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Big facilities in Washington will have to decrease the rate of carbon emissions by 5%.
BEACON TRANSCRIPT – According to the new regulations, big facilities will limit down on carbon pollution, starting with the state of Washington. This decision comes only months after the failed legislation passed by Jay Inslee, Washington Governor since 2013.
Governor Inslee submitted a proposal for a legislation that would oblige all the big facilities that emit greenhouse gases to pay a fee for those emissions of carbon gases. The proposal was not passed on and was considered a failure.
The new regulation has a simple objective in mind: big facilities will limit down on carbon pollution by a rate of 5 percent once every 3 years. It is not an impossible standard to achieve, and it is set because of the concerning levels of carbon pollution in our atmosphere at the present moment.
The way in which each facility will deal with the emission depends entirely on its own decisions. The regulation does not specify a certain method that need to be applied to lower the gas emissions. The choice is with the facility. By allowing such a liberty, the state of Washington makes sure that all of the targeted companies will comply to the demands without appeal.
There are a number of solutions that the facilities can turn to. One of them would be to buy credits from a system of the carbon market, for example, California. Another manner of complying with the new regulation would be to take an interest in sponsoring those projects that deal with the reduction of carbon pollution on a permanent level.
The third would be investing into a more Eco-friendly fuel, or materials. Green energy being the future of the industry. Though such changes are not time and cost friendly.
There are also other alternatives for the targeted companies. Each will decide what suits it better. Of course, there may be solutions that simply are not compatible with the facility, even though it may seem like a right option.
The big facilities will limit down on carbon pollution starting in the next months. Among the targeted companies we can find Intalco Works, the refineries from Whatcom County, Cherry Point, Ferndale’s Phillips 66. Also, there are the generating stations situated at Sumas and Ferndale that belong to Puget Sound.
There are two majors opinions when it comes to this decision taken by the state of Washington. On one side we have the environmentalists that are happy to see someone actually trying to make the world a cleaner place. On the other we have the business groups that are worried about how much the industry will suffer after these changes will take effect.
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