Now Paterson Pisses Off Environmentalists!

Today's "who has Governor Paterson upset now" story is in the NY Times, which details how the governor "agreed to reconsider a key rule New York adopted as part of a 10-state pact aimed at reducing the threat of global warming by cutting power plant emissions...at the urging of the energy industry." (Okay, so he hasn't pissed off the energy concerns.) The pact is the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which calls itself the "first mandatory, market-based effort in the United States to reduce greenhouse gas emissions," with participating states promising to "cap and then reduce CO2 emissions from the power sector 10% by 2018." According to the Times, Paterson's "reconsideration" would allow power plants to have more leeway in releasing emissions without cost. While his staff says the governor was thinking about the energy industry being, potentially, "unfairly" burdened, what also bothers environmental groups is that they only found out about Paterson's about-face this week when he apparently told the energy industry about this last fall.