Deep Cuts in Heat-trapping Emissions Still Needed, Says Congressman; Mass. Facilities Emit 18,447,000 Metric Tons of Carbon Dioxide
 
WASHINGTON (January 11, 2012) – A new database established by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to track heat-trapping emissions from power plants, industrial facilities and other sources in the United States debuted today, providing for the first time to the general public comprehensive greenhouse gas (GHG) data reported directly from large facilities and suppliers across the country. This trove of information adds to the already voluminous school of science that begs for urgent action to reduce the greenhouse gas pollution causing global warming, said Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee and former Chairman of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming.
 
“The Earth is warming, and greenhouse gas emissions are causing the planet’s fever. This new inventory is a thermometer, calling us to take action now to reduce the emissions at the heart of the global warming crisis. The 82 major emitters across the entire state of Massachusetts produce less carbon pollution than the single largest coal-fired power plant in the nation located in Georgia. New England reduced its reliance on coal by 50 percent in 2011 alone. It’s time for utilities in other regions of the country to retire old king coal and aggressively move to cleaner forms of energy. We want peaches from Georgia, not pollution.
 
“Even though last year global carbon emissions rose by six percent, the largest single-year increase on record, House Republicans continue to deny the science of climate change and gut the programs and funding that are creating the clean energy technologies to make our industries and businesses cleaner and more efficient. This data is a clarion call to pass and implement the energy policies that will reduce emissions, create jobs at the same time, and help us avoid the most dire consequences of global warming.”
 
Power plants continue to be the largest stationary sources of direct emissions, followed by petroleum refineries. Carbon dioxide is the largest share of emissions, accounting for 95 percent of major stationary emissions. The Bay State has 82 stationary sources in the database. Utility power plants are the biggest emitters in Massachusetts. These 28 facilities account for 18 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions, or 87 percent of major stationary emissions in Massachusetts. The four largest emitting power plants make up 59 percent of Massachusetts’s listed greenhouse gas emissions. (Brayton Point, Fore River, Mystic, and Salem Harbor). As a comparison, Southern Company owns the three largest emitting facilities in the country, each emitting roughly the same amount of pollution as all the major emitters across the entire state of Massachusetts combined.
 
There are three reporting emitters in the 7th Congressional district: Kraft Food Global in Woburn (34,391 metric tons of emissions), Distrigas of Massachusetts LLC in Everett (126,460 metric tons of emissions), and Deer Island Treatment in Winthrop (16,659 metric tons of emissions). The Mystic power plant, located right on the 7th District border, is the second largest emitter in the state (3,770,659 metric tons of emissions). The major stationary source emissions tracked in the database account for roughly 80 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions in the United States.
 
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