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2010.01.10-ProvidenceJournal-RI ioins 10 other states Press
R.I. joins 10 other states to cut emissions
Rhode Island has joined with 10 other states to try to reduce the amount of carbon emissions produced by vehicles.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
The Providence Journal / Connie Grosch
It didn’t get much public attention over the holidays, but on Dec. 29 Governor Carcieri signed a memorandum of understanding that links Rhode Island with 10 other states in an unusual effort to lower the amount of carbon emissions produced by cars, buses and trucks.
The agreement calls on the states to study establishment of a so-called “low carbon fuel standard” that would use alternative fuels, credits and other techniques to reduce the amount of carbon produced by transportation by 10 percent in the next 10 years.
Only the State of California has launched a similar effort through an executive order signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2007. His stated goal was to spur research into alternatives to oil and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Similar programs are being considered in Oregon, Washington and 10 Midwestern states.
Carcieri signed the Northeast-mid-Atlantic agreement along with the governors of Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey and Vermont. Massachusetts Governor Patrick organized the effort.
All but Pennsylvania are already members of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, an effort to move forward with carbon credits and a cap on carbon emitted by electricity generation on a regional basis, in the absence of federal action. Members of the regional initiative are looking forward to their seventh auction of carbon dioxide allowances this March as part of the first market-based, mandatory cap-and-trade program in the United States designed to reduce greenhouse gases.
The cap on greenhouse gases produced by power generation in the 10 states has been set at 188 tons. Starting in 2015, it will be lowered by 2.5 percent each year for four years.
About a year ago, Rhode Island agreed to work with the other states on targeting greenhouse gases produced by transportation and heating.
The memorandum signed two weeks ago commits the state to doing an economic analysis of the various tools that could help reduce carbon intensity. It is still to be determined whether heating oil will be part of the program. There are some fears that combining heating oil with transportation is too big a step.
The states also agree to analyze direct and indirect emissions, such as those that might result from land-use changes caused by fuel production.
Environment Northeast, an environmental advocacy group that works to reduce global warming emissions, reports that gasoline and diesel constitute 97 percent of the fuel that powers transportation in Rhode Island at a cost, in 2008, of $1.8 billion. Nearly all of that money leaves the region.
Environment Northeast believes plug-in hybrid electric vehicles will help provide an answer because they emit 60 percent less in greenhouse gases than comparable conventional vehicles.
“We need all hands on deck to reduce transportation emissions,” said Jeremy McDiarmid, staff attorney for the group. “There is some question as to whether we can take on heating oil now, too.”
Legislation will probably have to be enacted in each state to move the low carbon requirements forward.
But McDiarmid and Abigail Anthony, policy analyst for the group’s Rhode Island office, said participants will probably spend much of the next year studying carbon-reducing alternatives and preparing model rules.
A credit trading system will be developed that will prompt fuel providers to choose among different fuels or to develop new alternatives to meet goals set by the states.
Beyond the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, Anthony said, there are two other benefits the program should provide to Rhode Islanders: an opportunity to have the money they spend on fuel stay in the state and go to the producers of biofuels or electricity for plug-in hybrids, and an opportunity for local businesses to develop new fuels.
plord@projo.com
