New Hampshire becomes first US State to Enact Carbon Dioxide Limits for Power Plants

In a significant breakthrough for climate protection in the US New Hampshire became the first US state to adopt controls on carbon dioxide emissions of its electric utilities on May 9, 2002 when Gov. Jean Shaheen signed HB 284, the New Hampshire Clean Power Act.

This bill, passed with strong bipartisan support in New Hampshire's legislature, adopted new and substantially lower emission caps for three pollutants - sulfur dioxide, oxides of nitrogen, and carbon dioxide with caps for mercury emissions to be recommended by the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services in 2004. A driving force behind this pioneering approach was Kenneth Colburn, Director of New Hampshire's air quality protection program. Colburn was instrumental in having STAPPA and ALAPCO, the twin associations of US state and local air quality protection directors, develop a study of how harmonized strategies for climate and air quality protection might be designed. He presented an analysis of how this might be implemented in New Hampshire at a North American Symposium on Coordinated Strategies for Climate and Air Quality Protection convened in Mexico City in September 1999 by the Climate Institute and Instituto Autonomo de Investigacones Ecologicas.

This work helped shape Mexico City's decision to incorporate carbon control considerations into its 10-year air quality plan.  New Hampshire's enactment of a multi-pollutant bill may be especially significant both from a substantive and political standpoint.  The Clean Power Act's proponents project that New Hampshire can achieve significant carbon dioxide emission reductions at little added cost over expenses of required air pollution reductions by optimizing the twin objectives of climate and air quality protection.  The New Hampshire legislation is remarkably close to the national legislation favored by Gov. Bush during the Presidential campaign. Moreover, then Gov. Bush carried New Hampshire in the 2000 general election and without it would not have been elected President irrespective of the results in Florida.  The adoption with strong bipartisan backing of this pioneering legislation in traditionally conservative New Hampshire appears to be sparking interest in other states in undertaking state climate protection initiatives at a time when climate protection measures seem stalemated in Washington.

Link to HB 284 Summary