Heatmap: “Why the Northeast’s Cap and Trade Market Is Suddenly Controversial”
Research by several RFF scholars, alongside commentary by Senior Fellow Dallas Burtraw, helps tell the story of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.
“Research by [Dallas] Burtraw, Maya Domeshek, and Karen Palmer found that RGGI participation was the ‘lowest-cost way’ of achieving the state’s statutory emissions reductions goals and that the funded investments in efficiency will likely drive down household costs ...
The evolution of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative— and its use by New Jersey to reduce electricity bills in particular—shows how carbon mitigation programs have had to adapt to political realities.
‘In the political context of the moment, I think it’s totally fair,’ Burtraw told me of [New Jersey Governor Mikie] Sherrill’s plan. “It’s the worst good idea of what you can do with the carbon proceeds. Everybody in the room can come up with better ideas: Oh, we should be doing this investment, or we should be doing energy efficiency, or we should subsidize renewables. Show me that those ideas are a higher value use for that money and I’m all in. But we could at least be doing this.’”
