546 Leaders Call for Stronger Northeast Climate Pact

Media Contacts
Michelle McCarthy

Environment America

Concord, NH – 546 organizations, businesses, health professionals, lawmakers and community leaders from the Northeast, called on Governor Sununu and other Northeast and Mid-Atlantic governors to strengthen the nation’s best regional climate and clean air program, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). 

The groups, including included elected officials and business owners from all over New Hampshire, sent a letter to the governors asking them to “deliver clean air and a safe, healthy climate for us all.”  Specifically, the letter calls for governors to “double the strength of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative” to head off the worst effects of climate change.

“We’re on the right track, but we need to do much more,” said Michelle McCarthy, campaign organizer with Environment New Hampshire. “From Maryland to Maine, we can make America’s best regional climate and clean air program twice as effective.”

Representative Ellen Read stated, “Our environment is our most fundamental public trust. If we allow our climate and our planet to be endangered, then nothing else matters.”

Over the last decade, the program helped cut emissions from power plants in half. In addition to cutting climate pollution, the RGGI program has created significant benefits for the region, including:

  • Cleaner air. In its first six years, the program prevented 600 premature deaths, 9,000 asthma attacks, and 43,000 lost work days.
  • More local clean energy. In the first decade, the program generated $2.5 billion for clean energy and energy efficiency. For example, Smuttynose Brewery built a new highly-efficient brewery operation in New Hampshire with help from the state’s emissions reduction program. Over the lifetime of the equipment installed, Smuttynose will save more than $1 million in energy costs – while helping to preserve the climate necessary for farmers to grow the raw ingredients for beer by preventing carbon pollution equivalent to driving a typical car for almost 13 million miles.
  • Stronger economy. In its first six years, the program boosted the regional economy by $3 billion while creating more than 30,000 job-years.

The way RGGI creates these benefits is ingenious: it’s a system that ratchets down emissions each year and makes polluters pay to pollute. That revenue—$2.5 billion to date—is then invested in clean energy and energy efficiency, which has led to healthier communities and thriving economies.

Over the next few months, officials from the nine participating states will evaluate options for improving the program as part of a review process established when the program was launched.

The letter also notes that the need to reduce pollution to protect our climate is only growing more urgent. In January, NASA announced that 2016 was the hottest year on record for our planet, breaking records last set in 2015 and 2014. People across the region are feeling the impacts. In New Hampshire, rising temperatures have affected the moose population and maple syrup production.

On average, power plant pollution in the region have been falling by almost 5 percent per year since 2005. In 2016, pollution went down by 4.8 percent.

The coalition is calling on the governors to keep up that pace by lowering the limit on pollution by 5 percent per year through 2030 and address loopholes that undermine the program. That would double the strength of the cap, which currently requires emissions cuts of 2.5 percent per year.

“The good news is that New Hampshire has been leading the charge to protect our health and environment and shift to clean energy.  Now it’s time to build on that success and make America’s best regional climate program twice as good,” said Michelle McCarthy.

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Environment New Hampshire Research & Policy Center is a 501(c)(3) organization. We are dedicated to protecting our air, water and open spaces. We investigate problems, craft solutions, educate the public and decision-makers, and help the public make their voices heard in local, state and national debates over the quality of our environment and our lives. For more information, visit www.environmentnewhampshirecenter.org.

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