By Raam Wong
Journal Staff Writer

Big questions loom about how New Mexico and other western states will meet their goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 2020.

And the eight U.S. western states and Canadian provinces partnered in the Western Climate Initiative have only a year to come up with answers.

State environment officials met with industry and environmental representatives Thursday in Santa Fe to detail the work plan for developing a market-based system to reduce emissions by 15 percent below 2005 levels within 13 years.

The meeting at the state Environment Department headquarters was the first in a series of New Mexico meetings about the initiative, which is expected to rely on a cap-and-trade program in which there are economic incentives for companies to pollute less. Under such a system, the government sets a cap on the amount of pollutants that can be emitted.

Companies and other emitters of greenhouse gases are given allowances for how much they can pollute. Companies that need to pollute beyond their limit can then purchase additional allowances from those that pollute less.

But which sectors of the economy will be subject to the program still needs to be determined, officials said Thursday. That's because while it's easy to track emissions from the electric industry, for example, but calculating how much the agricultural sector is polluting is trickier.

Another question: whether the pollution credits should be given away free, auctioned off or transferred through combination of the two approaches.

Five subcommittees made up of representatives from the participating states and provinces will tackle these and other issues over the next year with the goal of having the outlines of a cap-and-trade program completed by August 2008.

The initiative comes as states across the country are taking steps to curb climate change in response to what critics consider a lack of leadership on the issue in Washington.

"At the federal level in the United States there's an absence of strong action on climate change," said Sarah Cottrell, Gov. Bill Richardson's energy and environmental policy adviser.

The Western Climate Initiative is made up of Arizona, California, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah and Washington and the provinces of British Columbia and Manitoba.

The initiative could present a challenge to states like New Mexico that include tribal lands, where the state regulators have no jurisdiction.

Jeff Burkes of PNM, participating in the meeting via speaker phone, said New Mexico was proposing to shift the burden for reducing emissions from sectors of the economy that the state can't regulate— like those on reservations— to industries that it can.

But in the case of a proposed coal-fired power plant on Navajo reservation, the pollutants likely won't count towards the state's total emissions levels under the cap-and-trade system anyway, because the electricity is expected to be exported out of state, said Jim Norton, director of the state Environment Protection Division.

The meeting was attended by about 40 representatives of the oil and gas industry, environmental groups, state agencies and other stakeholders.

Jennifer Knowlton of Yates Petroleum Corp. in Artesia, N.M., said it was critical that the subcommittees listen to industry input throughout the development of the cap-and-trade system. What may look good on paper, she said, could prove impractical for the companies that have to implement the policy.

Erik Schlenker-Goodrich of the Western Environmental Law Center said it was important that the participation by industry not "drag down the process."

The partnering states have not set goals beyond 2020. Current science suggests that rolling back threats to the climate will require worldwide reductions of between 50 percent and 85 percent in carbon dioxide emissions from current levels by 2050, according to www.westernclimateinitiative.org.

The regional, economy-wide goal for 2020 does not replace states' existing goals. In 2006, Richardson issued an executive order laying out a plan that calls for reducing carbon dioxide and methane emissions from oil and gas operations.

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