7/28/10, "The bidders at RGGI auctions include Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, JPMorgan Chase and other Wall Street heavyweights."...(image above NJ Watchdog)
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6/6/12, "New Jersey Sued Over Greenhouse Gas Initiative Pull-Out," Bloomberg, A. Harris
"New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s administration was sued by two environmental groups opposing its decision to pull out of a 10-state greenhouse gas-reduction agreement.
The Natural Resources Defense Council and Environment New Jersey said today they are challenging the withdrawal from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative [RGGI] in a lawsuit filed at an appellate court in New Jersey’s capital city, Trenton.
“Governor Christie unilaterally made his decision to leave RGGI -- without taking any input from stakeholders or the public,” Environment New Jersey staff member Matt Elliott said in a statement today announcing the filing. “His actions are not only bad public policy, but also illegal.”
The 10-state emissions-trading program includes New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Maryland. The first-term governor, a Republican, on Nov. 29 told the other states New Jersey would drop out on Jan. 1, according to his website.“Climate change is real and it’s impacting our state,” Christie said in a May 26, 2011, statement, adding that 90 percent of scientists who have studied the issue have concluded humans play a role in those changes.
“We need to work to put policies in place that act at reducing those contributing factors,” Christie said at that time. “Our analysis of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative or RGGI reveals that this program is not effective in reducing greenhouse gases and is unlikely to be in the future.”
The environmental groups today said the governor failed to comply with administrative rules requiring that the public receive advance notice and an opportunity to comment on the decision before it is made final.
“Study after study shows RGGI is working just as it was designed,” the groups said, creating 16,000 job-years worth of work within the region and contributing to a 23 percent reduction in harmful pollutants while generating $159 million in local benefits through the sale of pollution permits.“There was nothing illegal about our withdrawal for RGGI,” a spokesman for the governor, Michael Drewniak, said today in an e-mailed statement.
He called the program “a failed public policy that taxed businesses and residents and left New Jersey at a competitive disadvantage,” and said each member state is permitted to withdraw from the pact at any time and without sanction.
“No one was locked into RGGI,” Drewniak said. “And no, we will not be rejoining RGGI.”
The case is In re Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, New Jersey Superior Court, Appellate Division (Trenton)."
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7/28/10, "The secrets 10 states and Wall Street don't want you to know," by Mark Lagerkvist, NJ Watchdog
"Under the RGGI scheme, the smell of profiteering is powerful. New Jersey and nine other Northeast states have sold
- $662 million in carbon dioxide permits since 2008.
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5/26/11, "Christie to pull N.J. out of cap-and-trade energy program," NJ Record, Scott Fallon and John Reitmeyer
"The withdrawal from RGGI undoes one of former Gov. Jon Corzine’s signature issues. Corzine signed onto RGGI in 2008 when it was a bi-partisan effort that was originally pushed by then-New York Governor George Pataki, a [sell-out] Republican. Corzine even touted it at
- a 2007 European Union meeting in Portugal."
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Other states have dropped out of RGGI for periods of time. It's just a bigger deal now because the house of cards around CO2 is coming down.
============================
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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On Goldman Sachs and CO2 fraud from Rolling Stone, July 2009:
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.
- except it has one delicious new wrinkle:
If the plan goes forward as expected, the rise in prices
- will be government-mandated.
- Goldman won't even have to rig the game.
11/12/08, "Goldman Sachs Buys into Carbon Offsets," NY Times Green, Inc. Blogs
10/27/08, "Street Cred: Goldman Sachs Buys into Carbon Credit Developer," WSJ Blogs (RGGI mentioned here)
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4/16/09, "Wall Street realized there was money to be made by going green." Robert Redford
"Live from the Ceres Conference: Robert Redford Charms Audience," Green Biz, Amie Vaccaro
----------------------------
Banks have begun dropping out of European 'carbon trading.'
- UBS Bank freely says the cap and trade program has not helped the climate.
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Former Goldman Sachs exec and former NJ Gov. Jon Corzine who engineered the RGGI deal v NJ now faces criminal charges v misuse of client money in bankrupt MF Global:
3/23/12, "MF’s Corzine Ordered Funds Moved to JP Morgan, Memo Says," Bloomberg, by Phil Mattingly 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:
- CEO of Goldman Sachs
- US Senator from New Jersey
- Governor of New Jersey
- "New Jersey governor (Corzine) signs toughest U.S. carbon law," Reuters, 7/7/07
"(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."
- Major role in Wall St-global warming deals, encumbered NJ taxpayers and others throughout northeast while ensuring profits for Wall St. carbon traders.
- In March 2011 attended meeting at White House for Wall St. Obama supporters
- Obama went to Corzine home on April 27, 2011 for fundraising event with Wall St. Obama supporters
- Was said to be Obama's choice for Treasury Sec. on his re-election. Per MSNBC Corzine even tried to make money off the possibility by issuing special securities notices.
========================
11/3/11, "Remember that fundraiser at Jon Corzine Home? “Wall Street Guy” Is Now Being Investigated By The FBI," Politisite
Corzine gives Obama "gravitas" said experts in 2008:
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11/2/11, "Corzine, top Obama fundraiser, under FBI investigation," MSNBC, M. Isikoff
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11/4/11, "Jon Corzine Hires Criminal Defense Lawyer," Business Insider
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11/1/2005, "Has the NRDC Gone Hollywood?" Water and Wastewater News, by J. Daniel Hull, Attorney, 11/1/2005
"Aggressive Lawyering: Another thing I have in common with the NRDC is the legal profession. Among other things, the NRDC is a boutique law firm of lawyers who practice only environmental law....
In fact, in its 35 year history, the NRDC has surpassed all other political action, citizens', and trade groups in "pro-environment" victories and accomplishments -- many of them through litigation....And speaking of resources,
NRDC's Board of Trustees (as of 2005) is definitely interesting. Along with the usual captains of industry, power lawyers, and academics you usually see on the board of a major charity are names of the Hollywood elite: Laurie David (Seinfeld creator Larry David's wife);
- Elizabeth Wiatt (wife of William Morris Agency chief James Wiatt);
- Warner Brothers President Alan Horn; Peter Morton (of Morton's restaurants and founder of Hard Rock Cafes.); and three entertainers who have been serious NRDC supporters for years: singer
- James Taylor and actors
- Leonardo DiCaprio and
- Robert Redford."...
(Attorney J. Daniel Hull): "It's housed in "The Robert Redford Building," which is billed as the "greenest building in America." I don't know any artful way to say this, so I'll just blurt it out: The Robert Redford Building in Santa Monica is the coolest and best thought-out building I've ever seen or been in and...the building is a few blocks from the Pacific Ocean and the Santa Monica Pier. (Twice weekly, NRDC offers tours, and a virtual tour is available at www.nrdc.org; click "Cities and Green Living").
For starters, the building is beautiful and quietly elegant. The exterior of the building has an understated classical design to survive changes in building styles over the next few decades. The siding is a wood substitute made of cement and sawdust that, unlike wood, won't shrink or expand, requiring far less maintenance over the years. The interior has tastefully decorated offices, conference rooms, and even a working rooftop terrace in light browns, pastels, and off-white colors. Wood for flooring and furniture is processed without toxic chemicals....
- ...the L.A. office even commands a page or two on the environment in each issue of Los Angeles Confidential, an expensive, hyper-slick quarterly "vanity" magazine where you're way more likely to find photos of Warren Beatty or Darryl Hannah at L.A. parties and reports about who's and what's hot in Hollywood than you are to see reports on endangered shrimp species, a "Heal the Bay" update, or conservation tips to save the planet.
Does the NRDC Use Hollywood to Get Its Point Across?
It sure does, and the city gladly obliges. One reason may have less to do with money than publicity. While it's true that the Redford building is a very short drive in your Mercedes or Bentley from some of the wealthiest suburbs in the world, the NRDC knows that if Julia Louis-Dreyfus, a Seinfeld regular and NRDC mainstay, announces a press conference on an upcoming educational or fundraising event for clean water or fuel efficiency issues, two good things often come of it:the kind of media attention that only stars or
- politicians can bring, and,
- okay, the money."...
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11/25/2009, "Global warming industry becomes too big to fail," Timothy Carney, Washington Examiner
via Tom Nelson
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