a political/enviromental interlude...

[lagilman]

9 States in Plan to Cut Emissions by Power Plants

By ANTHONY DePALMA
Published: August 24, 2005

Officials in New York and eight other Northeastern states have come to a preliminary agreement to freeze power plant emissions at their current levels and then reduce them by 10 percent by 2020, according to a confidential draft proposal.

The cooperative action, the first of its kind in the nation, came after the Bush administration decided not to regulate the greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming. Once a final agreement is reached, the legislatures of the nine states will have to enact it, which is considered likely.

Enforcement of emission controls could potentially result in higher energy prices in the nine states, which officials hope can be offset by subsidies and support for the development of new technology that would be paid for with the proceeds from the sale of emission allowances to the utility companies.

The regional initiative would set up a market-driven system to control emissions of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, from more than 600 electric generators in the nine states. Environmentalists who support a federal law to control greenhouse gases believe that the model established by the Northeastern states will be followed by other states, resulting in pressure that could eventually lead to the enactment of a national law.

California, Washington and Oregon are in the early stages of exploring a regional agreement similar to the Northeastern plan. The nine states in the Northeastern agreement are Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont. They were brought together in 2003 by a Republican governor, George E. Pataki of New York, who broke sharply and openly with the Bush administration over the handling of greenhouse gases and Washington's refusal to join more than 150 countries in signing the Kyoto Protocols, the agreement to reduce emissions that went into effect earlier this year.

more here

Comments

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

Considering that we need this now, and the feds are ignoring it, I'm impressed that they could come to ANY agreement at all, much less sign on to it.

Now--when will Congress set an example, and all the R&Ss get rid of their SUVs?

[merlinpole.livejournal.com]

Doesn't do anything about the"Dirty Dozen" power plants most or all that belong to Cinergy in Ohio, which are responsible for a plurality of the air pollution from power plants in the entire northeastern USA. They were -suppposed- to get cleaned up -years- ago... then environmentalism got trashed in DC.