Border Clean Energy Advocates
Grab for Power

By Talli Nauman

United States, Mexico Increasingly Share Burden for Demand
Alternative Agenda: Smog Stoppers on the Go
States’ Response Helps Renewable Energy Industry
Cross-Border Cooperation Will Hasten Success
Resources

In the sister cities all along the U.S.-Mexico border, smog is causing mercury poisoning, asthma symptoms, cardiac problems, and premature death. The cities cannot comply with air quality standards. Meanwhile, visibility in treasured rural landscapes has declined dramatically. Airborne pollutants are damaging telescopic instruments, blocking scientific progress. The pollution is contributing to global climate change and erosion of quality of life.

Emissions from cars, trucks, factories, and other sources are only partly to blame. The haze is largely due to electricity production. What’s worse, plans call for building many more fossil-fueled generators on the border in response to the demands of free trade and to scare-mongering about impending energy crises. The looming proliferation of plants and pollution means environmental conditions probably will get worse before they get better. Ratepayers on both sides of the international boundary line already are forced to pick up the bill for the damage and the cleanup. Counting work and school time lost due to related health problems, they are making a disproportionate sacrifice for an international problem.

The stealthy increase in border power plant emissions is still below the radar screen for some authorities. The Good Neighbor Environmental Board, official adviser to the U.S. presidency on border sustainability issues, neglected to mention this source of air pollution in its annual 2004 recommendations. But others are very concerned.

Alert border watchers warn that failure to act on the problem of power plant pollution will have consequences as far reaching as the Inuit territories of the North Pole. Members of organizations, ranging from the California-based Border Power Plant Working Group (BPPWG) to the Texas-based Big Bend Sierra Club to the international Environmental Defense, reason that conversion to clean energy could improve health, create jobs, and strengthen the border economy. Their efforts bring together environmentalists and experts border-wide to limit power plants emissions, to promote energy conservation, and to push a switch to non-polluting generating methods. Citizen action accounts for the fact that practical measures to ensure energy efficiency, best practices, and renewable fuel sources are now higher on the border geopolitical agenda than ever before.

United States, Mexico Increasingly Share Burden for Demand

A decade ago, in 1994, the Southwest Center for Environmental Research and Policy (SCERP) and other U.S. study groups started examining the relationship between air quality and energy issues in the U.S.-Mexico border area. The Texas General Land Office (GLO) hosted its first annual Border Energy Forum for environmental issues that year. SCERP held a one-day workshop in 1995 that further set the stage for resolving border environmental problems from a multi-stakeholder perspective. Five years later, in 2001, the center made energy and environment the theme of its annual Border Institute. In 2006, the discussion group will revisit the theme, with hopes that cross-sector, binational involvement will finally lead to measurable improvement in energy efficiency and pollution reduction.

Studies have revealed that much of the stress on the California-Baja California border air sheds is due to energy-intensive maquiladoras. Fueled by free trade, the growth in these foreign-owned Mexican assembly plants and the regional population boom they have fostered has led to a border-wide 15% increase in demand for electricity.

Demand at the border is not the only challenge to be met. Although projections vary, overall need is expected to increase throughout the United States and Mexico. U.S. policy calls for offsetting potential shortfalls in domestic energy supplies with sources abroad. Both sides have set their sights for energy development on the Mexican border side. The reasons are: proximity to U.S. infrastructure, corporate industrial investors, and electricity markets, combined with relatively simpler permitting processes and less stringent enforcement of environmental rules.

The Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) said at its 2001 Symposium on Environmental Policy and the Electricity Market, held in San Diego, CA, that compatible environmental protection measures in the countries of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) would be key to avoiding trade disputes in the emerging continental electricity market.

According to the commission, established by a NAFTA side accord in 1994, electric power plants already are the single-largest source of toxic air pollution reported in North America . They accounted for almost half of all industrial air emissions in 2001, the most recently reported cycle. That year, 46 of the top 50 air polluters in North America were power plants, with hydrochloric and sulfuric acids being the chemicals most commonly released from their burning of coal and oil. The primary stationary source of air pollution in Tijuana , Baja California , for example, was the nearby Rosarito electricity plant, which utilizes high-sulfur fuel oil. Power plants are considered the No. 1 source of reported mercury air emissions, accounting for 64% of the total, mainly from coal combustion.

The U.S.-Mexico Border Information Center on Air Pollution was recently overhauled by the U.S. EPA's Air Quality System to provide monthly updates on power plant and other emissions. Sulfates and nitrates from fossil fuels used to produce electricity are the two main causes of the border’s visibility reduction, acid rain, and health problems. Both gases contribute to formation of ozone and fine particulates that aggravate environmental health woes. The other two top power plant pollution concerns are the global warming gas carbon dioxide (CO2), and mercury, which settles in water, fish, and consequently food supplies.

So far, the border is home to 17 power plant sites. According to the CEC, planners in the NAFTA nations have calculated the addition of a total of more than 2,000 new power plants from 2001 to 2007. Fourteen of the new power projects were slated to be built in the Mexican border states under President Vicente Fox’s administration, implying a 100% increase in Mexico’s generating capacity, compared with a 53% increase in that of the United States for the same period.

The new electricity production is projected to increase U.S. CO2 emissions from electricity plants by 15% to 40% by 2007; Mexican CO2 emissions from the electricity sector are projected to increase 51% to 81% in that time, according to the CEC report "Environmental Challenges and Opportunities of the Evolving North American Electricity Market.” In Mexico, 95% of the new capacity will come from fossil-fueled plants, bringing with them a 10% rise in nitrogen oxide releases at the border within 10 years, according to the Energy Secretariat.

The state of California and the Western Governors Association (WGA) have been working on a study about the border’s power capacity and projected needs by 2020. Meanwhile, the non-profit Clear the Air projects that the total deaths attributable to power plants in California in 2010 will be 249, with related hospital admissions at195; for Arizona the projections are 75 and 56, respectively; for New Mexico 39 and 29; and for Texas 1,160 and 1,105. The U.S. Office of Management and Budget says every dollar spent on cleaner air saves at least six dollars on health costs. Regrettably, no projections are available for the Mexican border states.

Pessimism over what the energy future bodes for border health is deepened by findings that air pollution damage has reduced the capacity of the Hobby-Eberly Telescope to half. Similarly the visibility in nearby Big Bend National Park (BBNP) is half of what it used to be.

Big Bend has become the symbolic center of U.S.-Mexican controversy over how to shield the increasingly sullied binational air sheds from power plant pollution. Because the park on the Texas side of the border is supposed to be protected as a Class I air shed, it was the headquarters for the five-year Big Bend Regional Aerosol and Visibility Observational (BRAVO) Study, tagged as “the most sophisticated air pollution study ever conducted.”

BRAVO contains computer graphics to pinpoint how much of the haze comes from the Big Brown and Parish coal-fired power plants in East Texas. The graphics demonstrate the contributions of the Carbon I and II coal-fired power facility in Mexico’s border state of Coahuila. Plus, they illustrate the major amounts of pollution arriving from the U.S. East Coast and Midwest, as well as from points far south of the border.

The findings of the BRAVO Study reinforce local wisdom that the source of the smog depends on which way the wind blows. They have deflated earlier claims that Mexico’s power plants are to blame for the lion’s share of the park’s visibility impairment, a charge that antagonized Mexico so much it refused to take part in the BRAVO Study. The study is intended, in part, to revive torpid talks on binational cooperation for park pollution prevention, which according to U.S. Embassy staff in Mexico is “the most difficult issue” on its environmental agenda. BRAVO also is meant to bolster a Texas State Implementation Plan for regional haze control, as well as voluntary smog reduction strategies for industry.

With BRAVO’s release in September 2004, the public now has the tools to call for restraints on power plants north of the border. This, say U.S. environmentalists, is the first step in making common cause with Mexico. Throughout the U.S. Southwest and northern Mexico, residents insist that cross-border finger pointing does nothing to improve regional air quality. The Fox administration has already launched six new fossil-fuel power plants with the help of U.S. investors, and Mexican energy policymakers entertain visions of ushering in a new plant every two months throughout the term. The time to take action has long since come.

Alternative Agenda: Smog Stoppers on the Go

Against the backdrop of the U.S. government’s refusal to date to cooperate with the UN Kyoto Protocol for climate change mitigation, foundations and international organizations are supporting national studies and activities to achieve mandatory curbs on U.S. fossil fuel emissions. For their part, border stakeholders, some skeptical of emissions trading systems associated with the protocol, are mostly sticking to very practical, down-to-earth demands.

Guiding their activities are the ideals of cooperation, participation, environmental policy change, and economic sustainability outlined during SCERP’s 2001 Border Institute. Mechanisms envisioned included: a U.S. Cabinet-level border energy coordinator; more financial support for the new Border 2012 U.S.-Mexico Environmental Program’s energy work; revival of binational talks to achieve trans-boundary environmental impact assessments; binational pilot programs; consideration for water conservation in energy development; harmonizing power plant regulations border-wide; creation of a binational energy data base; and Mexican designation of the border as a critical air quality area.

On the California-Baja California segment of the border, the construction of private, gas-fired generating stations at Tijuana, Mexicali, and Rosarito, provoked the formation in 2001 of a binational citizen coalition for environmentally sustainable power plant development. The Border Power Plant Working Group, or BPPWG, is led by non-governmental organizations, environmental consultants, academic researchers, and local and regional officials. "A binational agreement on air emission control and water use requirements for new power plants in the border region is necessary immediately to protect binational air basins and water resources from further degradation or depletion," they say in a position paper submitted to U.S. and Mexican federal negotiators in August 2001.

The group members’ first demand was for state-of-the-art, Best Available Control Technology (BACT) for air emissions on all new power projects and achievement of "net zero" ambient emissions in areas of major new power projects through retrofitting and reduction of pollution from pre-existing sources. Then they rose to the challenge of proposed liquid natural gas (LNG) terminal sites on the Baja California coast. In June 2004, they held the Global LNG Summit in San Diego, demanding that terminal sites be well offshore and that zero seawater be used for gasification.

One of the companies affected by BPPWG pressure, InterGen Services Inc., a world leader in power generation jointly owned by Shell Generating and Bechtel Enterprises, soon funded the Harvard University-affiliated LASPAU Academic and Professional Programs for the Americas with $2 million to establish an environmental research program aimed at Border Ozone Reduction and Air Quality Improvement. Begun in 2002, the project targets the Mexicali-Imperial Valley area.

BPPWG also takes part in the Border Energy Issues Group (BEIG), one of the most effective proponents of clean energy in the San Diego area. A business and government round table with influential members, it formed in 2003 to promote information sharing, letter-writing, and other kinds of participation. For example, it raised the issue that the environmental impact statement for the new Imperial-Mexicali 230-kV transmission lines did not take into consideration pollution from power plants on the Mexican side of the border. That issue became part of a successful Earthjustice lawsuit sponsored by the Sierra Club. BEIG subsequently drafted a letter urging U.S. authorities to consider the Mexican population on all cross-border energy issues.

BPPWG set its sights further afield with a Bi-National Initiative for Installing New Sustainable Thermoelectric Plants in the U.S.-Mexico Border Region, instigating a grassroots effort to protect border air that cracked like lightening across the borderlands.

The group linked up with an Austin-based effort led by Environmental Defense (ED) called Promoting Sustainable Energy Development in the Texas-Mexico Border Region. Participants produced policy recommendations that promote energy conservation and use of renewable energy sources. They also work to inform the border public on renewable alternatives.

In 2003, Environmental Defense and the New Mexico Conference of Churches cosponsored “Is Global Warming Too Hot to Handle?,” a conference resulting in the Sustainable Energy Campaign, which proposes a 70% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions for the border state by 2025. ED got the California Air Resources Board to approve rules effective in 2005 reducing backup electricity generators’ fine particle and soot emissions up to 85% and went on to sue EPA for strict federal limits on the so-called BUGs.

Meanwhile, the Washington, DC-based Center for Clean Air Policy has come up with a project named Building Capacity in Mexico to Assess Renewable Energy Policy Options Through Multi-Stakeholder Dialogue. The center has been working with the Mexican National Commission on Energy Conservation, El Colegio de Mexico, and others on a pilot program to stimulate a shift to more reliance on renewable energy sources through credits and a clean energy investment fund in Mexico.

NAFTA’s Commission for Environmental Cooperation has supported these undertakings. During 2004, the CEC also began collecting publicly available air emissions information from individual power plants in each North American country. Since 2001, the CEC has been backing the development of the first-ever national air emissions inventory in Mexico , beginning with its six border states .

The North American Development Bank, also a NAFTA institution, recently began to support air quality projects in Ciudad Juárez and Agua Prieta, Mexico, conceived in part to help bring their U.S. sister cities into compliance with standards. The bank is collaborating with the CEC in its new North American Pollution Prevention Partnership dubbed NAP3 that involves business leaders in cross-border pilot projects for clean energy and air.

The Big Bend Sierra Club wants to strengthen the 1999 Renewable Portfolio Standard under utility deregulation. In addition to having 2,000 megawatts of new renewable energy capacity as currently mandated to be in place by 2009, it wants the Texas legislature to set 2020 as the date for doubling again new renewable energy sources.

Indian tribes and nongovernmental organizations in border states are among the leaders of the clean energy movement. Some of them promote renewables, while many, such as the traditional Hopi and Navajo non-profit Black Mesa Indigenous Support, work to halt the water depletion and environmental destruction caused by coal mining and other fossil fuel extraction in their communities. Their resource control is a determining factor, not only for the future of Southern California Edison’s highly polluting Mohave Generating Station in Nevada, but in the development pattern of the entire Southwestern United States.

The Southwest Energy Efficiency Project, SWEEP, has come up with proposals to achieve an 18% power savings by 2010 and 33% savings by 2020 for a 6-state U.S. region. It called the Southwest’s “most attractive energy resource” greater energy efficiency. It says this can be accomplished through: state energy legislation, utility energy efficiency programs, building codes, analysis of energy efficiency potential, and voluntary partnerships.

The list of agencies and organizations taking action goes on. The, EPA’s Border 2012 Program, a 10-year blueprint for binational cooperation published in January 2003, provides opportunities for citizens to have input on the border development agenda. Among the program’s original five goals were reaching compliance with national ambient air quality standards and defining specific strategies for emissions reductions by the end of 2004.

These efforts build on others undertaken by the predecessor Border XXI program. Part of that program, the citizen-based Joint Advisory Committee for Improvement of Air Quality in Paso del Norte, became a model for cross-boundary smog control by implementing effective projects that led to the removal of the El Paso-Dona Ana County-Ciudad Juárez metropolitan area from the EPA’s air quality non-compliance list.

States’ Response Helps Renewable Energy Industry

While some industry representatives and authorities are fully involved in the cross-border clean energy sweep, not nearly enough are weighing in on the side of progress.

As a result of growing public awareness and demands for cleanup of power plant pollution, the U.S. presidential candidates in the 2000 elections both had scientifically based responses ready to apply. But President George W. Bush stepped back from his campaign promises and even from simply enforcing the Clean Air Act, according to analysis by the EPA’s own consultants.

The Bush administration has presented proposals in the name of progress that are instead poorly masked delays of enforcement for air pollution and health standards. These delays include emissions deadlines for ozone reduction, fine particles, national park haze, and mercury. This stalling has been at the behest of power industry leaders who face costs for unprecedented Justice Department clean air enforcement action dating back to 1999.

At the federal level in Mexico, the energy policy includes renewables for the first time ever. One of its four points is blending a modest 1,000 new megawatts of electricity from renewable sources into the mix. Officials are asking the legislative branch to remove barriers to development of renewables, as part of controversial proposed electricity sector reform to permit more private investment. But the Energy Secretariat failed to present concrete projects at the international Bonn Renewables 2004 conference.

The North American Energy Working Group (NAEWG) was established in the spring of 2001 by the NAFTA partners’ top energy administrators. But government agencies have yet to reach a shared, long-term view of renewable energy development, and policies already in place for it aren't being utilized in full.

While the federal energy bill remains stalled in the U.S. Congress and the federal Clean Air Act alternatives continue to be debated, other proposals at the local, state, and area-wide level indicate responsiveness to border needs. State-level clean energy funds are the leading source of renewable energy investment in the United States.

The ruckus set up by the BPPWG and others sparked a federal bill in both houses of Congress in 2002 that would bar U.S. gas supply to new, Mexican power plants with more than 50 megawatts of capacity located within 50 miles of the U.S. border if they don’t meet U.S. emissions standards. Mexico’s northern border plants’ gas supply is totally dependent on imports from the United States. Another proposal being batted about in the United States is one to prohibit the U.S. purchase of electricity from these plants. Mexican policymakers balk at the initiatives, deeming them antithetical to free trade and an imposition of foreign environmental standards. The Mexican Foreign Ministry has intervened to protest the gas bill.

Although it has not passed, the bill’s introduction apparently has had some effect. The Sempra power plant in Baja California now complies 100% with California’s environmental standards, and the Intergen power plant there, which only complies halfway, has promised to invest $10 million to fully comply.

The Western Governors Association held the North American Energy Summit in March in Albuquerque , NM . Following recommendations made there by border activists and others, such as The Energy Foundation coalition members, the governors set a goal for their states of 30,000 megawatts of clean energy by 2015 and a 20% improvement in energy efficiency by 2020. WGA and the California Energy Commission are creating an independent regional tracking system to verify and inventory renewable energy generation in support of the goal.

WGA’s bilingual, non-profit BorderEnergy helps businesses cut power use. Its report “Energy Efficiency in the Border Region: A Market Approach” estimates a potential for cost savings of about $22.8 million in the manufacturing sector, $5 million in the hospitality business, and $15 million in health care, government, and education.

The Texas General Land Office sponsored its eleventh Border Energy Forum in October 2004. The Texas legislature’s renewable energy requirement has been the incentive for the rapid development of wind generating capacity, according to a report from the Sustainable Energy and Economic Development (SEED) Coalition and Public Citizen’s Texas office, entitled “Renewable Resources: The Texas Energy Powerhouse.” The coalition concludes that several related initiatives are needed to promote growth: 1) Set state and federal goals for renewables to meet 10% of electricity use within 18 years; 2) Add transmission infrastructure; 3) Extend a federal Production Tax Credit long-term; 4) Create a verifiable registry of emissions and reductions; and 5) Support university and other training programs for the renewable energy industry.

Baja California is undertaking a wind farm project in the Rumorosa mountain range that would generate 120 megawatts during its first stage and additional wind energy in the next three years. A 27,000 megawatt power plant run on waves from the California Gulf has also been proposed.

Texas has the biggest wind farm in the world. Located at King Mountain outside McCamey, a couple hours’ drive north of BBNP, its 214 windmills are capable of turning out 280 megawatts, enough to supply 100,000 conventional homes. Together with some 500 turbines at four other nearby wind farms run by Florida Power & Light (FPL), they contribute to a total of 1,100 megawatts of installed capacity representing more than $1 billion in investment since the state’s first commercial utility wind power plant was built eight years ago.

That investment translated to 2,500 jobs worth $75 million, in addition to $13 million in tax revenues for schools and counties, as well as $2.5 million annually in royalty income to wind farm landowners, plus substantial spin-off economic activity. The utility company is putting in bigger lines to handle all the power it can produce.

According to the SEED report, the documented potential for renewable energy is 10 times greater than all electricity currently sold in Texas. “By 2020, wind power in Texas could be responsible for 8,500 direct jobs with a payroll of $255 million. It could create another 9,800 indirect jobs, provide $216 million annually in local taxes and pay landowners in windy regions $30 million each year. An industry of that scale would be generating $1.4 billion worth of electricity annually.” Successful alternative energy projects give border residents hope for shifting more of fuel reliance to renewables, boosting environmental health and economic redevelopment in the process.

Cross-Border Cooperation Will Hasten Success

The citizens’ agenda for cleaner energy production on the U.S.-Mexico border has come to the attention of elected officials and other policymakers after five or so years of intense cross-boundary organizing. If anybody can testify to that fact, it’s the Western Governors Association, which funneled the public’s recommendations from its North American Energy Summit to its annual 2004 general meeting. It’s also the CEC, which reacted to the nascent demands at the grassroots and academic levels with funding for binational organizing and studies, and which went on to schedule "Building the Renewable Energy Market in North America" for industry representatives and others in October 2004. The Texas General Land Office’s Border Energy Forum XI, also in October, and the SCERP Border Institute XII in 2006 are further evidence of the groundswell. The activities will leave a watermark for improved health and environment in the highly impacted border region, as well as in the rest of the two countries and the planet.

Many opportunities are coming up for promoting border clean energy. Stakeholders’ efforts could become better coordinated by taking advantage of events to forge a consolidated movement and reduce the fragmented nature of organizing to date. The keys will be to develop a vision that further transcends the national boundaries and to seize every opportunity to unite constituents on both sides of the border.

Talli Nauman is the Interhemispheric Resource Center's editor at large and Americas Program associate (online at www.americaspolicy.org).

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Resources
Links open in new browser window.

More Information, Useful Links
Organizations
Online Reading and Other Media Sources

MORE INFORMATION, USEFUL LINKS

Texas General Land Office Border Energy Forum XI
http://www.glo.state.tx.us/energy/border/

Border Energy-Energía Fronteriza
http://www.borderenergy.org/html/index.htm

Power Plant Air Pollution Locater
http://cta.policy.net/dirtypower/map.htmlg

U.S.-Mexico Border Information Center - Centro de Información sobre Contaminación de Aire
http://www.epa.gov/ttn/catc/cica/index/

The Energy Foundation
http://www.ef.org/

New Mexico Energy Conservation and Management Division
http://www.emnrd.state.nm.us/ecmd/

New Mexico Solar Energy Association
http://www.nmsea.org/

U.S. Department of Energy
http://www.eren.doe.gov/

American Wind Energy Association
http://www.awea.org/

Energy for Keeps
http://www.energyforkeeps.org/

Western Resource Advocates
http://www.westernresourceadvocates.org/

Western Regional Air Partnership
http://www.wrapair.org/

ORGANIZATIONS

Border Power Plant Working Group
Tel: (619) 295-2072
Email: carlosy@borderpowerplants.org
Web: http://www.borderpowerplants.org/

Border Energy Issues Group
Tel: (619) 699-1972
Email: hva@sandag.org
Web: http://www.sandag.org/index.asp?committeeid=68&fuseaction=committees.detail

New Mexico Conference of Churches
Tel: (505) 296-4885
Email sec@nmchurches.org
Web: http://www.nmchurches.org/

Earthjustice
Tel: (510) 550-6700
Email: eajus@earthjustice.org
Web: http://www.earthjustice.org/

Natural Resources Defense Council
Tel: (212) 727-4500
Email: naturesvoice@nrdc.org
Web: http://www.nrdc.org/

Geothermal Resources Council
Tel. (530) 758-2360
Email: grc@geothermal.org
Web: http://www.geothermal.org/

Union of Concerned Scientists
Tel: (617) 547-5552
Email: anogee@ucsusa.org
Web: http://www.ucsusa.org/

Southwest Energy Efficiency Project (SWEEP)
Tel: (303) 447-0078
Email: info@swenergy.org
Web: http://www.swenergy.org/

Black Mesa Indigenous Support
Tel: (928) 773-8086
Email: blackmesais@riseup.net
Web: http://www.blackmesais.org/

Intertribal Council On Utility Policy (COUP)
Tel: (605) 945-1908
Email: pnspears2@aol.com
Web: http://www.IntertribalCOUP.org/

SCERP Border Institute VII
Tel: (619) 594-0568
Email: scerp@mail.sdsu.edu
Web: http://www.scerp.org/

Border Ozone Reduction and Air Quality Improvement Program
Tel.: (617) 495-0562
Email: laspau@harvard.edu
Web: http://www.laspau.harvard.edu/aire_frontera/

American Bar Association Section of Environment, Energy, and Resources
Tel: 202-778-3181
Email: r.feldman@bingham.com
Web: http://www.abanet.org/environ/committees/renewableenergy/home.html

ONLINE AND OTHER READING

Pollution Without Borders | Environmental Defense, 2003
http://www.environmentaldefense.org/documents/3116_PollutionWithoutBorders.pdf

Dirty Air, Dirty Power | Clear the Air, June 9, 2004
http://cta.policy.net/reports/

The New Mother Lode | SWEEP, 2002
http://www.swenergy.org/nml/index.html

Energy Revolution: Policies for a Sustainable Future | Howard Geller, 2002
http://www.islandpress.org/books/detail.html?cart=32529274071187&SKU=1-55963-965-2&startat=1

Increasing Energy Efficiency in New Buildings in the Southwest | SWEEP, August 2003
http://www.swenergy.org/ieenb/index.html

Indigenous Environmental Justice Issues Enter the Global Ring | IRC Americas Program, September 2004
http://www.americaspolicy.org/citizen-action/series/14-ien.html

Energy Efficiency in the Border Region: A Market Approach | Western Governors’ Association, April 2004
http://www.westgov.org/wga/initiatives/energy/summit/BorderEnergyReport.pdf

Western Renewable Energy Generation Information System Progress Report | Western Governors Association, April 15, 2004
http://www.westgov.org/wieb/wregis/WREGISrpt.pdf

Environmental Challenges and Opportunities of the Evolving North American Electricity Market | Commission for Environmental Cooperation, June 16, 2002
http://www.cec.org/pubs_docs/documents/index.cfm?varlan=english&ID=842

North American Air Quality and Climate Change Standards, Regulations, Planning and Enforcement at the National, State/Provincial and Local Levels | M.J. Bradley and Associates, Inc., 2003
http://www.cec.org/pubs_docs/documents/index.cfm?varlan=english&ID=1604

Mercury Control Requirements under the Massachusetts Multi-pollutant Power Plant Regulations | Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, July 20, 2004
http://www.cec.org/pubs_docs/documents/index.cfm?varlan=english&ID=1585

2003 Emissions Report | U.S. EPA
http://www.epa.gov/airtrends/econ-emissions.html

Acid Rain Report | U.S. EPA
http://www.epa.gov/acidrainreport/

The End of Fossil Energy | John Howe, 2004
http://www.mcintirepublishing.com/

A Thirsty Nation | Tim Folger, NRDC’s Onearth, Fall 2004
http://www.nrdc.org/onearth/

North America: The Energy Picture | North American Energy Working Group, June 2002
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/northamerica/engindex.htm#_VPID_1

Power Plants Sprouting at Border | Gary Polakovic, Los Angeles Times
http://www.ucan.org/consumer_info/Elec_Bill/LATimes6-15.htm

BRAVO Study Final Report | September 2004
http://vista.cira.colostate.edu/improve/Studies/BRAVO/reports/FinalReport/bravofinalreport.htm

Renewable Resources: The New Texas Energy Powerhouse | Public Citizen
http://www.citizen.org/publications/release.cfm?ID=7316

The Last Straw: Water Use by Power Plants in the Arid West | Clean Air Task Force, Hewlett Foundation Energy Series, April 2003
http://www.catf.us/

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Published by the Americas Program at the Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC). ©2004. All rights reserved.

Web location:
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Production Information:
Writer: Talli Nauman
Editing: Laura Carlsen
Production & Layout: Tonya Cannariato