Governor Peter Shumlin will urge his counterparts in the Northeast to support a meaningful carbon cap and renew their commitment to the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), particularly in light of the New Jersey decision to withdraw from the environmental agreement, at a meeting in Nova Scotia that gets underway on Sunday.
The governor will focus on the issue at the 35th Meeting of the Conference of New England Governors and Eastern Canadian Premiers taking place in Halifax on July 10-12. On the official agenda are meetings to discuss the economic realities facing the U.S. and Canadian region; enhancing trade between New England the Canadian provinces; maximizing the potential of each region’s energy resources; and confronting shared environmental challenges.
In addition, Shumlin will discuss efforts to bring a high-speed rail route through New England to Montreal with his counterparts.
The governor said he will urge his counterparts in the New England states to join him in asking the federal Environmental Protection Agency to recognize the success of RGGI, design any national greenhouse gas regulations consistent with its innovative approach, and allow state participation in RGGI to serve as an alternative method to meet any new federal regulatory requirements.
RGGI was created through a Memorandum of Understanding in 2007 that requires a program review to be conducted in 2012. It is the first market-based regulatory program in the United States to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Ten Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic states have capped and will reduce CO2 emissions by 10 percent in the next seven years (Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland).
Under RGGI, states sell nearly all emission allowances through auctions and invest proceeds in consumer benefits: energy efficiency, renewable energy, and other clean energy technologies. RGGI is spurring innovation in the clean energy economy and creating green jobs in each state.
The carbon cap went into effect on Jan. 1, 2009 and applies to all fossil fuel-fired power plants with production of 25 Megawatts or greater.
As part of this program review there is an opportunity to make RGGI more effective in capping greenhouse gas emissions by lowering the cap level. The Governor is also committed to ensuring there is an adequate public process in the program review and that the modeling that is done for the review looks at a variety of scenarios relating to future emissions.
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia ‘
Shumlin to push for carbon cap at meeting of New England and Canadian leaders
Submitted by tim
on