President Obama's plan to tackle pollution and global warming could mean tougher standards for power plants in Massachusetts but it also could be a boon to local clean-energy businesses, officials said.
Noting power plants produce nearly 40 percent of the nation's carbon dioxide emissions, the heat-trapping gas blamed for global warming, Obama directed the head of the Environmental Protection Agency yesterday to propose rules limiting emissions for existing power plants by June 1, 2014, and finalize them by June 1, 2015.
Obama's plan also would boost renewable energy production on federal land, increase efficiency standards and prepare communities to deal with higher temperatures — a series of steps that don't require congressional approval.
"As a president, as a father and as an American, I'm here to say we need to act," Obama said. "I refuse to condemn your generation and future generations to a planet that's beyond fixing."
While Republican critics in Congress lambasted the president's plan as a job-killer that would threaten the economic recovery, Gov. Deval Patrick applauded Obama's "bold leadership" on climate change, saying the president "recognizes our generational responsibility to act now and proposes a proven way to do so."
"In Massachusetts, through similar means, we have achieved significant emissions reductions, alongside significant job growth in a new sector," Patrick said in a statement.
Massachusetts' greenhouse gas emissions are down 11 percent from 1990 levels, said Mary-Leah Assad, a spokeswoman for the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs. And from 2011 to 2012, the state saw an 11.2 percent growth in "clean" jobs, with more expected this year, said Catherine Williams, a spokeswoman for the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center.
"Supporting clean energy businesses through proactive policies that cut carbon emissions and support clean energy projects creates local jobs," Williams said. "That's a staggering number, especially in the context of a down economy, proving government support of clean energy projects pays off."
But the Bay State shouldn't stop there, environmentalists said. The Sierra Club of Massachusetts called on natural gas utilities to repair their aging infrastructure, which it said leaks as much as 10 billion cubic feet of methane into the atmosphere every year.
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