Editorial: Youngkin is determined to remove Virginia from greenhouse gas initiative

Say this about Gov. Glenn Youngkin: He’s persistent.

Only the General Assembly, which voted in 2020 for Virginia to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, can remove the commonwealth from that multistate compact. But that hasn’t stopped the governor from jiggling every door knob and testing every window to find an exit.

Expect the governor to keep trying, but unless he can establish the legality of those efforts — something he has yet to do — all his exertions will likely be in vain.

The RGGI is a market-based, carbon cap-and-trade agreement among 12 states that requires energy producers to reduce emissions or purchase allowances through auctions to exceed them. The General Assembly passed the Clean Energy and Community Flood Preparedness Act in 2020, which pledged Virginia to join RGGI and created a fund to pay for resilience projects across the commonwealth.

The goal of the RGGI is to incentivize emissions reductions. Energy producers that don’t need to purchase allowances needn’t buy them at auction. In the meantime, revenue from those quarterly auctions is divided among the member states to address climate-related initiatives.

Since Virginia formally entered the compact in 2021 and began receiving RGGI revenue, the commonwealth has collected $523 million (including the figures from this month’s auction). That money is split between the Community Flood Preparedness Fund and the Housing Innovations in Energy Efficiency fund, which pays to improve energy efficiency in new and existing residences of low-income residents.

Yet, despite that windfall helping to protect at-risk communities from flooding and improving the lives of low-income Virginians, the Youngkin administration has spent most of the year trying to put an end to the commonwealth’s involvement.

The governor signed an executive order on the day he took office directing his administration to withdraw Virginia from the RGGI. He appointed former coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler, fresh off a disastrous stint leading the Environmental Protection Agency under former President Donald Trump, to serve as secretary of natural resources, and directed that agency to find a way out.

Trouble is, Youngkin doesn’t have the authority to simply cancel a law passed by the General Assembly. He cannot nullify it through executive order or terminate it through regulatory repeal.

That’s not just speculation, but the opinion of the attorney general. Former Attorney General Mark Herring issued an advisory opinion in January before leaving office that concluded a governor cannot singlehandedly withdraw from RGGI because membership was established by the legislature.

Hope Cupit, a member of the State Air Pollution Control Board, says she received a similar opinion in an April email from the office of Attorney General Jason Miyares. Tellingly, the attorney general’s office fought release of that email, essentially arguing that the public has no right to see a document so pivotal to the legality of the governor’s withdrawal effort.

That board voted earlier this month, 4-1, to begin a regulatory repeal of the RGGI framework — again, without any evidence of legal authority to do so. Cupit was one of two members who abstained from that vote because of doubts that the board had the authority to act.

Any hope that Youngkin would relent was effectively dispelled both by that vote and in his budget amendment that would deposit $200 million in the flood fund to offset the loss of RGGI funds. Nevermind that Virginia has received nearly $300 million in 2022 alone from emission actions.

The Hampton Roads Planning District Commission advises local governments to plan for 3 feet of sea-level rise locally by 2080 and 4.5 feet by 2100. Resilience projects aren’t a luxury here; they are necessary to the future viability of this region.

The legislature understands that. It’s why lawmakers voted to enter the RGGI in order to address that existential threat head on. The governor, by contrast, doesn’t seem to care what happens if Virginia exits RGGI, as evidenced by a budget that would mean less money for vital flood projects.

Youngkin may be persistent, but Virginia should hope it doesn’t pay off.