Colorado Agreement Clarified

The agreement reached in cooperation between industry, environmental groups and government officials in Colorado has some interesting stipulations. Anyone who has followed Hg-ATME knows I am against cap-and-trade of mercury emissions, but the compromise in Colorado makes sense for them and could be a benchmark for other States. It allows Colorado utilities to buy credits as part of a longer term agreement to significantly reduce mercury emissions at every single plant.

Fort Collins Weekly has a nice article describing the agreement, excerpt below, the full article can be read here.

“The new rules will ensure we begin cleaning-up the worst two mercury polluters immediately,” says Will Coyne, the program director of Environment Colorado in a statement about the ruling.

While the new rules don’t allow the power plants to sell credits for mercury emissions if they reduce their output below the requirements, they allow utilities the option of buying credits from cleaner utilities, including those in other states, if they expect to exceed their emissions for the next several years.
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Matt Garrington, field director with Environment Colorado calls the agreement a victory and says that despite the ability to buy credits, utilities will still be required to reduce their mercury emissions.

“All power plants will have to meet the 90 percent reductions,” he says. “This was a compromise to help industry get to that 90 percent reduction. They’ve agreed to this aggressive reduction and we’re not going to penalize them if they’re not there yet.”

Garrington says the ability to buy credits will be retired once all the plants meet the new requirements.

“Colorado will not be participating in the Bush (Administration) proposal to trade mercury pollution credits,” he says. “Under the Bush plan, mercury hotspots would have continued.”