ENVIRONMENT: Astroturfing a regional greenhouse gas program

September 7, 2010 at 11:29am

A conservative action group is coming after a greenhouse gas cap-and-trade program organized by northeastern states.

The group is Americans for Prosperity, and the program in questions is the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. RGGI - "reggie," as it's often called - sets a power-sector carbon cap for the participating states. (New York is one of them.) Then the allowable emissions are publicly auctioned off. At the next auction, scheduled for Wednesday, Americans for Prosperity will protest. It claims that the auctions are secretive, which they aren't, and that the program will result in drastically higher energy bills. A state environmental group counters those claims here.

Cap and trade programs are imperfect; RGGI allows polluters too many free credits, providing less incentive for them to reduce emissions. But regional programs like RGGI will be increasingly important as long as the US Senate can't get its act together and pass a climate bill. That is, they'll be important to those of us who want to improve air quality, minimize the effects of climate change, or encourage renewable energy research, development, and deployment.

Americans for Prosperity doesn't want any of that. It has actively fought against climate and energy legislation as well as health-care reform, ostensibly to protect corporate interests.

Americans for Prosperity describes itself on its website as "an organization of grassroots leaders who engage citizens in the name of limited government and free markets on the local, state and federal levels."

But the organization is hardly grassroots. It was founded a few years back by industrialist David Koch. He's part owner of a conglomerate that controls, among other things, a paper company and oil refineries. For a good read on the guy and his campaigns against climate and energy legislation, check out this New Yorker article. The article mentions a University of Massachusetts at Amherst study that listed Koch Industries as one of the top 10 polluters in the United States. It's no wonder he'd fight climate change legislation.

For some more background, this Washington Post column runs through the organization's leadership and their affiliations.

Comments for "ENVIRONMENT: Astroturfing a regional greenhouse gas program" (5)

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SpinningLikeAWindmill said on Sep. 07, 2010 at 2:05pm

Is that all you got? Quoting a far left website that spews lies and linking to a David Koch hit piece? RGGI is secretive. There was a lawsuit dropped yesterday on that very issue. newjersey.watchdog.org/

Cap-and-trade will cause utility bills to soar and destroys jobs. But that's what the left calls sacrifice, right?

Oldschooler said on Sep. 08, 2010 at 5:43pm

RGGI has been running for two years... and electric bills have barely budged. So much for the AFP chicken little sky is falling fear campaign. This whole effort is meant to protect the Koch's petrochemical profits ... nothing more, nothing less.

LessGov said on Sep. 09, 2010 at 11:30am

Let's see... before RGGI costs are not part of anybody's operating budget. Now there is an additional expense; funds used to purchase carbon offsets. I guess chicken little will pay for the additional costs and we will never see them in our fuel bills. RIght! It is like corporate taxes. Corporations don't pay taxes because they just pass them on as an increassed cost to their products - let's all say thanks to the consumers who purchase them!!

Oldscholer said on Sep. 09, 2010 at 4:39pm

People who claim that RGGI makes bills "skyrocket" doubtless don't like the fact that the last two years has shown this is not true. $660 million over two years among the residents of 10 states works out to a relatively modest amount per customer. That is why no one is seeing their bills "skyrocket." But this reality doesn't fit the "narrative" being crafted by powerful elite interests like the Kochs.

Consumers who are essentially covering this RGGI expense, which while small on an individual bill, benefit in several ways _ the next generation of clean, renewable power is being refined and developed, programs are funded to help people make homes and businesses more energy-efficient, and thus, less expensive to operate, and overall, fossil fuel resources are consumed more slowly, thus both extending the life of those resources while also reducing greenhouse gas emissions that are altering the global climate.

Sound like a win, win, win to me _ for everyone except the fossil fuel elites who profit the most from the status quo and will say or do anything, regardless of its accuracy, to defend it.

Oldschooler said on Sep. 10, 2010 at 12:57pm

For example, when you do the RGGI math for New York State, it works out to $6 a year per capita. About the cost of a single fast-food meal. Only people with a fossil fuel axe to grind can work up outrage over that.

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