The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI, is a multistate partnership that has seen hundreds of millions of dollars returned to Virginia. Governor Glenn Youngkin has called it a burdensome tax and tried to remove the state from the agreement.
But a budget amendment that would force Virginia to rejoin survived debate on the House floor Thursday.
“Participating in RGGI, participating in this sort of regulatory environment does create an environment where your energy bills go up,” Frietas said.
That’s Culpepper-area Delegate Nick Frietas repeating complaints from Governor Glenn Youngkin and other conservatives who have long decried RGGI even as it brought over $800 million dollars to the Commonwealth.
Fairfax-area David Bulova said the program has funded numerous climate resilience projects and led to a 20 percent drop in power plant pollution. He also compared the market-based approach used to facilitate RGGI to programs used by former Republican Presidents to phase out other environmental hazards.
“It's the same type of approach used by Ronald Reagan used to phase out leaded gasoline, and the same approach that President George H.W. Bush proposed to phase out sulfur dioxide,” Bulova said.
But Freitas argued the system as an artificial, government-made market, not a free one, and one that is doing more harm than good.
“And all due respect to President Ronald Reagan who I appreciate very much, maybe sometimes even he got it wrong," Freitas said to jeers from his fellow legislators.
Even House Speaker Don Scott commented in jest: “Man, that is real.”
The amendment passed along party lines meaning it’ll likely also survive when the House budget gets sent over to the Senate.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
