We’re finally starting to see results from the first year of RGGI—the economy-crushing, job-destroying carbon cap-and trade-program in the northeast US:
…said David Littell, commissioner of the Maine Department of Environmental Protection and chair of RGGI’s board of directors. “The investments we are seeing in renewable energy, in energy infrastructure, appear to be the largest wave of capital investment in the state’s history.”
Apart from the projects already under way in Maine, RGGI seems poised to buoy local economies across the Northeast in the coming year. Last August, New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch (D) approved $9 million in grants to reinvigorate the state’s green economy. And on Jan. 29, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick (D) committed investor-owned electric and natural gas utilities to new efficiency standards, a measure that Phil Giudice, an official in the state’s Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, predicts will create or maintain 4,000 jobs. Both initiatives were partially underwritten by RGGI’s sale of carbon allowances…
Yep, it’s brutal, folks. The National Journal has the full story.
jackinthegreen
My reading of the above excerpt is that investment in renewable energy and “energy infrastructure” in the NE is generally up. At the end – almost as an afterthought – it mentions that some undisclosed amount from “RGGI’s sale of carbon allowances” “partially” underwrites two of the listed initiatives. This is the economic miracle of cap and trade?? I submit that the more telling example of carbon trading’s success thus far is the currently collapsed European Market.