Aug 02 - The Boston Globe

Old wood-burning power plants in New England could reap millions of dollars a year in payments previously available only to new, renewable energy projects, if Governor Mitt Romney signs a bill the Legislature approved late Monday.

Environmentalists and some state officials are concerned about the bill, saying it could undermine an ambitious effort to generate 4 percent of the state's electricity from new renewable sources by 2009.

"It could seriously slow development of new renewable energy," said Warren Leon, director of the renewable energy trust for the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, a quasi-public development agency.

Some legislators defended the bill, however. Senator Michael W. Morrissey, a Quincy Democrat and cochair of the Joint Committee on Telecommunication, Utilities, and Energy, said it encourages wood-burning plants to operate "cleaner than they have over the years."

The bill allows mid size and small wood-burning plants in New England to be considered new renewable facilities by Massachusetts if they adopt low-emission technology. But it does not require the plants to install more efficient boilers, a much more costly measure that environmentalists say would further reduce emissions and preserve trees.

The bill would affect about a dozen plants that together produce enough electricity to power about 170,000 homes.

Romney, who has 10 days to sign the bill, is reviewing the document, a spokesman for his office said.

Officials from the state Executive Office of Environmental Affairs are also looking at the bill, and have concerns.

"Our greater concern is if the real goal is to spur development of new renewable energy facilities, will this bill do that?" asked Joe O'Keefe, the agency's chief of staff.

Massachusetts, like many other states, has a law that requires an ever-increasing percentage of the electricity used in the state to come from new renewable energy projects such as wind and solar. The program began in 2003 with a 1 percent renewable standard, and the goal increases a half-percentage each year until 2009. The market-based program requires companies that sell electricity to homeowners and businesses to buy a certain amount of green credits each year from new renewable plants in New England. Those green credits, which were worth a total of about $40 million in 2005, provide a financial incentive for companies to build new renewable plants.

But if the old wood-burning plants are allowed to participate, Leon, O'Keefe, and environmentalists say, it could flood the green-credit market and dramatically lower the price of the credits allotted to each renewable energy project. That in turn would probably deter new renewable energy projects from being built.

Environmentalists fear Romney might sign the bill because it has an unrelated amendment attached that attempts to prevent construction of an unpopular liquefied natural gas terminal in Fall River by restricting the size of tankers passing under bridges.

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