Governor Glenn Youngkin again railed against a multistate compact aimed at reducing the impact of climate change Thursday.
Governor Glenn Youngkin pulled the state out of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative last summer after arguing the $5 or so extra on Virginians’ energy bills amounted to hundreds of millions in taxes.
But when Democrats regained the majority last November, they promised to put the state back in. They argued the $800 million the state received from the program so far has helped fund energy resilience projects and other energy saving measures. So, they put language into their conference budget requiring the state to rejoin.
Speaking in front of the counter of a local diner Thursday, Youngkin pushed back on those claims.
“You’re gonna see, under their budget, between 6 and 800 million dollars of increased electricity bills mandatorily jammed into your electricity bill,” the governor said.
But Tim Cywinski with the Virginia Chapter of the Sierra Club said the program set limits on polluters and charged them fees. He calls it a quote “win-win-win.”.
“That money is revenue. They finally have a stake in the game. It would take away the financial incentive to over pollute,” Cywinski said. “That’s what RGGI does in a nutshell.”
And Cywinski isn’t alone; a majority of Democrats in both legislative chambers pushed to get Virginia back in RGGI. Among them is Richmond Delegate Mike Jones:
“We received as a Commonwealth millions of dollars. We can’t turn that away,” Jones told Radio IQ.
Youngkin said he was giving his legislative counterparts time to rest after the 60-day session, but they’ll have to come back and agree on a budget-- with or without RGGI— in mid-April or risk bumping up against the start of the state's new fiscal year in July.
The Republican also blasted several other key components of the two-year budget plan now sitting on his desk. That includes a digital sales tax that Youngkin claims lawmakers snuck into the spending plan.
“Two billion dollars of sales tax increases across the Commonwealth of Virginia is going to show up in everybody’s shrinking wallet. They want to put their hand in your wallet and take your money that you deserve to keep and go do pet projects with it.”
Youngkin also lambasted the state Senate for not even considering a proposal for a new sports arena in northern Virginia. The governor said he would eliminate the tax increases from the budget plan.
Before the event, Youngkin announced actions on 50 pending bills.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
