Washington (Platts)--8Jun2010/554 pm EDT/2154 GMT
The ten states comprising the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative stand to lose nearly $3 billion in revenue if the recently announced US Senate climate change bill becomes law, according to a study released Tuesday by environment research and advocacy group Environment Northeast.
The Senate bill, sponsored by Senators John Kerry and Joseph Lieberman, would eliminate any regional or state cap-and-trade programs when a national plan takes effect in 2013. At present, the only mandatory greenhouse gas cap-and-trade plan in the US is RGGI, a venture binding ten Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states.
RGGI emission allowances are mostly sold by state governments in quarterly auctions. Seven auctions have been held thus far, raising over $582 million since September 2008. The Kerry-Lieberman bill, however, would permanently end these auctions.
Environment Northeast estimates that RGGI member states would be forced to surrender more than a billion allowances between 2013 and 2018, the year in which the RGGI program is scheduled to end. These allowances would be worth at least $2.97 billion, Environment Northeast calculates, using the weighted
average of the seven prior auction clearing prices, or $2.75/short ton.The upper limit these allowances might be worth is $8.65 billion, the study stated. That would happen if allowances reach $10/st, which is the
maximum price that RGGI allowances are likely to trade during this time period, according to Peter Shattuck, a carbon markets policy analyst at Environment Northeast.
--Geoffrey Craig, geoffrey_craig@platts.com
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