{"id":424923,"date":"2026-02-06T12:59:06","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T11:59:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=424923"},"modified":"2026-02-06T12:59:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T11:59:09","slug":"virginia-has-no-reason-to-rejoin-rggi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=424923","title":{"rendered":"Virginia Has No Reason to Rejoin RGGI"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"A<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From The CO2 Coalition<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Gregory Wrightstone<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Illustration<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

In announcing plans to have Virginia reinstitute a carbon tax, Virginia Governor\u00a0Abigail Spanberger<\/a>\u00a0makes no mention of global warming \u2013 the bogeyman usually called upon by supporters of such levies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That may be because the apocalyptic narrative that industrial emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2<\/sub>) threaten to overheat the planet has become widely seen as bogus \u2013 perhaps not fitting for a newly elected chief executive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, what about the carbon tax? It is imposed on fossil fuels through membership in a consortium of states in New England and the Mid-Atlantic \u2013 the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). The objective is to reduce the use of fuels like natural gas and coal and the CO2<\/sub> emissions from burning them, thereby avoiding purportedly dangerous atmospheric warming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Announcing Virginia\u2019s first entry into RGGI in 2020, Democrat Governor Ralph Northam<\/a> said the commonwealth \u201cis sending a powerful signal that (it) is committed to fighting climate change.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then in 2023, a more clear-eyed Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin withdrew from RGGI, an action the freshly inaugurated Governor Spanberger, a Democrat, pledged to reverse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Virginia policymakers considered the Youngkin proposal to leave RGGI, the Fairfax, Virgina-based CO2<\/sub> Coalition issued its 2022 report, \u201cVirginia and Climate Change: Separating Fact from Fiction<\/a>.\u201d It concluded that environmental justifications for RGGI membership were, well, fiction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Written by seven scientists, most of them widely published, the report reviewed data concerning severe weather, temperature, CO2<\/sub> levels, heat waves, sea level and the health of Virginia agriculture. Despite decades of industrial activity, the commonwealth was found to be doing well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, like in most of the U.S., Virginia agriculture has had regular increases in crop yields, benefiting from technological advancements, modest warming and higher levels of atmospheric CO2<\/sub> that boost plant fertilization. Neither was there cause for alarm regarding rising seas, which have exhibited no increase in the rate of natural rise, nor with regard to severe weather, whose worldwide trends have been in a 20-year decline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Importantly, Virginia\u2019s RGGI participation would make no meaningful difference in the weather. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Using the methodology of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the amount of warming averted by eliminating all the commonwealth\u2019s CO2\u00a0<\/sub>emissions was calculated to be 0.0038 degrees Fahrenheit by the year 2100 \u2014 an amount too small to be felt or measured.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since Virginia\u2019s withdrawal from RGGI, alarmists\u2019 predictions of \u201cexistential\u201d coastal flooding, mega-storms and general mayhem have regularly failed to materialize \u2013 just as they have for the last 35 years. Moreover, numerous studies \u2013 in addition to the CO2<\/sub>\u00a0Coalition report \u2013 have refuted the pseudoscience of doomsayers and the negative consequences of climate programs like RGGI have become more apparent. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Extreme cases like Germany\u2019s self-inflicted high energy prices and deindustrialization present real cause for alarm.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Increasingly, governments, businesses and voters are questioning those promoting hysteria over the natural changes of a complex \u2013 and uncontrollable \u2013 climate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Little wonder that Governor Spanberger offered fiscal arguments for rejoining RGGI rather repeat the tired trope of climate change. Before Youngkin\u2019s 2023 withdrawal, \u201cRGGI generated hundreds of millions of dollars for Virginia,\u201d said Spanberger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But RGGI can hardly be the best way to raise money, if there is no environmental benefit \u2013 and there is none. Forcing the closure of economic power sources like coal and natural gas-fired plants in favor \u201cgreen\u201d solar and wind facilities \u2013 a RGGI objective \u2013 is a financial loser for consumers. The\u00a0electricity rates<\/a>\u00a0of RGGI states are higher than the national average and many are close to the highest in the nation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After six years of debate over whether to join RGGI, Pennsylvania Republican legislators got the Democrat governor last fall to drop the proposal as part of budget negotiations. The state\u2019s participation in RGGI had been projected to increase Pennsylvania electricity rates<\/a> by 30%.  Leaders of labor unions frequently testified that the threat of RGGI had discouraged billions of dollars of energy investments in the Keystone State.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A CO2<\/sub> Coalition examination<\/a> of the Pennsylvania proposal had described it as \u201ca solution in search of a problem.\u201d Ditto for Old Dominion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Virginia policymakers should reject RGGI as a bad idea. The commonwealth has no climate crisis and no other good reason to join the consortium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Originally published in The Washington Times<\/a><\/em> on <\/em>February 4, 2026.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gregory Wrightstone<\/em><\/a> is a geologist; executive director of the <\/em>CO2<\/sub> Coalition<\/em><\/a>, Fairfax, Va.; author of \u201c<\/em>Inconvenient Facts: The Science That Al Gore Doesn\u2019t Want You to Know<\/em><\/a>\u201d and \u201c<\/em>A Very Convenient Warming: How modest warming and more CO2 are benefiting humanity<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"A<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In announcing plans to have Virginia reinstitute a carbon tax, Virginia Governor\u00a0Abigail Spanberger\u00a0makes no mention of global warming \u2013 the bogeyman usually called upon by supporters of such levies. That may be because the apocalyptic narrative that industrial emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) threaten to overheat the planet has become widely seen as bogus \u2013 perhaps not fitting for a newly elected chief executive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":424926,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"Virginia's Governor faces debate over rejoining RGGI. 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