SECRECY & GREED POLLUTE CAP & TRADE

THE SECRETS TEN STATES & WALL STREET DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW by Mark Lagerkvist

Secrecy and greed are polluting the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, the nation’s first mandatory cap-and-trade system. 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. The bidders at RGGI auctions include Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, JPMorgan Chase and other Wall ...

S.E.C. CHARGES NEW JERSEY WITH STATE PENSION FUND FRAUD

New Jersey became the first state in history Wednesday to be charged with securities fraud for concealing from investors financial information about the funding status of two public pensions, according to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. From August 2001 to April 2007 New Jersey offered and sold $26 billion worth of municipal bonds [...]Read More>>

SECRECY PAYS FOR RGGI CHIEF

Jonathan Schrag is paid to keep secrets as executive director of the nation’s first mandatory CO-2 cap-and-trade program. Those secrets include the salaries Schrag and his subordinates receive from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a non-profit corporation funded by 10 states, including New Jersey. Schrag refused a records request from New Jersey Watchdog – [...]Read More>>

NJ’s $173 BILLION PENSION TRAP

For New Jersey’s pension system – and taxpayers – the news keeps getting worse. The state’s five pension plans for public workers face a $173.9 billion shortfall, according to a study by Eileen Norcross of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and Andrew Biggs of the American Enterprise Institute. That’s nearly four times higher than the [...]Read More>>

Do you want to bark back? Or does the cat have your tongue? Send your howls, yips, cries and whimpers to bark@newjerseywatchdog.org

Enerhope

Congratulations on identifying a fatal flaw in the RGGI cap-and-trade system: The lack of a vigilant and transparent registry of allowances.Read More>>

Lyn

Absolutely great work by Mr. Lagerkvist and NJ Watchdog on this issue. I was only marginally aware of RGGI before seeing Mr. Lagerkvist on Fox last evening. On my blog I have linked to a number of articles, including this one, hoping to spread the word about RGGI. It is dismaying to learn how extensively [...]Read More>>