Chris Christies defining moment on climate change came early in his first term as New Jerseys governor.

On May 26, 2011, the brash, trash-talking Republican acknowledged for the first time that humans were causing the climate to change. Then, just three minutes into his 14-minute speech , he announced the Garden States withdrawal from a popular and effective interstate pact to lower planet-warming emissions and raise money for energy efficiency projects.

The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative , or RGGI, includes Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont, which have put limits on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and created a cap-and-trade market that allows utility companies to buy and sell permits to pollute. The program is credited with reducing average utility bills by 3.4 percent across the Northeast , driving $2.7 billion in revenues reinvested into public projects and creating at least 30,200 new jobs over the past eight years.

Yet Christie called it a failure. He insisted that the burden RGGI put on companies would drive job creators over the state line to Pennsylvania, New Jerseys fossil fuel-rich neighbor and one of the few states in the region outside the group.

RGGI does nothing more than tax electricity, tax our citizens, tax our businesses with no discernible or measurable impact upon our environment, Christie said in the speech speciously titled New Jerseys Future Is Green.

It doesnt make any sense, environmentally or economically, he added.

Months later, he vetoed a bill passed by the Democratic majority in the state legislature to rejoin RGGI. The next year, he rejected similar legislation. Last month, he struck down yet another bill, declaring , The third time will not be the charm.

It was the most significant policy decision, Matt Katz, author of the 2016 biography American Governor: Chris Christies Bridge to Redemption, told HuffPost. His pro-environment promises to move toward solar and wind energy sources couldve been a part of his legacy, but they turned out to be mostly empty efforts.