Governor Lynch, in signing a bill that adds New Hampshire to the Regional Greenhouse gas initiative, has just saddled us with a cap and trade emissions scheme not all that different from the one the EU has used for several years.  So what you ask?  Well, Cap and trade makes energy more expensive.  It also enriches large entrenched providers, while crippling competition by placing smaller energy companies against a fiscal brick wall, and putting an economic bullet in their heads.  All in the name of reducing CO2–which it has yet to do anywhere it has been tried, and for the purpose of reducing global warming–in a decade in which the global mean atmospheric temperatures have not been rising despite massive increases in Global CO2. 

Can’t balance a state budget….let’s try cap and trade! 

 Take a look at just how bad this idea is…

Thanks to Mr. Lynch we can now look forward to paying more for inclusion in a consortium we could clearly do without.  It claims to add jobs but will do what all such schemes do–put additional brakes on an already stagnating economic picture, while eventually reducing competition in an already expensive energy market, on the very slim promise that at some point down the road, our electricity might cost less.  Which of course it won’t.

In his decision to sign the governor noted at the end of this article in the NH Union leader that…

 ..Congress is working on a bill that would make a similar program national. But he said the state cannot afford to wait for federal law to take effect.

That bill is S 2191, the Lieberman-Warner Climate Bill, and it is actually significantly worse.  I guess he just couldn’t wait for the feds to wreck things. 

Here’s a snippet from the RGGI website –just so you can begin to feel the love.

The action plan sets out the following goal for RGGI:

Develop a multi-state cap-and-trade program covering greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The program will initially be aimed at developing a program to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants in the participating states, while maintaining energy affordability and reliability and accommodating, to the extent feasible, the diversity in policies and programs in individual states. After the cap-and-trade program for power plants is implemented, the states may consider expanding the program to other kinds of sources. 

.”..while maintinaing…to the extent feasible…diversity policies of individual states.” 

and,

“…expanding the program [Cap and Trade] to other kinds of sources.”

Sounds like socialism, and higher prices.  SO much for Live Free or Die.  Whose state are you the governor of?

So where has it worked?

No where, actually, and not ever.  Cap and trade has a troubled history with no success stories.  While betting on a bad horse should remain a personal freedom,  under no conditions shall an entire populace be subjected to it, even by their hopefully soon to be un-elected officials.  There is not one single piece of evidence to date that this works.  None.  

Dr. Benny Peiser from Liverpool England discusses some of the more pressing problems Here.  One quote that caught my eye…

Carbon trading is the EU’s principal strategy for meeting its Kyoto target of reducing CO2 emissions by 8% by 2012. The scheme was launched two years ago in the hope that it would achieve what more than 10 years of political commandeering had failed: significant reductions in CO2 emissions. Instead, year after year, most EU countries continue to increase their greenhouse-gas emissions. Rather than proving its effectiveness, the trading system has pushed electricity prices even higher while energy-intensive companies are forced to close down, cut jobs, or pass on the costs to consumers.

And like most government programs they are hard to get rid of and almost always take on a life of their own, which is why phrases like “..expanding the program…” make the obvious travesty of RGGI that much more frightening. From Matthew Sinclair–regarding the EU plan.

The supposed market solution relies upon bureaucrats coming up with a quota for every plant in the country based on their emissions history and an estimate of how much they can cut. It’s reminiscent of some old Communist five year plan with government telling the private sector what it is capable of and should achieve, why is this considered the capitalist approach?

So we have apparently signed on to some centralized platform of energy command and control with growth potential, which is guaranteed to raise the cost of energy–and everything that uses it.   Armchair economists can tell you what happens next.  Everything else gets more…expensive!!!  And I thought we were already dancing to that song.

Now we can thank Mr. Lynch for picking an economic down turn in which to not just raise the cost of electricity, but put the brakes on the State economy.   Well done sir.  Well done.  I’m so glad you couldn’t wait for the federal government to make the economy worse.   That’s what we like, initiative.

So what’s my solution?  New governor.