Governor Christie Calls Cap and Trade Gimmicky

The governor of New Jersey is receiving criticism from rightwing nuts for admitting the obvious - that climate change is real and that human activity plays a role. I’m sorry but that is not the real story. The policy decision was for his state to do nothing:

Gov. Chris Christie Thursday declared the nation’s first regional cap-and-trade program designed to reduce air pollution a failure and promised to pull New Jersey out of it by the end of the year. While acknowledging humans contribute to climate change, Christie called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative a "gimmicky" partnership and said it does nothing to reduce the gases that fuel the problem.

Christie joined other opponents of cap and trade by complaining how it would raise the cost of doing business as if this were a “job killer” – the new buzz word for rightwingers when they oppose something. But isn’t that the whole point of cap and trade – to induce private agents to shift their activities away from those that add to greenhouse emissions via the price system.

Christie’s decision to withdraw from this regional cap-and-trade program is bad policy but this is the kind of policy decision conservatives are turning to in order to gain political favor with rightwing nuts. But I guess this was not enough for some people.