BOSTON—Massachusetts Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick said on Thursday he would join a pact among northeastern U.S. states to control greenhouse gases, bypassing a White House refusal to limit carbon dioxide emissions.
The pact, the largest regional effort to limit power-plant pollution in the United States, adopts a market-based approach that would cap and trade carbon dioxide emissions in eight U.S. states beginning in 2009 to fight global warming.
The Massachusetts move is the latest example of U.S. states launching their own efforts against climate change in the face of what critics say is a White House unwillingness to act.
U.S. President George W. Bush is expected to outline some adjustments to national climate-change policy in his State of the Union speech next week, but retain his opposition to mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions.
Under the regional pact, power plants that emit more heat-trapping carbon dioxide under the set limits could then buy credits from cleaner plants. Each would pay for emissions allowances in a market with proceeds going to the state.
"Today my administration takes its first step to set Massachusetts on a new course toward a clean-energy future," Patrick said in a statement. He said money collected from the plants would be invested in green technology and conservation.
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose landmark law to slash greenhouse gases from all sources put his state at the forefront of the national battle against climate change, may join the Northeast initiative, a Massachusetts official said.
Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York and Vermont also have signed on. Rhode Island withdrew in 2005 but its attorney general, Patrick Lynch, urged the state's Republican governor in December to rejoin. Maryland and Washington D.C. are expected to join within the year.
The initiative would cap carbon dioxide emissions from electricity plants at current levels until 2015 and then reduce emissions by 10 percent by 2019, forcing power plants to cut back on the burning of fossil fuels.
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Massachusetts produces most of the greenhouse gases among the six New England states. Its participation in the pact, known as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), was considered vital to its success by environmentalists.
Former Republican Gov. Mitt Romney, who is exploring a run for the White House, in 2005 withdrew Massachusetts from talks on joining that pact, citing concern it would raise energy costs for businesses and homeowners.
Many scientists say greenhouse gases are responsible for a warming Earth and, if not reduced, could lead to massive storms, floods, heat waves, droughts and a rise in sea levels.
Energy regulators in four western U.S. states said last month they also cannot wait for Bush to act on climate change and agreed to tighten efficiency and cut emissions from power plants.
The Massachusetts Division of Energy Resources estimates that costs related to the new pact would drive up electricity bills for an average household in the state by $3 to $16 a year, from $950.
However, Patrick said green investments funded by the pact would reduce annual household electricity bills by $21 to $68 by 2015 and shave $160 million from the state's $8 billion electricity bill.
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