Elections Have Consequences

The election of Virginia Governor Youngkin has already had an impact beyond Virginia. Heeded or not, the election was a wake-up call for the radical leftist agenda being pushed in Washington, D.C. The election itself was important, but the policies that Governor Youngkin enacts will also have an impact on America’s future.

On Saturday, Fox News reported the following:

Governor-Elect Glenn Youngkin of Virginia has signaled his intention to pull the state out of a climate compact that many small businesses there are glad to see go.

Youngkin has made clear his intention to pull Virginia out of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). The interstate compact places penalties on entities that exceed emission regulations set by an organization representing all member states.

The article concludes:

The RGGI currently boasts eleven member states in the initiative, all from the northeast: Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Virginia.

The RGGI is currently being courted by Pennsylvania for membership. It boasts itself as the “first market-based, cap-and-invest regional initiative in the United States.”

The Cato Institute puts out an index of personal and economic freedom annually. The Sixth Edition (2021) has a list of states according to the “Miscellaneous Regulatory Freedom Score.” The least regulated state on that list is Arizona, the most regulated is North Carolina. Of the states in the RGGI, Connecticut ranks 31, Delware 29, Maine 33, Maryland 42, Massachusetts 49, New Hampshire 6, New Jersey 41, New York 47, Rhode Island 30, Vermont 14, and Virginia 20.

It appears to me that the RGGI is simply the latest cap and trade proposal put in place by the Democrats. To learn some interesting history on the cap and trade scams of the past, please read the article from August 2010 about what happened to the Chicago Climate Exchange when the Democrats were predicted to lose the majority in the House of Representatives. Unfortunately, much of the talk of the environment is actually a smoke screen for hidden financial interests and governmental quests for more power.