The nine states still participating in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative are getting ready for the first auction of RGGI's second compliance period, scheduled for March 14th. In the auction notice released last week, they announced 4 changes to the program, and analysts are predicting there are far more significant changes to come -- namely adjustments to the total emissions cap.
The first change: which we knew was coming; New Jersey is officially out. The second: the reserve price, the lowest price at which allowances may sell, has been increased by 4 cents to $1.93, in line with the Consumer Price Index. The third: although RGGI usually offers allowances from two different compliance periods for sale at each auction, March's auction will offer only 2012 allowances, raising some questions about RGGI's own view of its future past this compliance period's end in 2014. The fourth change: the participating states announced that they will retire 87 million of the allowances that went unsold during the 2009-2011 auctions, a move that may indicate the states' willingness to set the cap for 2012 below the earlier levels, to avoid such over-allocation of allowances in future years.
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