While the federal government dallies on climate
change, several states are taking action. Most advanced
is the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, launched by
seven northeastern states from Maine to Delaware. Their
plan will limit carbon dioxide emissions from power
plants and require utilities to hold emission permits.
Still undecided as of mid-2006 is a crucial question:
will polluters pay for their permits, or will they get
most of them for free?
Dozens of citizens’ groups are calling upon the
states to auction emission permits and use the proceeds
to reduce costs to consumers. “Historically,
polluters have used our air for free,” says Marc
Breslow of the Massachusetts Climate Action Network.
“But there’s no justification for allowing
them to keep doing so. The atmosphere is common
property.”
As this is written, some politicians are listening.
The Vermont legislature voted to auction 100 percent of
the state’s emission permits, rather than give them
free to polluters. In Massachusetts, a key committee
approved a five-year transition to full auctioning
— though the state’s governor, Mitt Romney,
abruptly withdrew Massachusetts from the regional
initiative. In New York, the state attorney general,
Eliot Spitzer, announced his support for 100 percent
auctioning. This could be especially significant if
Spitzer, as seems likely, becomes governor in 2007. ...
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