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http:// --> Ashland, Oregon HOME Valley & State Sports Nation & World Opinion/Editorial Classifieds Business Columnists Obituaries Weather Archive Hot Topics Forum Photo Gallery Past Readers Polls Revels Etcetera Backpage O-Zone Special Sections Real Estate Guide Menu Guide Shakespeare Subscribe Contact Us Rate Card Place an Ad Online Games Movie Preview October 17, 2006 California looks east for greenhouse gas solution By Karen Matthews The Associated Press NEW YORK — The governors of California and New York announced a partnership Monday to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by allowing power plants in their states and across the Northeast to trade emissions credits. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said he would sign an executive order today that calls for a program allowing his state to work with the Northeast's Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. The goal of the initiative is to reduce carbon dioxide emissions at power plants starting in 2009. Under the program, power plants in participating states will be granted a limited number carbon credits, equal to the amount of carbon dioxide they are allowed to emit. Those that exceed their limits must purchase credits to cover the difference, while those that produce less carbon dioxide can sell the surplus credits. The partnership is the first step in creating a system that helps California's largest manufacturers comply with stricter environmental regulations. Industrial corporations and utility companies in the state must cut their greenhouse gas emissions by roughly 25 percent by 2020 as part of a landmark global warming law. Linking California to the Northeast program could help California power plants meet their obligations under that state's new law. "Our cooperation can be a model to the rest of the states and to other countries actually," Schwarzenegger said after he and New York Gov. George Pataki toured a green residential building in lower Manhattan touted as one of the country's largest and first "green" residential high-rise building. Pataki said that a "market-driven cap and trade system" would benefit both the environment and industry. In an effort to make the cap workable for businesses, Schwarzenegger has advocated setting up a market system that could enable the state's companies to buy, sell and trade emission credits instead of making their own reductions. The Northeast system involves seven states — Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York and Vermont. Maryland is expected to join in June 2007. The executive order is Schwarzenegger's latest move to address global warming — an issue that has often put the Republican governor at odds with the Bush administration. Schwarzenegger, up for re-election in November, has urged the governors of Western states to join California in a regional trading system and signed an agreement with British Prime Minister Tony Blair to develop new technologies to combat global warming. Pataki helped craft the Northeast system after President Bush withdrew from the 160-nation Kyoto Protocol on global warming in 2001, saying it would hurt the U.S. economy. California's global warming law imposes the country's first mandatory statewide cap on greenhouse gas emissions, a move that has been criticized by manufacturers and cement makers — two of the largest emitters of the greenhouse gases that scientists blame for rising temperatures in many parts of the world. Leave a Comment: Advertisement: Advertisement: Paid Advertising Inkjet Printers Student Loans Water Filter Helzberg Diamonds Mortgage Calculator Security Systems Advertisement: Copyright © 2006 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers. All Rights Reserved.