The economic impacts of the regional greenhouse gas intiative on nine Northeast and Mid Atlantic Statestl

In 2009, ten Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic states launched the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (“RGGI”), the country’s first market-based program to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide (“CO2”) from existing and new power plants.1 The scope of RGGI is significant: the current set of RGGI states account for more than one-eighth of the population in the U.S. and more than one-seventh of the nation’s gross domestic product. It is thus important to evaluate and understand the program’s performance and outcomes. Through their development and implementation of the RGGI program, these states have gained first-mover policy experience and have collaborated to form a multi-state emission-control policy that has reduced CO2 emissions from the power sector and operated seamlessly with well-functioning and reliable electricity markets. This Report analyzes the economic impacts of RGGI’s most recent three-year compliance period, which spanned 2015 through 2017. This analysis follows our two prior reports on the economic impacts of RGGI: the 2011 Report (hereafter “AG 2011 Report”) which assessed the economic impacts of RGGI’s first three-year compliance period (2009-2011), and the 2015 Report (hereafter “AG 2015 Report”) which assessed the economic impacts of RGGI’s second three-year compliance period (2012-2014).