2009.12.31-Boston Globe-Mass joins program to cut tailpipe emissions Press

http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2009/12/31/mass_joins_program_to_cut_tailpipe_emissions/
 

Mass. joins program to cut tailpipe emissions

Goal is finding cleaner-burning fuels for vehicles

By Erin Ailworth
Globe Staff / December 31, 2009

Massachusetts is among 11 eastern states that agreed yesterday to develop a plan by 2011 for a regional program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from vehicle fuels.

Governor Deval Patrick was among the governors who signed the agreement, committing to evaluate alternative fuel options and study the costs of such a program, which will promote using cleaner fuels.
Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Laurie Burt said the state “will look carefully at the costs of fuels, the infrastructure costs . . . so that we can see the impacts on our state if we proceed to do this.’’

The states involved in the program include Pennsylvania and the 10 members of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which covers an area stretching from Maine to Maryland and was formed to regulate the amount of carbon dioxide put out by local power plants.

Now the 11 states are hoping to regulate similar pollution from tailpipes, as roughly 30 percent of the region’s greenhouse gas emissions, which contribute to climate change, come from transportation fuels. The program is expected to include a 10 percent reduction in the carbon intensity, or the amount of pollution released per unit of energy produced, of such fuels.

“Tackling transportation emissions is the next big thing,’’ said Jeremy McDiarmid, an attorney for Environment Northeast, a nonprofit environmental policy and advocacy group that supports developing a policy to reward the use of fuels that are cleaner than gasoline and other fossil fuels.

Some question whether such a program - called a low-carbon fuel standard - will actually benefit the environment. Earlier this year, a trio of academics published a paper in the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, questioning the efficacy of a clean fuel standard. A study, they wrote, showed that a low-carbon fuel policy “increases low-carbon fuel production, possibly increasing net carbon emissions.’’
Translation: A clean fuel policy could unintentionally result in more pollution. That’s because, though the production of dirtier fuels decreases, larger amounts of cleaner fuels - which still generally have some negative environmental impact - will be made.

University of California at Davis economist Christopher R. Knittel, one of the paper’s authors, said the study also shows that a low-carbon fuel standard is a costly way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from transportation fuels. He said such a fuel standard is five to 10 times more expensive than a cap-and-trade program that yields the same reductions in carbon. A cap-and-trade program regulates polluters, forcing them to pay for the pollution they emit above a certain benchmark.

“My big fear is that we adopt something like this and it becomes so costly that it just pushes climate change policy back a few years or a number of years,’’ Knittel said.

Burt, head of the state’s environmental protection department, said a program that rewards the use of clean fuels - ethanol made from plant waste, say, or electricity - makes sense for the region and allows the market to decide what fuel options get used most.

“We don’t want to pick just one biofuel and say this is the magic bullet,’’ she said. “Diversity of fuel mix would be a very good thing.’’

Erin Ailworth can be reached at eailworth@globe.com. 
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