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NEW YORK, New York, March 20, 2009 (ENS) – The first market-based, mandatory cap-and-trade program in the United States to reduce greenhouse gas emissions held its third auction of emissions allowances in a 10-state region from Maine to Maryland on Wednesday. Allowances for 1,000 tons of emissions were purchased by an environmental group, not for use but to remove them from the market.
In a report on the auction today, the 10 Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states participating in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative said all of the 31,513,765 allowances for the 2009 emissions sold at a clearing price of $3.51 per allowance.
The participating states have regulations in place to cap and then reduce the amount of carbon dioxide, CO2, that power plants in their region are allowed to emit, limiting the region’s total contribution to atmospheric greenhouse gas levels.
Power sector CO2 emissions are capped at current levels through 2014. The cap will then be reduced by 2.5 percent in each of the four years 2015 through 2018, for a total reduction of 10 percent.
The March 18 auction was the first since compliance obligations under RGGI’s first three-year control period began on January 1, 2009.
The Brandon Shores coal-fired power plant in Maryland must buy CO2 emissions allowances along with all other power plants in the 10 state RGGI region. (Photo courtesy Constellation Energy)
The auction raised more than $117 million for energy efficiency, renewable energy and other consumer benefit programs in the 10 RGGI states – Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont.
“The states are very pleased with the results from the latest RGGI auction,” said New York State Environment Commissioner Pete Grannis, who chairs the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, Inc. Board of Directors. “Our continued success provides further support for President Obama’s position that a national cap and trade program with allowance auctions is the right policy for the country and the right approach for addressing the most pressing environmental and economic issue of our time: climate change.”
The Adirondack Council purchased another 1,000 tons of carbon dioxide allowances from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative auction.
The environmental organization’s purchase takes the allowances away from power plants in the 10-state region, which need to buy carbon allowances from the RGGI program before they can emit carbon dioxide from their smokestacks.
“There are a limited number of allowances available for 2009, and we just bought another 1,000 of them with the intention that they never be used,” said Brian Houseal, executive director of the Adirondack Council, a privately funded environmental organization based in New York’s Adirondack Park.
“We are the only environmental organization in America
Related posts:
- States Release Results of Third Auction for RGGI CO2 Allowances
- Carbon auction nets $106.5 million for 10 states
- New York to Introduce Cap-and-Trade for Power Plants
- Press Release: RGGI Issues Notice for Third Auction
- Post-Settlement Auction Report Shows Robust Market for RGGI Carbon Dioxide Emissions Allowances