Written By: Bonner R. Cohen
Once seen as a potential bonanza by governments, investment bankers, and alternative energy proponents, carbon dioxide credits have become close to worthless in trading exchanges and are now being shunned by investors.
Few Bidders for RGGI Credits
A June 8 auction by the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a cap-and-trade consortium of 10 northeastern states, was a bust. Carbon dioxide permits auctioned by RGGI fetched $1.89 each, the minimum allowable bid. More than two-thirds of the 43.9 million carbon dioxide permits put up for auction went unsold. The June 8 auction was by far the most unsuccessful of the 12 sales held since RGGI began operation in 2008.
In three of the past four RGGI auctions, bidders failed to buy all the allowances offered. Unsold allowances revert to the participating states, where they will be put up for bid in the next two auctions scheduled in the current three-year program. RGGI now has 81 million unsold allowances. Roughly 30 million RGGI permits are purchased in a typical year.
Under RGGI, each allowance gives a power plant the right to emit one ton of carbon dioxide. RGGI is currently composed of the six New England states—Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Rhode Island—plus New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and Delaware.
New Jersey Leads the Way
RGGI received more bad news recently when New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie announced his state would be leaving the group at the end of the year. New Jersey’s unemployment rate is currently 9.3 percent, and Christie is trying to create a more business-friendly climate in his state. RGGI does not fit into those plans.
“Americans for Prosperity has exposed the RGGI cap-and-trade scheme as nothing less than a devious and immoral scam that will make the mortgage-backed derivatives scheme look like child’s play,” said Steve Lonegan, New Jersey state director for Americans for Prosperity. “This is a regressive, stealth tax on electricity that destroys jobs, does nothing whatsoever to address so-called global climate change, and is being exploited by insiders and speculators who see the potential to make massive profits on the backs of ratepayers. Thankfully, we are beginning to see this scheme unravel.”
New Jersey’s withdrawal from RGGI and the failed auction in June are unmistakable signs RGGI’s days are numbered, Lonegan says.
“I believe this signals the beginning of the end of RGGI and the end of cap-and-trade here in the United States. It’s just a matter of time until the entire RGGI scheme collapses of its own weight,” Lonegan predicted.
Lawsuit Filed in New York
New York’s participation in RGGI has been called into question by a lawsuit filed June 28 in a state court in Albany. The citizen suit, filed by private attorney Mark Smith and backed by Americans for Prosperity and the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), claims then-New York Gov. George Pataki acted improperly in 2005 when he committed his state to join RGGI without obtaining legislative approval.
“The [RGGI] plan increases taxpayers’ electric bills for the sake of an expensive, ineffective compact that, worst of all, is illegal under New York law,” says CEI general counsel Sam Kazman .
Among other things, the lawsuit states, “The authority to raise massive tax revenues is confined to the legislature because it is well understood that the ‘power to tax’ is the ‘power to destroy.’”
International Prices Plummet
Last November, the Chicago Climate Exchange, North America’s only voluntary greenhouse-gas trading system, ceased trading carbon credits after the price of a metric ton of CO2 had plummeted to between 5 and 10 cents. Carbon markets are also taking a beating overseas.
The price of European Union Allowances (EUA), a carbon-linked investment instrument, dropped 22 percent in one week in late June. Investors are also shunning UN-backed Certified Emissions Reductions (CER), which are offsets generated by the UN’s Clean Development Mechanism. The Clean Development Mechanism is one of several schemes created under the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012 and will not be renewed.
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