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New Mexico Panel Makes CO2 Rule as Republicans Gain in Congress
2010-11-03 08:40:34.257 GMT
By Simon Lomax
Nov. 3 (Bloomberg) -- A New Mexico environmental panel
adopted a cap-and-trade plan to cut greenhouse gases as voters
sent more Republicans to Congress who oppose such measures.
The New Mexico Environmental Improvement Board approved in
a 4-3 vote the program for restricting carbon-dioxide emissions
that scientists link to climate change, the state's Environment
Department said yesterday in a statement on its website.
The measure wouldn't go into effect unless other U.S.
states or Canadian provinces move ahead with similar systems for
limiting greenhouse gases, the department said. The New Mexico
program would regulate about 63 "large industrial sources,"
such as power plants, the department said.
The U.S. government should "build on New Mexico's
program" and similar greenhouse gas limits planned in other
U.S. states, such as California, "to implement a national cap-
and-trade system," New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, a
Democrat, said in the statement.
President Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress failed to
pass legislation this year that would create a federal cap-and-
trade program, in which companies buy and sell a declining
number of carbon dioxide permits.
Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives have said
they will block cap-and-trade legislation, which they describe
as a "national energy tax," if they win a majority of seats in
midterm elections.
With their gains in Congress yesterday, the first order of
business for Republicans in energy policy may be to block the
Environmental Protection Agency's plan to limit CO2 emissions.
California Ballot
California voters rejected a ballot measure backed by oil
refiners that would have suspended the state's global-warming
law signed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Proposition 23 was losing 60 percent to 40 percent, with 58
percent of the precincts counted, according to the Associated
Press.
By 2015, California's cap-and-trade program would cover
nearly 400 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from power
plants, factories, refineries and the tailpipes of cars and
trucks, the air quality agency said in a report last week.
By comparison, New Mexico's annual greenhouse gas emissions
are roughly equal to 24 million tons of carbon dioxide, the
environment department said.
New Mexico is a member of the Western Climate Initiative, a
coalition of Canadian provinces and U.S states, including
California, that seek to form a joint carbon trading system to
cut emissions 15 percent from 2005 levels by 2020.
New Mexico won't proceed with the cap-and-trade program
unless states or provinces with combined emissions of at least
100 million tons of carbon dioxide agree to participate in the
proposed carbon trading bloc, the environment department said.
For Related News and Information:
Top environment stories: GREEN <GO>
Stories about U.S. and climate: TNI US CLIMATE <GO>
Global emissions data: EMIS <GO>
Northeast U.S. trading: RGGI <GO>
--Editors: Todd White, Clyde Russell
To contact the reporter on this story:
Simon Lomax in Washington at +1-202-654-4305 or
slomax@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Dan Stets at +1-212-617-4403 or dstets@bloomberg.net.
