MyCentralJersey

Gov. Christie is no friend of the environment. The national conservatives Christie is courting for his presidential run are also apathetic to environmental concerns, which helps to explain why the governor pulled New Jersey out of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) in 2011.

Exactly what that move has wrought isn’t entirely clear. Activists say the state has lost more than a hundred million dollars in revenue that RGGI would have created through cap-and-trade auctions, a number that will continue to grow. They also argue that the state hasn’t curbed its carbon emissions as much as it might have otherwise, although all across the northeast those emissions have declined, thanks primarily to recessionary pressures and the growing abundance of more carbon-friendly natural gas. Of greater concern, environmentalists project significant increases in emissions within New Jersey in the decades ahead if the state stays out of the regional agreement.

Christie’s original argument was that RGGI was too weak to be effective and that it amounted to a carbon tax on polluters that would be passed down to public ratepayers. He did add, however, that he conceded the likelihood of global warming and mankind’s contribution to it — perhaps to separate himself from the more unhinged element of the far right.

Christie also did something very Christie-like in the process — he tried to do what he wanted without necessarily following some rules that might get in the way. Now the Legislature may be on the verge of successfully calling him on it.

On Monday, the Senate environment committee approved a resolution that would effectively prevent Christie from changing regulations to finalize New Jersey’s departure from RGGI. Earlier this year, an appeals court found that the governor erred in simply telling power-plant operators they were no longer bound the by RGGI rules even though no formal repeal process had been completed. Lawmakers are now trying to stop that repeal by claiming it’s inconsistent with legislative intent.

If the legislative measure succeeds, however, the path ahead is still unclear. It won’t return New Jersey to the regional initiative, at least not immediately. Christie would have time to respond with changes to the rules, and the prospect of potential legal action looms beyond that if an impasse develops.

The absence of an obvious end game is partly due to the uncertain environmental effects. While there is a certain common-sense logic to the fact that restrictions on carbon emissions will reduce those emissions, RGGI’s role is just one piece of broader clean-energy initiatives. It is telling that Jeff Tittel, the executive director of the New Jersey Sierra Club who is never bashful about criticizing the powers that be, this week placed far more emphasis on Christie’s careless administrative maneuverings in trying to scuttle RGGI than the actual environmental impact o fthose actions.

But we do know a few things. Leaving RGGI does nothing to help the environment. It is costing New Jersey money, although Christie has tried to dismiss the numbers as relatively meaningless. And in the long run, such indifference to carbon emissions will be harmful to the state in some fashion.

The plus side of scrapping RGGI? There really isn’t one, aside from giving some marginal boost to Christie’s conservative credentials. Sorry, but we find the environment and the state’s bottom line to be a bit more important.