Governor's panel awash in options for cutting greenhouse gases

Nov 8 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Dennis Lien Pioneer Press, St. Paul, Minn.

Lower highway speed limits. Tougher vehicle emissions standards. Higher registration fees for gas hogs.

Those are some of the ideas being discussed by a governor's panel looking for ways to cut the state's greenhouse-gas emissions.

The 56-member panel is more than halfway through the work begun last spring and is starting to consider which proposals to forward to Gov. Tim Pawlenty and the 2008 Minnesota Legislature.

The Minnesota Climate Change Advisory Group's recommendations could change the way many Minnesotans live. The mission: Cut emissions by legislatively directed goals of 15 percent by 2015, 30 percent by 2025 and 80 percent by 2050.

Under different scenarios, people would be encouraged to drive less, bike more and rely more on public transit. "Green" building guidelines would be promoted or required. Utilities and refiners would be taxed on carbon dioxide emissions, providing incentives to reduce.

"There are a number of tough decisions that are going to have to be made," said David Thornton, assistant commissioner of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.

Thornton and Edward Garvey, a deputy commerce commissioner, are coordinating the group of representatives from the business, utility, environmental, agricultural, community, government and academic sectors.

Today, group members will sift through data prepared by the Pennsylvania-based Center for Climate Strategies. Meetings will be held to narrow options before a

February report deadline. Then, the Pawlenty administration and the Legislature will make final decisions.

All strategies will be designed to reduce the state's contributions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide.

Carbon dioxide, a product of burning fossil fuels such as oil, coal and natural gas, is the main greenhouse gas contributing to global warming. Its levels have risen steadily in recent decades, and unless they're curbed, the planet is expected to heat up more than the 1 degree Fahrenheit increase recorded over the past century.

In Minnesota, greenhouse-gas emissions increased 31 percent between 1990 and 2005, according to a draft inventory from the center and the MPCA. Without changes, those emissions are projected to increase almost 60 percent by 2020.

The group has whittled more than 250 policy options to about 55.

"They're in the process now of fleshing those out," Thornton said. "Data is being developed, and they're beginning to project what the benefits will be, what the greenhouse-gas reductions would be, what the potential costs would be, and what the barriers would be. On any given option, there are different choices you can make."

The advisory group has been broken into six subgroups: agriculture, forestry and waste; energy supply; residential, commercial and industrial buildings; transportation and land use; cap and trade; and other cross-cutting issues.

By accounts, it's been a cooperative effort. But with so many interests, that could change.

"People appreciate the seriousness of the issue, the magnitude of the problem and the need to be thinking of pretty transformative policies," said Bill Grant, associate executive director of the Izaak Walton League of America.

"That said, I do expect it will become much more contentious as we have cost numbers to evaluate ... and various interests around the table see how they impact their interests and the state as a whole," Grant said.

The strategies are directed at individual behaviors and large emission sources.

For residents, one of the most immediate effects has to do with getting from one place to another.

The group focusing on transportation, which generates a quarter of the state's greenhouse-gas emissions, is considering 13 options.

They include lowering the maximum speed limit on rural interstates from 70 mph to 60 mph and from 65 mph to 55 mph on urban ones. Others include reducing the number of miles that vehicles travel, providing electric hook-ups for heavy-duty diesel trucks to reduce idling, adopting California's stricter emission standards for new vehicles, encouraging businesses to offer workers transit and ride-sharing inducements and charging higher registration fees for low-mileage vehicles.

Minnetonka Mayor Jan Callison, a member of the transportation group, said it must consider the worth of lowering the speed limit, considering the likely response from drivers and increased enforcement demands.

Some ideas are less controversial. Garvey, for example, said group members consider renewable-energy proposals and greater efficiencies as attractive options.

Another member of the transportation group, Barb Thoman, said it wants a high standard.

"There's a feeling we need to be ambitious if we are going to meet the expectation that has been established in state law," said Thoman, program director for Transit for Livable Communities.

The Center for Climate Strategies, a nonprofit organization working with the state, already has helped two dozen states take a similar approach. Because of recent efforts to emphasize renewable energy and conservation, Minnesota is ahead of many other states, said Tom Peterson, the center's president and CEO.

With electricity and heating fuel accounting for more than half the state's greenhouse gases, buildings might offer the greatest opportunity for reductions.

Immediate inroads can be made by conserving energy and making equipment work more efficiently, said John Carmody, director for the Center for Sustainable Building Research at the University of Minnesota. But he said lots of other innovations, such as automatic light dimmers, also exist.

"These changes are possible, and in other countries and Europe, they have standards much higher than ours," Carmody said. "It's not rocket science. We need to put in place mandatory requirements, standards or financial incentives that will cause people to do the right things."

Dennis Lien can be reached at dlien@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5588.

ONLINE

To follow the progress of the group, go to http://www.mnclimatechange.us  .