Virginia joined the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI, years ago with the hope of sharing the cost of improving environmental resilience and green energy across multiple states. But Governor Glenn Youngkin never liked the agreement and tried to pull the state out.
His warning to keep Virginia out is unlikely to be honored by Democrats when he leaves office.
“Don’t put Virginia back in RGGI. RGGI only drives up utility bills and drives up the cost of living for Virginians,” Governor Glenn Youngkin said as part of the final remarks of his budget presentation Wednesday.
RGGI, or the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, is a multistate compact Youngkin has long decried as a tax on Virginians. The program added to utility bills while also bringing hundreds of millions of dollars back into the Commonwealth to cover energy efficiency and climate resiliency projects.
At a news conference Thursday, Democratic Senate President Louise Lucas was none-too-pleased with his warning.
“The hypocrisy of saying we need to get rid of RGGI while he’s leveraging RGGI dollars," Lucas said. "I mean the hypocrisy stinks to the high heavens.”
Among her concerns is Youngkin’s transfer of funds reserved for energy efficiency projects towards other priorities in his outgoing budget.
Senator Mamie Locke also dinged Youngkin for his RGGI comments, including that many states were pulling out of the agreement.
“Which states are pulling out of RGGI?" Locke told Radio IQ. "I don’t know that’s happening and I know RGGI has done a lot of good in terms of putting resources into Virginia.”
Pennsylvania has left RGGI under Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro, but only last week regulators in New York called the agreement, “the single most effective multi-state cap and invest program to cut power plant pollution in history.”
Jay Ford, Virginia Policy Manager for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, said Youngkin's original attempt to remove the Commonwealth from RGGI was blocked by the courts, but during the interim the state lost out on possible revenue - and additional costs.
Ford said in a statement Thursday the outgoing Governor's decision to pull Virginia out of the agreement was short sided, missing out on funds to flood preparedness among other cost saving measures.
"The Governor admonished the money committees against rejoining RGGI while presenting a budget that has no new dollars for the flood fund and raids RGGI proceeds from the energy efficiency fund," Ford said. "Virginia communities are flooding and electric prices are hurting Virginia families and this budget undercuts state efforts to address either."
Republicans in the legislature, now in the minority in both chambers, have long agreed with Youngkin's RGGI assessment. And will likely argue it will increase costs at a time Virginians are already feeling a financial squeeze.
Virginia's reembrace of RGGI will be one of many issues debated during the 2026 legislative session.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
