Mr. Christie, who withdrew from the program in 2011 as he first considered running for president in 2012, remains adamant that New Jersey not participate in the nine-state Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, even though the majority of state legislators say it would be in New Jersey’s economic and legal interests. Business groups remain divided on the plan. “No, I would not think of rejoining it,” Mr. Christie told reporters during a recent trip to Mexico. “I think it’s a completely useless plan.”
The New Jersey Superior Court ruled this year that Mr. Christie failed to follow proper legal procedure when he withdrew his state from the program because his administration did not hold public hearings on the move. To comply with the law, Mr. Christie’s administration held a public hearing last month, but has made it clear that the governor still has no plans to rejoin the program. The New Jersey Legislature has voted twice to rejoin, but Mr. Christie vetoed both bills.
Some political analysts say Mr. Christie’s motive in staying out of the plan is to placate powerful conservative groups, including Americans for Prosperity, which are highly influential in Republican primaries and consider cap-and-trade programs to be energy taxes that hurt business and eliminate jobs. Mr. Christie will be the main speaker at an Americans for Prosperity donor meeting in New York on Friday.
“This is one of those issues where Christie decided he’s going to take a firm position that resonates with the G.O.P. and stick with it,” said Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute in West Long Branch, N.J. “It doesn’t matter what the Legislature wants, it doesn’t matter what New Jersey voters want, cap-and-trade is anathema to the base of the Republican Party.”
Mr. Christie says he is acting for the benefit of his state and that he withdrew because the plan was inefficient and unfair to New Jersey, since other regional states like Pennsylvania did not take part in it. Environmentalists note that Mr. Christie has pledged to ban coal-fired power plants — the chief source of greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming — from New Jersey. In 2011, Mr. Christie also acknowledged the human role in climate change: “When you have over 90 percent of the world’s scientists who have studied this, stating that climate change is occurring and that humans play a contributing role, it’s time to defer to the experts.”
Since then, however, Mr. Christie has avoided speaking publicly about climate science.
New Jersey became a founding member of the regional plan in 2005 under Gov. Richard Codey, a Democrat. The program, which created a regional cap on carbon emissions and required power plants to buy pollution permits from the states, slightly raised electricity rates in the region. But the overall economies of the participating states improved and their carbon pollution declined, according to a 2011 study by The Analysis Group, a Boston consulting firm.
In New Jersey, the study found that electricity bills increased less than one percent as the state collected $118 million in fees for pollution permits purchased by power plants.
The pressure on Mr. Christie to rejoin the program intensified in June, when President Obama proposed an Environmental Protection Agency regulation that would require all states to create climate-change plans. For states under the regional plan that once included New Jersey, complying will largely mean operating under the existing cap-and-trade system. Energy policy experts as well as some of Mr. Christie’s fellow state Republicans — including his mentor, Thomas Kean, a former New Jersey governor — say the most efficient way for New Jersey to comply with the rule would be to rejoin the program. “I disagreed with the decision when he did it,” Mr. Kean said in an interview. “I wish we’d stayed in the program.”
State Senator Kip Bateman, a Republican who voted to rejoin the plan, said it was the best option available to the state. “It wasn’t perfect, but we’re better off being in it than not being in it,” he said. “The problem is, groups such as Americans for Prosperity are adamantly opposed to it. They have scared a lot of Republicans away from it.”
Americans for Prosperity, which receives funding from the libertarian billionaires Charles G. and David H. Koch, spent heavily in the 2010, 2012 and 2014 elections to oppose candidates who supported cap-and-trade. The group took aim at Republican candidates in primary races who signaled that they would back climate-change policy, and it is expected to play a key role in the 2016 Republican presidential primaries. “We were exceedingly pleased that the governor got New Jersey out of the R.G.G.I. boondoggle,” said Tim Phillips, president of Americans for Prosperity, referring to the regional plan. “It’s something that A.F.P. in New Jersey worked hard on, and the governor listened, and we applauded him pulling out and applaud him for refusing to go back in.” Mr. Phillips said the move would be sure to help Mr. Christie’s efforts in the Republican primaries, should he run.
Although many Republican politicians question the established science that burning fossil fuels warms the planet, support in New Jersey for climate-change policies increased after Hurricane Sandy battered the Northeast in 2012. Experts say no single storm can be directly attributed to climate change, but a federal study released in May, the National Climate Assessment, concluded that climate change is making the Northeast more vulnerable to deluges, rising sea levels and higher storm surges. Last year a Stanford University poll found that 80 percent of New Jersey adults think the government should take action to limit greenhouse gases from industry.
Even after withdrawing from the program, New Jersey customers still have slightly higher electricity bills because the state is part of a wider regional electricity market, said Susan Tierney, an author of the Analysis Group report and a former top Energy Department official in the Clinton administration. Ms. Tierney also noted that the state no longer enjoyed the revenue flow from companies paying for pollution permits. “It would be a very economically efficient thing for New Jersey to rejoin,” she said. “They could get more bang for their buck and have money to circulate back into the economy.”
New Jersey’s largest electric utility, Public Service Enterprise Group, supported the state’s participation in the program and has pushed to take the policy national. Michael Jennings, a company spokesman, wrote in an email that the utility is “advocating that the E.P.A. allow states like New Jersey the flexibility to pursue a comprehensive approach to reduce greenhouse gases.” But he did not directly address questions about Mr. Christie’s refusal to join the program.
In the view of Michael McKenna, a Republican energy lobbyist, the utility is remaining silent so as not to antagonize the governor. “They’re concerned about getting ahead of where Christie is,” said. “They’re a New Jersey company. They have to get along with the administration.”
Some New Jersey businesses agree with Mr. Christie. “We supported the governor’s position to withdraw,” said David Brogan, vice president of the New Jersey Business and Industry Association. “It was a flawed program. We already pay some of the highest rates for energy in the nation.”
If New Jersey does not rejoin, the state will still be required to come up with a carbon reduction plan under Mr. Obama’s proposed rule, which requires New Jersey to cut its carbon pollution by 42 percent by 2030. Last week Mr. Christie told reporters that he did not believe new policies would be required, given his pledge to ban coal plants. “So I think New Jersey is very well positioned without R.G.G.I. and our people don’t need another tax on their utility bills to make some environmentalists feel good on a program that is absolutely worthless in my view.”
Original Article
Source: nytimes.com/
Author: By CORAL DAVENPORT
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