By William Opalka
The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative did most of the talking for states in the Northeast about the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan, as ISO-NE declined to file its own comments, instead signing on to those of the ISO/RTO Council.
RGGI, which established a carbon-reduction market with proceeds to benefit renewable energy and energy-efficiency programs, generally supported the EPA plan and suggested other areas of the country could follow its lead.
RGGI’s comments were signed by the utility regulators of its member states: Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Delaware and Maryland.
The officials praised the EPA for recognizing RGGI as an acceptable compliance mechanism incorporating many of their recommendations into the proposal.
But the officials said the plan “may not adequately recognize the substantial progress already made by early-action states,” such as those in RGGI. They said it would be unfair for the agency to require early adopters to make the same kind of additional emission reductions as the states that did little or nothing.
RGGI states have already achieved a 40% reduction in regional carbon emissions from the electricity sector from 2005 levels, the states said.
The comments were intended as a group statement, with states able to provide additional observations.
Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Commissioner Robert Klee responded to the EPA’s request for comments on using 2012 as the base year for reductions instead of 2005. He supported the later baseline.
“Between 2005 and 2012, we reduced gross CO2 emissions from the power sector by 23% and per capita emissions by 25%,” he wrote.