New York Responds to Carbon Cap-and-Trade Lawsuit

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As reported in our previous post, Indeck Energy, owner of a natural gas plant in Corinth, N.Y., has filed a lawsuit challenging the legitimacy of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a carbon cap-and-trade program established by 10 Northeastern states.

The suit names New York’s governor and several state agencies among the defendants, and challenges New York’s authority to participate in R.G.G.I. without state legislative approval. It also challenges the legitimacy of such a multistate carbon trading program in the absence of approval from the federal Congress.

I spoke with Peter Iwanowicz, the director of the Office of Climate Change in New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation. The department is one of the defendants named in Indeck’s complaint.

Mr. Iwanowicz rejected the validity of both charges. On the first, he said that R.G.G.I. was adopted pursuant to authority provided to his department by the New York legislature.

“It’s one of those areas where we can act,” he said, noting that New York had previously used the same type of authority — unchallenged — to join California’s greenhouse gas emissions standards, which are stricter than the federal ones.

California — and hence New York — are awaiting clearance from the Environmental Protection Agency to adopt that stricter standard.

As for the second charge, that the states participating in the program should have received approval from Congress before moving forward, “We don’t agree with that either,” said Mr. Iwanowicz.

He noted that each state adopted separate regulations, and maintained its sovereignty after joining R.G.G.I.