POLICY BRIEF: Why Raimondo Administration Should Not Impose New TCI Gas Tax

The Stealth TCI Gas Tax

Why the Governor Should Not Sign-on to the Transportation & Climate Initiative

Providence, RI – If the Raimondo administration gets its way and coerces the General Assembly to sign-on to a new carbon-tax regional compact, a scheme devised by climate alarmists, Rhode Island motorists are about to see a major tax increase at the gas pump. 

A new policy brief released today – The TCI Tax –  by the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity details the ‘diabolical’ goals of the Transportation & Climate Initiative (TCI), a green-new-deal type program that will necessarily increase the price of regular and diesel fuel. 

Like all far-left contrivances to reduce carbon-gas emissions, and like the Regional Greeenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) that preceded it, the TCI gas tax will harm economic growth and will take money out of the pockets of residents, while failing to meet its stated goals.

The Center’s policy brief discusses in detail the many reasons why our state should not join the TCI compact, including:

• In Rhode Island, with its already dismal business climate and exodus of people to lower-cost states, families and businesses cannot afford a significant new gas tax
• The failure of a similar regional scheme on electricity, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, has driven up consumer costs; has resulted in no added greenhouse gas reductions; and has caused economic harm. There is every reason to believe TCI will also produce a negative cost vs. benefit result. 
• The Governor should not try to bypass the Constitutional authority of the General Assembly by unilaterally seeking to impose this new gas tax
• Rhode Island could gain a significant competitive advantage in the region by refusing to sign-on to the TCI tax scheme by being able to offer lower-priced gasoline products
• There are many less disruptive and more efficient ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
• State and national legal challenges may result, along a number of potential Constitutional angles

“We are already suffering through a great Ocean State Exodus because of the worst business climate in the nation,” said the Center’s CEO, Mike Stenhouse. “The Governor cannot unilaterally force motorists to pay higher gasoline taxes if there is zero resulting environmental benefit?”

Additional related information can be found on the Center’s home-TCI-page at RIFreedom.org/NoTCITax. #NOTCITAX