

“I think TCI is just taxing poor people so that we can subsidize rich people’s electric cars.” 

So said New Jersey’s Maria Lopez-Nuñez, Deputy Director, Organizing and Advocacy for the Ironbound Community Corporation. She was speaking during an online seminar September 29 organized by Transportation and Climate Initiative advocates.

That particular comment can be heard at about 3:10 into this recording of her speech. The full meeting is recorded here, and her remarks start at about 1hour and 43 minutes in. Listen to her whole speech if you can. Listen to those that follow and you will learn she was not alone.

Lopez-Nunez is dead on correct that TCI imposes a major and very regressive tax to deliver minor reductions in CO2 emissions, and that moving people into electric cars merely moves the source of CO2 emissions from the roads to the power plants.

Run the projected CO2 emissions savings from TCI through the climate change models at the heart of this whole worldwide debate and the result is infinitesimal changes in the feared future temperature increases. Selling this as saving the planet is not credible, so the push is on to find a new rationale. The effort to make that “environmental justice” by targeting the tax money to their causes is not being well received.

Continue reading →

52 Comments

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

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One Governor Blinks on Carbon Tax. Will Northam?

Posted on November 18, 2020 by | 9 comments

By Steve Haner

The governor of Massachusetts stated yesterday that he and other unnamed governors in Transportation and Climate Initiative states are reconsidering the new carbon tax. Is our Governor Ralph Northam among them? He has a news conference this afternoon and somebody should ask.

From a post late yesterday at the Boston Herald:

“Gov. Charlie Baker said governors are re-evaluating support of a controversial carbon tax designed to limit greenhouse gas emissions as advocates renew calls for its passage.

“We’re living at a point in time right now that’s dramatically different than the point in time we were living in when people’s expectations about miles traveled and all the rest were a lot different,” Baker said Tuesday during a press conference at the State House.

Continue reading →

9 Comments

Posted in Energy, Environment, General Assembly, Taxes

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Transportation Carbon Tax Debate Starts Again

Posted on October 7, 2020 by | 52 comments

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

By Steve Haner

Having imposed a carbon tax on Virginia electricity generation in 2020, the General Assembly starting in January 2021 will consider adding a similar tax on every gallon of gasoline and diesel sold for vehicle use. The Transportation and Climate Initiative, an environmentalist dream for a decade, is finally ready for its close up.

Advocates in the 12-state region that would make up the proposed interstate compact held two webinars in September, one focused on additional modeling on the project and the other discussing all the racially and environmentally just ways they believe states can spend the billions in new taxes.

The new modeling results did not change the basics of the program. TCI is a cap, tax and trade system that imposes a dollars-per-ton cost on the carbon dioxide emissions released by burning the fuels. The tax rate is set by an interstate auction, and the tax itself is imposed on the fuel wholesalers. The amount of fossil fuel emission credits that wholesalers may bid for will be capped and then will shrink a certain percentage every year.  Continue reading →

52 Comments

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

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This is the Green New Deal Economy. Enjoy.

Posted on March 27, 2020 by | 41 comments

Source: Energy Information Agency.  Click for larger view. LCOE, LACE and Value-Cost Ratio explained below.

By Steve Haner

If all else fails in achieving your green energy dreams, you can always hope for a depression.

In Italy, the COVID-19 depression has already dropped electricity demand by about 18-21%, as reported recently by Utility Dive. The regional transmission organizations around the United States are seeing declines, as well, and I’ve been told (no data, but a reliable source) that PJM’s load is approaching a 10% drop.  Past recessions have included electricity usage declines.  Continue reading →

41 Comments

Posted in Energy, Environment, General Assembly, Regulation

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