As Institute for Energy Research Debunks Fatally Flawed Analysis Group “Study”, AFP Calls on State Legislature to Defeat RGGI Bill
LINK: Study of the Impacts of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative Deeply Flawed
BOGOTA, NJ – With a vote looming in the New Jersey Legislature on Thursday aimed at forcing New Jersey back into the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, aka RGGI, Cap-and-Trade scheme, a report claiming that RGGI has been a boon to participating states has been thoroughly debunked by energy experts.
The study, released late last year by the Analysis Group, contends that the RGGI Cap-and-Trade scheme has turned $1.6 billion in tax revenue collected via sales of carbon allowances into a $1.6 billion in net economic benefits. Liberal politicians and environmentalists, desperate to keep the failing cap-and-trade program alive, along with the multi-billion slush fund it provides, have used the Analysis Group’s faulty and misleading report as the basis for convincing lawmakers to re-enter New Jersey into the program.
Today, the Analysis Group’s findings were publicly discredited by the Institute for Energy Research (IER), the research arm of the American Energy Alliance (AEA), after a meticulous review of the study’s results.
During a press call this afternoon, Dr. Robert Murphy, Senior Fellow and Economist for the Institute for Energy Research, highlighted the major defects of the Analysis Group report.
“The Analysis Group study is based on modeling and not fact,” said Murphy. “The alleged future savings are based on mapping what’s happening over time, over the long haul. The results are all completely hypothetical.”
“The Analysis Group report admits that electricity bills are higher,” noted Murphy. “This has nothing to do with climate change, per se. There is no claimed environmental benefit in the report.”
Murphy added that the Analysis Group’s claims of thousands of “green jobs” created are likewise false and based on a “hypothetical simulation” and “modeling” forecast with no basis in reality.
Dan Simmons, AEA’s Director of State and Regulatory Affairs, described the Analysis Group’s claim of $1.6 billion in “economic value added” as “highly implausible” and “absurd,” while noting that RGGI’s targeted emission reduction goals have already been met.
“The study contains nothing about what the point of RGGI is,” said Simmons. “There has been a 30% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions [since RGGI began]. The goal of RGGI has been achieved three times over.”
“Yet, instead of declaring victory, they want to keep the program in place.” Subsequent to today’s call, Americans for Prosperity state director Steve Lonegan issued the following statement: “The Institute for Energy Research’s airtight critique of the phony and flawed Analysis Group study puts to bed once and for all the lie that the RGGI Cap-and-Trade tax, or any tax for that matter, grows jobs and creates wealth and prosperity -- and exposes just how far the liberal left and the radical environmentalist movement will go to bamboozle the public and policy makers to advance their extremist agenda.
“The RGGI Cap-and-Trade scheme has always been about one thing and one thing only: bilking taxpayers through their electricity bills in order to provide liberal politicians and radical environmentalists a slush fund to subsidize their failed ‘green energy’ schemes.
“Enough is enough. It’s time for Trenton lawmakers to start standing up for hard-working New Jersey families rather than saddling them with skyrocketing electricity rates to pay for their pet projects and to enrich the politically well-connected.
“The bill to force New Jersey back into RGGI needs to be defeated and legislators ought to get back to work at trying to improve, rather than further damage, New Jersey’s economy.”
For more information, visit www.americansforprosperity.org
Americans for Prosperity does not support or oppose candidates for public office.
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