California Construction Trucking Association (CCTA)

Debra Kahn – ClimateWire – July 26, 2010

With the demise of a federal emissions cap, states' programs are getting increased scrutiny. A study released last week found that if all states get on board with policies already under way in more than a dozen of them, emissions could reach 27 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 even without a cap in place.

Researchers from the Center for Climate Strategies, a nonprofit that helps states come up with climate policies, analyzed the economic effects of tackling climate change in the 16 states that they have worked for. They then used macroeconomic analysis to extrapolate the results to a national level.

They included the effect of 23 policies, including a renewable portfolio standard, increased nuclear power, carbon capture and storage or reuse, appliance efficiency standards and pay-as-you-drive auto insurance.

The 16 states were Alaska, Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, New Mexico, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Vermont and Washington.

If implemented in every state of the country, the measures would cut greenhouse gas output 27 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 even without an emissions cap in place.

They would create 2.5 million new jobs over the next decade, expand gross domestic product by $134.3 billion and reduce electricity costs by 2 percent, the center says (ClimateWire, April 26).

Interestingly, the analysis left out California and the vast majority of its ahead-of-the-curve policies, including its cap-and-trade program, energy efficiency audits, reduction of gases with high global warming potential in electronic equipment and regional transportation emissions-reduction targets.

Researchers decided that only six of California's policies -- its renewable portfolio standard, combined heat and power incentives, methane reductions at dairy farms and landfills, demand-side management policies and renewable fuel standard -- met their standards for greenhouse gas reduction estimates.

California did not use a macroeconomic model to estimate the costs of any of its policies, so the cost estimates weren't included at all, researcher Jeffrey Wennberg said. California policymakers estimated the effect on the economy in 2020 only, the final year of its program, while the other states incorporated changes over the entire time span. "It is apples and oranges, and without a great deal more information than is available publicly there is no way to convert the CA results to the CCS method," he said.