Regional GHG Group Helps Fund Flooding Communities, But VA GOP Wants To Leave, Because Own The Libs
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Last year, a glimmer of promise emerged: The area was granted a $150,000 lifeline by the state’s Community Flood Preparedness Fund, which provides money to localities that need to reduce their flood risks. Awarded to Suffolk’s Public Works Department, the grant is being used to conduct a study on ways the area can bolster its resilience to rain-induced and tidal flooding. Both are becoming more frequent in the region as climate change increases the frequency and intensity of storms and causes sea levels to rise. But now, Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s administration is threatening to take away the fund’s key source of revenue: the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI. Youngkin, a Republican, wants to cut off Virginia’s participation in the RGGI framework, in which 12 Eastern states use a market mechanism to reduce their power plant emissions with the goal of slowing climate change.
Before the Community Flood Preparedness Fund was established, money available for resilience work was limited. “You would have to wait for disaster, a hurricane or major storm, and then you would hope to use some of that to do resilience planning,” said Jay Ford, an outreach coordinator for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. “But that’s no way to respond to a persistent threat like sea level rise or recurrent flooding. These are not things that are happening in fits and starts. It’s our new baseline.”
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But Youngkin argues that RGGI imposes unfair costs on Virginians. “Virginia’s participation in the RGGI risks contributing to the increased cost of electricity for our citizens,” the governor declared in an executive order issued in January 2022, the month he took office. The order proposed to re-evaluate the state’s involvement in the trading system. “Virginia’s utilities have sold over $227 million in allowances in 2021 during the RGGI auctions, doubling the initial estimates,” it said. “Those utilities are allowed to pass on the costs of purchasing allowances to their ratepayers.” Dominion Energy, the state’s largest electric utility, did pass on the carbon-market charge to its customers—a decision that was upheld by Virginia’s Supreme Court last year. Roughly $2.39 was added to the average resident’s monthly bill.
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Without RGGI, the Community Flood Preparedness Fund would continue to exist on paper. Any funding would be subject to annual budgetary approval by the General Assembly. That would leave the fund more dependent on a changing body of lawmakers whose support could shift with the political winds. “Waiting and hoping that the legislature has the money” is “a very risky gamble and one that would cost us a lot more than long-term,” Ford said. Benforado agreed, noting that resilience planning projects can often be passed over in favor of more urgent and visible issues. RGGI “is really the only consistent funding available for localities,” he said. For some residents of Suffolk, the move to pull Virginia out of the cap-and-trade framework feels like a slap in the face, “Is the public need and the greater cost of not addressing the issue via the RGGI enough to completely leave us, once again, in a pay-as-you-go situation?” Hengler asked.
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