NJ Rejoins RGGI But More Work Needs to Be Done

Governor Murphy adopted RGGI into the New Jersey register. These rules include the Global Warming Solutions Fund N.J.A.C. 7:27D and the CO2 Budget Trading Program Rules N.J.A.C. 7:27C. The Murphy Administration will be coming out with a cap for RGGI about 18 million tons/CO2 per year.

RGGI is made up of Mid-Atlantic and New England states that uses a cap-and-trade auction process to encourage more market efficiencies, investments in renewable energy, and improvements in power-plant technology to reduce power plant emissions. New Jersey was a charter member of this effort but left in 2012, during the administration of Governor Chris Christie. Sierra Club opposed that illegal withdrawal.

“Today New Jersey adopted rules to rejoin RGGI. This is an important step towards dealing with climate change, and we commend the Murphy administration for reversing Gov. Christie’s unlawful exit from the program. It is more important now than ever because of the failure of the federal government reduce GHG’s,” said Jeff Tittel, Director of the New Jersey Sierra Club.  “We support rejoining RGGI but there is still a lot of work to do to make sure communities most impacted by pollution and climate change see relief..

RGGI has many benefits for states who join such as reductions in carbon emissions, improvements in air quality, helps communities become more resilient to extreme weather, spurs economic growth, and addresses the disproportionate burdens of climate change on environmental justice communities. By reducing GHG’s, we can reduce NOx and SOx. Almost every county in New Jersey that conducts monitoring has a failing grade for ozone.

Despite this progress, participating in RGGI should be regarded as a first step and New Jersey must do more.  There are two separate rules associated with this action. The CO2 Budget Trading Rule Proposal rule of RGGI establishes the mechanisms for rejoining RGGI and sets the State on the path to reduce its baseline CO2 allowance from regulated entities from an initial cap level of 18 million tons in 2020 to 12.6 million tons by 2030.

“It is important for us to be back into RGGI, however we are concerned that the cap at 18 million metric tons as starting point means in 2030 we be at 12 million tons or the same level we at in 2010. Given climate urgency this seem too high and in 2030, a third of our electricity will still come natural gas power plants ,” said Tittel. “As a region we need to ratchet down those emissions faster, and as a state we need to regulate carbon pollution from power plants directly.”

The rule also excludes some pollution sources such as incinerators, biomass burners, and units below 25 MW, which means that communities near these facilities may not see improvements to air quality.

“Now DEP must move forward to fix these rules so that they will actually target pollution reductions in EJ communities. The DEP need to move forward in reducing GHG’s and dealing with climate change, but these rule do not go far enough. DEP said they will start a stakeholder process with EJ communities but on the funding process only. They said they will not be implementing these rules under EO23.  DEP must keep their commitment to work with the community and stakeholder process to find a way to target reductions in EJ communities. must update the program so that money goes towards energy efficiency, electric vehicle infrastructure, and reducing GHG’s in EJ communities,”said Tittel.  “These communities have the worst air pollution in the nation with some of the highest asthma rates in the country. These areas deserve assurances that facilities impacting them will reduce both CO2 and co-pollutants such as NOx, SO2 and mercury rather than simply purchase allowances to continue business as usual. There should also be mandatory reductions from the worst polluting facilities in the EJ communities. The benefits from RGGI should also be also targeted to EJ communities and low- and modest-income communities for programs like energy efficiency and jobs.”

The second rule governs how the revenues for auction of carbon allowances are spent. Unfortunately, the legislation governing this is outdated and there are some allowable expenditures that do not make sense given current technology and the urgency of the climate crisis. The Global Warming Solutions Fund Rule of RGGI establishes the framework for how the state will spend proceeds from RGGI carbon-dioxide allowance auctions, with an emphasis on projects that will benefit disproportionately burdened communities.

“New money is coming from RGGI. The Murphy Administration must use the discretion it has to prevent revenues from being spent on  natural gas facilities and expensive carbon sequestration. The world has changed since 2007 when this rule was originally proposed. We were concerned back then that money wasn’t going to the right places.  Many of the things in this rule in today’s world are not appropriate for clean energy. That is why we need to change the funding formula so that money does not go towards combined heat and power plant, or planting trees. Instead, that money should be going towards energy efficiency, community solar and EV’s for EJ and to low and moderate communities. Other monies can help build new green technology, like wave, geothermal. and offshore wind energy,” said Tittel.

RGGI’s energy efficiency programs helped keep $765 million in regional economy instead of going to out of state fossil fuel interests, including natural gas and coal.

“It important for us to be working regionally with 9 other states to reduce or air emissions. During our participation, RGGI created $151 million in economic value and almost 1,800 jobs in our state. New Jersey also achieved the RGGI greenhouse gas reduction goal of 10% in the first three years. RGGI worked for us but Christie pulled us out anyway. We lost 8 years of benefits from the program and New Jersey’s GHG’s have gone up. Now that we are back in, we have to work much harder to reduce our greenhouse gases,” said Tittel.

In New Jersey, there are 4 proposed power plants, including the proposed natural gas power plant in the Meadowlands.

”Rejoining RGGI is positive, but without any changes to the regional caps, it will not move New Jersey forward fast enough in reducing greenhouse gases. Climate change is getting worse but we need to make sure RGGI is fixed and get faster reductions. We need to lower the amount of reductions we need to get by 2030. We also need to make sure that EJ communities get target reductions and that we spend money to see reductions in those communities,” said Jeff Tittel, Director of the New Jersey Sierra Club.