Posted December 9, 2013
Nine Northeastern states making up the Regional
Greenhouse Gas Initiative are urging the EPA to mirror its program for a
national carbon market, according to an article by Forbes available here.
Final federal rules for emissions from existing coal
plants are expected soon, and the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI)
recently sent a letter
to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, writing, “Our experience with the Regional
Greenhouse Gas Initiative demonstrates that regional cooperation can achieve
the most cost-effective emission reductions, enable a transition to a
lower-emitting and more efficient power sector and create economic benefits and
jobs across the United States.”
The RGGI says that “its participating members have
reduced their heat-trapping emissions by 40 percent between 2005 and
2012.”
The EPA revised its proposals to reduce carbon dioxide
levels in September. The EPA news
release is available here. Under the new proposal, all future coal
plants would “need to be as clean as combined cycled natural gas units.” As a practical matter, “those units would
need to incorporate carbon capture and sequestration technologies” which are
presently “distant and expensive.”
The RGGI has a “declining cap and a corresponding
change in the cost of carbon allowances, all of which create market signals to
support fuel switching on and on-site efficiency.”
RGGI has successfully resulted in declining carbon
dioxide emissions and a regional economy that has grown by more than $1.6
billion in economic value. Additionally,
consumers have “saved $1.1 billion in electricity bills, and 16,000 new jobs have
been created region-wide.”
States in the RGGI include Connecticut, Massachusetts,
New York, Rhode Island, Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maryland, and
Delaware. New Jersey dropped out of the
program in 2011, according to an article by the Hartford Business Journal,
available here.
For more information on climate change, please visit
the National Agricultural Law Center’s website here.
