Aug. 15 marked the 10th anniversary of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, the first mandatory market-based carbon emissions reduction program in the United States.
Participating states include Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont. RGGI has been a huge success: power sector emissions have declined by more than 40 percent, while the regional economy has grown by 8 percent. The revenue from quarterly emissions credit auctions goes back into the New Hampshire economy, and by 2013, New Hampshire alone had received $57 million from allowance auctions. That revenue was largely reinvested into energy efficiency programs.
RGGI demonstrates that an economy can be stimulated and continue to grow while our environment sees the benefits of cut carbon emissions. There is a wealth of economic opportunity for New Hampshire residents in pioneering new methods of reducing carbon emissions while spurring economic growth. And if New Hampshire continues to embrace that opportunity, we will become a more attractive place for millennials to settle because we are investing in the future.
ANNIKA BARTH
Lee