Gregory S. Schneider reports for the Washington Post
April 19, 2019
RICHMOND — Virginia regulators have voted to join a regional carbon cap-and-trade program, becoming the first Southern state to do so. The effort could lead to a 30 percent reduction in carbon emissions from the state’s largest power plants.
But there’s a hitch.
Republican lawmakers put language into the state budget that effectively prevents Virginia from participating.
Gov. Ralph Northam (D) could veto the language but must do so by a May 3 deadline.
Several environmental groups, which have supported Northam on conservation issues but have clashed with him on energy policy, turned up the pressure on him to act.
“Gov. Northam must now demonstrate leadership by vetoing the General Assembly’s procedural roadblock of the plan,” Walton Shepherd, Virginia policy director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said via email.
Friday’s 5-to-2 vote by the State Air Pollution Control Board would put Virginia into the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI, a cap-and-trade program among nine other states in the northeast, including Maryland.
It puts limits on carbon emissions from the biggest power generators and sets up the trading of allowances on a market. Emitters that come below the cap can sell allowances to those who exceed it.
