It's imperative to consumers facing record high inflation that the Youngkin administration take prudent steps to remove ideological regulations that favor wealthy energy companies to the detriment of Virginians struggling with the inflated cost of energy that these regulations cause.

The Regional Greenhouse and Gas Initiative is unpopular among states that were supposed to join because lawmakers are fully aware that the cost of compliance is placed on the back of consumers - who already suffer from higher energy bills.  These increases in cost are used to benefit lawmakers who are looking for more revenue streams to fund projects that the market will not support due to efficiency, cost, and reliability issues.  Furthermore, these costs have been argued to provide funding for communities impacted by climate change, but the fact is that the first priority of government spending should be to address infrastructural issues that permit flooding.  

Lawmakers should not be using the environment as an excuse to find new revenue streams through increasing the cost of a service people cannot literally live without.  The benefit to the environment is negligible.  The harm to the middle and lower close is obvious. Virginian lawmakers should not be using environmental issues as an excuse to overcharge rate payers to fund projects that would otherwise not be funded and threaten funding for essential infrastructural projects protecting Virginia from floods as a justification to keep this harmful agreement in place.  The government should already be prioritizing flooding problems - not using them as an argument to artificially increase energy bills. 

We can care about the environment without cap and trade schemes that benefit the wealthy and harm households who are barely making it during the highest inflation in 40 years.

I urge Governor Youngkin to follow through on his promise to reign in these painful policies so that Virginians can have relief from their energy bills, and pivot to embrace sustainable  innovations the market has proven our logical and viable that lower our carbon footprint in a responsible way.