It’s Earth Day, the environmental movement’s annual celebration of top-down environmental restrictions and reduced standards of living in the name of sustainability. A rather newer annual tradition is my post reminding you that free markets are a better, cheaper, faster way to clean up the environment, reduce future pollution, and protect endangered species than command and control methods. Here’s a snippet from last year’s Earth Day column, Mother Nature needs more markets.

FOR THE MONITOR

Five years in, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative isn’t working out the way its supporters said it would, and they want to make drastic changes to the program in order to get state revenues flowing again.

When New Hampshire entered into the ten state compact in 2008, the economy was on the verge of recession. One minor benefit of our half-decade in the economic doldrums is that it mitigated the impact of the RGGI program on ratepayers. The program has had absolutely no effect on the environment, but it has done so while costing much less than it could have.

(NEW YORK, NY) For the ninth consecutive time, the price for carbon allowances under the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative failed to rise above the floor price. The 17th Quarterly Auction held by the nine-state emissions compact generated nearly $47.5 million, but over a third of the allowances went unsold as demand has remained weak for well over two years.

Grant Bosse and Paul Westcott discuss the latest carbon auction under the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, and try to figure out why the auction price hasn’t climbed above the artificial floor in two full years. Listen to NH Watchdog on The Paul Westcott Show Friday mornings at 7:20 on AM610 WGIR and 96.7 The Wave, through the I Heart Radio ap, or online at WGIRam.com.

(NEW YORK, NY) The RGGI market isn’t getting off the floor. Auction prices for carbon allowances in the northeastern compact has been at or below the minimum reserve for two full years, and the number of bidders participating in RGGI has dropped to just a quarter of what it used to be.

The latest quarterly auction, held last week, sold just 53% of the available allowances put up for sale by the nine states that remain in RGGI. Bidders bought 20.9 million of the 36.4 million allowances on the auction block at the reserve price of $1.93 each, netting just over $40 million in revenue. Since the program’s inception in 2008, the RGGI program has generated just over $1 billion from selling the rights to emit carbon dioxide from fossil-fueled power plants, the cost of which is ultimately borne by ratepayers across the Northeast.

FOR THE MONITOR

With so much partisan sniping in modern politics, it’s heartening to find an issue where Republicans and Democrats in the New Hampshire Legislature agree. They don’t think your electric rates are high enough.

Grant Bosse and Paul Westcott discuss a move to expand New Hampshire’s renewable energy mandates, differences between the House and Senate bills, and the potential cost to ratepayers. Tune into the Paul Westcott Show at 7:20am on AM610 WGIR, 96.7 The Wave, through the I Heart Radio ap, or online at WGIRam.com.

NH Public Radio’s The Exchange debates the movement to ban bottled water this morning at 9am. Listen live at NHPR.org.

Walt Carlson writes in to the Concord Monitor in response to my Earth Day column, Mother Nature Needs More Markets, and very effectively refutes a number of points I didn’t make.

The town fathers of Concord, Massachusetts have again decided that people there are too dumb to make their own beverage decisions, banning the sale of bottled water. When Phillips Exeter Academy decided to stop selling bottled water on campus, I argued that the ban was silly, but certainly within their rights. But a government ban on selling a legal liquid in a legal bottle is beyond ridiculous.