Friday, June 15, 2012

NY Court nixes Tea Party attempt to save NY State's dwindling population of ordinary people from RGGI cap & trade profiteers

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RGGI cap & trade program began at the urging of NY Republican Gov. Pataki, was rushed through a lame duck NJ legislature by former NJ Gov. and Goldman Sachs CEO Jon Corzine, now with criminal defense lawyer having misplaced $1.2 billion MF Global customer money in a hedge fund bet and lied about it.

6/13/12, "New York court nixes challenge to carbon market," Reuters Point Carbon

"A New York state court on Wednesday dismissed a Tea Party-backed lawsuit that tried to block the state from participating in a cap-and-trade system to cut carbon emissions in the Northeast, finding that the plaintiffs had no grounds to challenge the program.

State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who represented New York in the case, argued that they lacked a credible reason to challenge the state's participation in the program.

He also said the plaintiffs took too long to file their suit - nearly three years after New York began implementing the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) in late 2008.

Under RGGI, nine member states have agreed to cut greenhouse gas emissions in their electricity sectors by 10 percent by 2018 by participating in a carbon market in which they can buy, sell or trade carbon emission rights.

Two New York-based business executives filed the suit last June, arguing that former Governor George Pataki, a Republican, signed on to RGGI without the support of the state legislature in 2005.

They were backed by two groups who actively opposed federal legislation to create a national cap-and-trade scheme - the Competitive Enterprise Institute and Americans for Prosperity.

The groups, which are affiliated with the conservative Tea Party, advocate for cutting government spending and taxes and have called federal and state proposed cap-and-trade policies, "cap-and-tax" plans.

Schneiderman, a Democrat, contended that the executives were backed by "out-of-state political interests" and that the lawsuit jeopardized the health of New Yorkers.

Counsel for the plaintiffs did not reply to a request for comment.

States' participation in RGGI has been challenged in the courts, by state legislatures and in one case by a governor.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a Republican, last year pulled his state out of RGGI, claiming the program unfairly raises electric rates for consumers without any environmental benefits.*

Two green groups sued Christie last week, arguing he did not follow the proper procedure to pull the state out and failed to get public feedback on his decision.

In New Hampshire, state lawmakers made a second attempt to force their governor to withdraw from RGGI, passing a bill last week that would force the state to pull out if two other RGGI members withdrew from the program.

Democratic Governor John Lynch has repeatedly said he would veto bills to withdraw from RGGI." via Steve Milloy, Junk Science

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UBS Bank says $287 billion spent on carbon trading had zero impact on climate:

*11/23/11, "Europe's $287bn carbon 'waste': UBS report," The Australian, Sid Maher

"SWISS banking giant UBS says the European Union's emissions trading scheme has cost the continent's consumers $287 billion for "almost zero impact" on cutting carbon emissions, and has warned that the EU's carbon pricing market is on the verge of a crash next year."

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RGGI=Wall St.:

7/28/10, "The secrets 10 states and Wall Street don't want you to know," by Mark Lagerkvist, NJ Watchdog

""Secrecy and greed are polluting the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), the nation’s first mandatory cap-and-trade system. ...

RGGI publishes lists of potential bidders who submitted “intent to bid” applications. The lists offer a glimpse of whose trade secrets RGGI is keeping confidential. The most conspicuous are the financial power brokers who generate money, not electricity. The most recent list includes

  • Morgan Stanley Capital Group, Merrill Lynch Commodities, Barclays Bank and Louis Dreyfus Energy Services.
  • Previous auctions have included JP Morgan Ventures Energy and
  • Goldman Sachs, through its J Arons & Co. subsidiary.
At RGGI auctions, the utilities that need the CO-2 allowances must compete against private interests that can profit by driving prices up....

What effect will the wheeling and dealing have on the electricity bills paid by consumers?

They denied New Jersey Watchdog’s Open Public Records Act requests for auction details,

  • contending the bidders’ “expectation of privacy” and
  • “trade secrets”
  • outweigh the public right to know.

RGGI executive director Jonathan Schrag claims RGGI is not a “public body” subject to state open records laws – even though it’s

When Schrag returned from vacation, he declined New Jersey Watchdog’s request for an interview. According to RGGI records, all ten states have agreed not to release so-called ”market sensitive information”" –...



image from NJ Watchdog
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3/23/12, "MF’s Corzine Ordered Funds Moved to JP Morgan, Memo Says," Bloomberg, and Silla Brush

"Jon S. Corzine, MF Global Holding Ltd. (MFGLQ)’s chief executive officer, gave direct instructions” to transfer $200 million from a customer fund account to meet an overdraft in a brokerage account with JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), according to a memo written by congressional investigators. Edith O’Brien, a treasurer for the firm, said in an e-mail quoted in the memo that the transfer was “Per JC’s direct instructions,” according to a copy of the memo obtained by Bloomberg News. The e-mail, dated Oct. 28, was sent three days before the company collapsed, the memo says....The money transferred came from a segregated customer account, according to congressional investigators."...

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Jon Corzine CV:

"(Al) Gore, who also spoke to reporters about the New Jersey law, said he would talk about it in future presentations of his slide show about global warming."

7/10/2005, "The Deal He Made," NY Magazine, Craig Horowitz,

"Before he was pushed out as CEO of Goldman Sachs, Jon Corzine had never lost at anything, and his unassuming mien masks a deep hunger for redemption. The Senate isn’t enough. Now his road leads ever deeper through the swamp of New Jersey politics."

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RGGI auction brings lowest price allowed, 7th down market:

3/16/12, "RGGI auction clears at minimum price of $1.93 per CO2 allowance," Platts.com, Washington

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"Wall Street realized there was money to be made by going green." Robert Redford, 2009

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4/8/11, "Global Warming Alarmism's Long March through State and Local Institutions," American Thinker, Peter Wilson

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7/16/10, "Carbon Trading Used as Money-Laundering Front," Jakarta Globe

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10/8/10, "Murder on the Carbon Express: Interpol Takes On Emissions Fraud," Mother Jones, M. Schapiro

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UN environmental consultant says fraud in UN carbon trading can't be fixed, is interwoven in too many public and private sector jobs including the World Bank and the UN. And, "there is
  • nobody in that world that is critical of the process because they are all making their living off it.”"...
10/12/10, "A carbon trading system draws environmental skeptics," New York Times, Patricia Brett
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12/1/10, "EU Carbon permits missing from registry due to (computer) virus," Reuters, Nina Chestney

"One million European carbon permits (valued at $19.54 million US) have gone missing from the Romanian subsidiary of cement company Holcim's (HOLN.VX) emissions registry account due to a computer virus,
  • the EU Commission said on Wednesday."...
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Christian Science Monitor, 4/20/10, "Buying Carbon offsets may ease eco-guilt but not global warming," by Doug Struck.

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Bloomberg News, 12/4/09,"Carbon Capitalists warming to climate market using derivatives"

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10/6/10, "Hal Lewis: My Resignation From The American Physical Society," Hal Lewis, Emeritus Professor, GWPF

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7/02/09, "The Great American Bubble Machine: How Goldman Sachs has Engineered Every Major Market Manipulation Since the Great Depression," Rolling Stone, by Matt Taibbi

"A groundbreaking new commodities bubble,
  • called cap-and-trade.
The new carbon-credit market is a virtual repeat of the commodities-market casino that's been kind to Goldman, If the plan goes forward as expected, the rise in prices
  • will be government-mandated.
  • Goldman won't even have to rig the game.
It will be rigged in advance."...

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5/26/11, "Oroho, McHose & Chiusano: Governor’s Decision to Pull Out of RGGI “A Good First Step”," senatenj.com

"
RGGI was rushed through the (NJ) lame duck Democrat-controlled Legislature and signed into law by then-Governor Jon Corzine in January 2008. "

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Our shadow government backed RGGI:

RGGI advanced with the usual well financed suspects : "Pew Center on Global Climate Change, Resources for the Future, and the World Resources Institute." 2004

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12/20/2005, "
Seven Northeast States Launch Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative," ens-newswire.com

"
New York Governor George Pataki started the RGGI in April 2003, when he invited the governors of Northeast states to design a mandatory cap-and-trade program to cover power plants. Under this program, we will use a market-based system to curtail harmful CO2 emissions and spur the development of innovative technologies that will reduce our dependence on foreign energy, strengthen our economy, and take meaningful steps in the fight against climate change," said Pataki."
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Other states have dropped out of RGGI for periods of time. It's a bigger deal now because the house of cards around CO2 is coming down.

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NY State has led the nation in population loss for 2 decades:

8/3/11, "NY turns into flee market," "1.6M bolt high-tax state in last decade," NY Post, E. Kriss

"Taxed-out New Yorkers are voting with their feet, with a staggering 1.6 million residents fleeing the state over the last decade, a new report found.

That's as if the entire populations of Buffalo, Rochester, Yonkers, White Plains and West Babylon combined had packed up and left.

For the second consecutive decade, New York led the nation in the percentage of residents leaving for other states, according to the report by the Empire Center for State Policy.

The population loss is "the ultimate barometer of New York's attractiveness as a place to work, live and do business," said the report's co-author, E.J. McMahon. "It's the ultimate indication that we've been doing things wrong.""

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