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This section of the site contains information for the media, along with tools for you to keep in touch with developments in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.
RGGI in the News
Traders and Experts Say Regional Cap-and-Trade Systems Will Proliferate
ClimateWire
Regional cap-and-trade systems will continue to spread in the United States and Canada and are poised to converge on each other...
Competing Regional Greenhouse Gas Bills Pass House, Senate
Associated Press
The Senate voted 24-0 Wednesday to retain New Hampshire's participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative...
Supporters: Climate Efforts Will Survive State’s Withdrawal
Politico Pro
More than a dozen states from California to New York remain committed to market-based climate policies like cap and trade, an idea originally championed by Republicans...
Christie Pulls New Jersey From 10-State Climate Initiative
New York Times
Gov. Chris Christie said Thursday that New Jersey would become the first state to withdraw from a 10-state trading system...
N.H. Senate Votes to Support Cap-and-Trade
Seacost Online
The N.H. Senate Wednesday voted 16-8 to support the state's continued involvement in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative....
Training Key to Green Jobs
Boston Herald
There are dozens of green-energy training programs across the state, but thanks to pilot programs offered by a coalition of local community groups and energy-efficiency contractors, a more diverse group of people are finding a place in the “green-collar” industry. One such program is the “Pathways out of Poverty” Initiative, which is partially funded by proceeds from the RGGI auctions...
RGGI Delivers
Sightline Daily
Last week, RGGI's most recent auction netted $83 million, for a lifetime total of nearly $861 million. The vast majority of that money is channeled into energy efficiency and job creation with immediate and tangible results....
Northeast Cap and Trade Program Re-Invests in Clean Energy
Boston Globe
The vast amount of money raised by the nation’s first mandatory carbon cap and trade system is going back into clean energy, a new report by the program shows....
US State Inches Closer to Repealing Cap-and-Trade Law
Point Carbon
The Science Technology and Energy committee in the New Hampshire House of Representatives passed a bill that would remove New Hampshire from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). New Hampshire has invested over $30 million in energy efficiency programs through its participation in RGGI...
States Tackle Global Warming, Greenhouse Gas Emissions
USA Today
States are choosing not to wait for Congress to tackle global warming and are taking their own steps to slash greenhouse gas emissions. States nearly doubled their spending on energy efficiency between 2007 and 2009, and twice as many — now at least 20 — have proposed or adopted energy-saving building codes since 2009. Three regional groups, representing at least 22 U.S. states, agreed last year to work together on "cap and trade" programs...
Report: Regional Cap-and-Trade Program Improved State Economies
The Hill
A regional cap-and-trade program established in the Northeast has reduced greenhouse gas emissions, created new jobs and lowered state energy bills, a report released Monday says....
A Cap-and-Trade Program That Works
Governing Magazine
Two years ago, RGGI imposed a cap-and-trade regime on large power plants in Delaware, Maryland, New England, New Jersey and New York. Nine auctions and $729 million later, the verdict is in: Cap and trade works....
Regional Cap-And-Trade System Sees Early Successes
National Journal
Just over a year since its inception, the nation's first mandatory cap on greenhouse gas emissions seems to have defied the conventional wisdom -- at least in some quarters -- that cap-and-trade legislation is bad for the economy....
The Proof is in the Pudding: Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative Shows Pollution Pricing Works
Climate Progress
As Congress looks for a way to price global warming pollution at the federal level, 10 Northeastern states have already put in place a market-based carbon emissions reduction program, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), which just completed its seventh successful auction of pollution permits. While opponents of clean energy reform falsely claim that a cap-and-trade system would harm the economy, RGGI provides a working model and active case study of how reducing pollution can actually drive economic growth...
New Yorkers Retrofitting Homes Through Energy Efficiency Program
WBNG-TV
Record numbers of New Yorkers have retrofitted their homes for energy efficiency using the Green Jobs/Green NY financing program. The program allows New York residents who qualify retrofit their homes to save money on their energy bills through low-cost financing. The Green Jobs-Green New York energy audit, loan and jobs training initiatives are funded with $112 million acquired by auctioning carbon emission credits through RGGI....
Incentives to Go Solar in N.H. -- Utilities Official Explains Business Benefits
Seacoast Online
RGGI funds millions of dollars worth of programs and projects that are available to businesses, nonprofits and individual consumers statewide. One program made possible through RGGI is the Business Finance Authority of New Hampshire's revolving loan fund. This fund is for businesses and nonprofits to assist with energy-efficiency improvements...
New NH Tool at Hand for Researching Biomass Energy
Bloomberg News
New Hampshire communities thinking of switching to biomass heating systems have a new source of information as they make their decision. A partnership that includes Plymouth State University and North Country Resource Conservation and Development Area has put together what it calls a roadmap to renewable woody biomass energy. The roadmap project was funded through the New Hampshire Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and the U.S. Department of Energy...
New York State Announces Energy-Efficiency Program for Homeowners
WGRZ
The state and the Energy Research and Development Authority announced the start of a program to provide homeowners with free or reduced-priced energy assessments and low-interest loans to finance energy-saving improvements. The loan program is funded by $112 million acquired by auctioning carbon emission credits through the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative...
The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative Has Paid Off
Keene Sentinel
The results of last week’s auction of waivers, RGGI’s ninth, indicate the program is working well. Over its brief lifetime, RGGI may already be a factor in reduced energy use and in advances in carbon-free electric generation....
NH Issues First-Year Review of Climate Plan
Bloomberg BusinessWeek
More than 700 people in the state have been trained in energy efficiency and more than 185 buildings have received energy audits, according to a review of the New Hampshire's climate action plan. More than 500 energy efficiency projects have been completed or are under way. They were funded by grants following greenhouse gas auctions by New Hampshire and other states...
Climate Auction Pays Dividends in MD
Baltimore Sun
The carbon-dioxide emission auction set up by Maryland and other northeastern states to combat climate change has yielded millions of dollars for cleaner and more efficient energy - all without destroying the region's economy, as critics have claimed it would if applied nationwide...
Cap-and-Trade Emissions Reduction Programs Catch On: MD Raises Millions for Energy Efficiency
Baltimore Sun
In a little more than a year, a regional push to cap greenhouse gases has raised millions for Maryland energy programs, with supporters calling it a model for easing climate change on a national or even global scale...
Sen. Snowe Is Working Quietly to Find 'Consensus' on Capping Utility Emissions
New York Times
Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe expressed support yesterday for making electric utilities pay fees for releasing carbon dioxide, giving Senate Democrats a critical Republican supporter in their stalled pursuit of climate legislation. Snowe is highlighting the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a 10-state program capping emissions from 233 power plants from Maine to Maryland, as a "template" that could be adopted at the national level...
US Climate Bill Weak for N.E., Critics Say
Boston Globe
Groups of state environmental chiefs, attorneys general, and US senators wrote the drafters of the federal bill in recent weeks, expressing concern that it could undo gains made under the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a 10-state pact that puts a price on carbon emissions from power plants and devotes a majority of the proceeds to improving energy efficiency...
RGGI: Mandatory Scheme Makes Modest Gains in Northeast
Financial Times
For much of this year, the US Congress has grappled with the thorny issue of a national cap-and-trade regime for greenhouse gas emissions. Yet at the same time, one-fifth of the country’s states are already signed up to a mandatory carbon pollution regime. The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative – RGGI, or “Reggie” – unites 10 north-eastern US states in a plan to cut carbon emissions from power plants by 10 per cent by 2018...
Ambitious Actions by the States Push U.S. Toward Climate Goals
Yale Environment 360
With little fanfare, many U.S. states — the largest of which have economies bigger than most nations, and carbon footprints to match — have been quietly making serious commitments to slash emissions…Ten northeastern and mid-Atlantic states have formed the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) and together comprise the seventh-largest economy in the world. RGGI now operates a cap-and-trade system in the U.S. that is committed to reducing emissions from its power sector 10 percent by 2018…
RGGI: Quietly Setting a Standard
SeacoastOnline
Though the Sept. 9 auction had the lowest sale return at $68.5 million of the five auctions, with each "allowance" sold equaling one ton of CO2 emitted, the ground-breaking market approach to tackle global climate change through regional cooperation has raised $432.7 million for the 10 RGGI states - money that has already been recycled from Maine to Maryland in the form of grants for weatherization and energy efficiency grants...
Up to 1,000 Maine Jobs Linked to Carbon Trading
Kennebec Journal
The nation's first mandatory carbon trading scheme is being credited with potentially creating nearly 1,000 jobs while promoting energy efficiency projects in industries located across Maine. Sixteen projects were awarded $8.9 million...
Green States Line up behind U.S. Climate Bill
Reuters
States that have set the U.S. agenda on addressing greenhouse gas emissions are lining up behind a federal climate bill, fearing signs of dissent would weaken a plan with several hurdles left to jump. Nearly half the U.S. states have moved toward curbing greenhouse gas emissions and want the federal government to learn from their experience in creating systems to cap emissions and trade pollution credits...
What a National Cap-and-Trade Program Might Look Like
Christian Science Monitor
Just after 9 on a recent morning, Bob Kasle sat down at his computer and glimpsed what could be the future of the climate bill the US House approved Friday. It was, in the end, rather routine. It took the International Power employee about 20 minutes to complete his part in an online auction of more than 30 million carbon credits...
Cap and Trade Program Creates Green Jobs
Scientific American
Scott Newman was laid off in February from his job repairing home oil heaters, a victim of the dismal economy. Today, he sits in a class with a new job, learning how to sleuth out wasted energy in homes. Newman is in the vanguard of a green-collar corps created by the nation's first carbon cap-and-trade program, operating in 10 northeastern states...
Greenhouse Gas Auction Nets $104 Million for 10 States
CNBC
The fourth quarterly auction of carbon allowances raised more than $104 million for 10 Northeastern states to invest in energy efficiency and renewable energy programs. Officials announced Friday that all 30.8 million allowances offered on June 17 were sold for $3.23 each...
Cap and Trade Program Creates Green Jobs
Scientific American
Scott Newman was laid off in February from his job repairing home oil heaters, a victim of the dismal economy. Today, he sits in a class with a new job, learning how to sleuth out wasted energy in homes. Newman is in the vanguard of a green-collar corps created by the nation's first carbon cap-and-trade program, operating in 10 northeastern states...
Northeast Compact Inspired Climate Change Bill
Boston Globe
A groundbreaking climate change bill unveiled yesterday by leading House Democrats takes some inspiration from a pact among 10 Northeastern states that was the first in the United States to place a mandatory cap on carbon emissions and begin trading pollution allowances. The bill would set strict new limits on greenhouse gases, cutting emissions by 20 percent by 2020 and by 85 percent by 2050...
Sensible Climate Legislation
Boston Globe
Despite our wounded economy, President-elect Obama is determined to address the problem of climate change early in his first term. Congressional leaders seem anxious to accommodate him by enacting legislation to control greenhouse gas emissions. But many members of Congress...
U.S. Venture Capitalists Optimistic on Carbon Market
Reuters
U.S. venture capitalists say they see a bright spot amid the international economic gloom: a potential trillion-dollar market in carbon spurred by new regulations and a growing awareness of climate change. The growth areas are less in traditional "green" businesses like solar panels and windmills and more in new infrastructure, such as a "smart" grid that would get alternative energy from where it's generated to where the customers are...
RGGI Carbon Emissions Auction Raises $107m
Reuters
Permits for the right to emit carbon dioxide from power plants in the U.S. Northeast sold for the clearing price of $3.38 per ton in the second U.S. greenhouse gas emissions auction, states in the region said on Friday. The amount was 31 cents more than the first quarterly auction...
Air-Pollution Market Debut Tests Cap-and-Trade Model (Update1)
Bloomberg.com
Ten Northeastern states will open the first U.S. market for trading greenhouse-gas permits this week, a $1.1 billion pilot project whose success may serve as a nationwide model to stem global warming ...
States Aim to Cut Gases by Making Polluters Pay
New York Times
Ten states from Maryland to Maine are about to undertake the nation's most serious effort yet to tackle climate change, putting limits on carbon dioxide emissions from utilities and making them pay for each ton of pollutants...
Carbon Goes to Market
Governing.com
The feds have been talking about cap-and-trade. The states are doing it. Late this month, 10 Northeastern states will conclude an auction like no other in American history. What's up for grabs is not art or property. It's carbon - or more specifically, the right to emit carbon dioxide from a power plant. As anyone familiar with what's causing global warming knows, carbon has a cost. Soon, in Baltimore, Boston and Buffalo, carbon also will have a price...
Carbon Trading to Become a $1 trillion market?
Colorado Energy News
The New York Mercantile Ex-change, a subsidiary of Nymex Holdings Inc. of New York, and the Chicago Climate Exchange, owned by Climate Exchange PLC of London, both launched RGGI carbon futures contracts in August...
New York Joins Carbon Trading Initiative
Online Financial News
New York has approved state-wide regulations that will bring "cap-and-trade" controls to carbon dioxide emissions for power plants and will pave the way for a secondary market for trading emission allowances...
Want To Buy Some Pollution?
New York Times
Later this year, Massachusetts and other Northeastern states will hold the nation's first auction of greenhouse gas emissions permits. Congress should take note: this market-based, technology-neutral auction is a model for how to encourage power generators to limit their emissions. And it could provide the foundation for a federal-state partnership to revolutionize energy use...
Making Carbon Markets, Two: The RGGI Bar
Wall Street Journal Online
Putting a price on emissions of greenhouse gases when no national market exists is more akin to a crapshoot. Some states are ready to roll the dice. Take the 10 states of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. RGGI, the first mandatory scheme to limit carbon emissions in the U.S. to become operational, announced today it will sell the first batch of emissions permits on Sept.10, formally launching the much-awaited program that many see as a possible template for future federal action ...
Carbon Market North America
Point Carbon News
Last week the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) flipped the switch to start its first auction, marking the transition from five years of planning among 10 northeastern and mid-Atlantic states to full implementation of RGGI's auction of carbon dioxide emission allowances. ..
Environmental Services Commissioner Tom Burack Talks with NH Public Radio
New Hampshire Public Radio
Audio from Commissioner Burack's interview on New Hampshire Public Radio is available from the link above ...
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