Nine States Join in Plan to Cut Emissions by Power Plants

[Mass]

A good start in order to help counter Bush and his energy plan.
Nine States Join in Plan to Cut Emissions by Power Plants

8/24/2005 3:45:00 PM
Copyright 2005 E&E Publishing. All Rights Reserved

8/24/2005 3:45:00 PM
Copyright 2005 E&E Publishing. All Rights Reserved.

Nine Northeastern states have tentatively agreed to a plan that would cap power plant emissions at their current levels and reduce them by 10 percent by 2020, according to a draft proposal obtained by the New York Times.

The first such cooperative action of its kind in the United States, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative would set up a market-driven system to control carbon dioxide emissions from more than 600 facilities. The agreement would include Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont. In addition, Maryland, the District of Columbia, Pennsylvania, the Eastern Canadian Provinces and New Brunswick are observers in the process. And California, Washington and Oregon are considering a similar regional agreement (Greenwire, Sept. 17, 2004).

New Jersey Environmental Protection Department assistant commissioner Andrew Rush said officials are still working on the plan but that "the states are working very productively to resolve the issues and we have very high hopes of getting a resolution through to all the states by the end of September."

Under the proposal, emissions would be capped 150 million tons of CO2 per year and would be enforced starting in 2009. By 2015, states would be required to begin reducing emissions. Officials have said they hope to offset the potential increase in energy prices through subsidies and the development of new technology that would be funded through the sale of emissions credits.

Environmentalists said a regional plan like this could eventually lead to a national law. "We're not going to solve the problem of global warming in the Northeastern states," said Dale S. Bryk, a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council. "But we're showing that we have the American ingenuity to do this and we're setting a precedent in terms of the design of the program."

"We welcome all efforts to help meet the president's goal for significantly reducing greenhouse gas intensity by investing in new, more efficient technologies," said James L. Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality (Anthony DePalma, Aug. 24). -- DRL

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[NoFederales]

1. Applause for State Initiative

NoFederales

[Double T]

2. The Federal Government is completely inept and incapable of getting.....

anything positive accomplished. Leave it up to the New England and Northeast BLUE STATES to get something IMPORTANT DONE. We need more of this same kind of initiative by the states; the environment including land, air and water needs a lot of our help.