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 letterto 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.
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