Energy, Trade and Climate Change

By Rick Kalb on Wednesday, August 28, 2002.

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New England's governors and their eastern Canadian counterparts wrapped up their three day annual meeting in Quebec City yesterday.

The leaders endorsed resolutions to increase border cooperation and promote freer movement of trade between Canada and the United States.

They also agreed to continue their fight against global warming and improve energy cooperation.

The Resolution on Energy Cooperation should help to ensure that red tape doesn't get in the way of importing clean hyrdo-generated electricity from Canada.

NHPR correspondent Rick Kalb reports from Quebec City.

sound..

The president of the province of quebec's electricity utility told the Governors and Premiers meeting he has thousands of megawatts of energy to sell..

Andre Caille told the New England
Governors and Eastern Canadian
Premiers energy regulations and
bottle necks in the transmission
system in the united states are
the two biggest hurdles he faces
in selling his power..

That helped pass a resolution
committing the premiers and governors
to work to harmonize energy
regulations in the two countries..

Vermont governor Howard Dean
told the session its
important to get
Canadian energy to his market..

mk 009
clip...we're particularly concerned about the greenness of the power mix and now hydro quebec is offering 12thousand additional megawatts of engery over the nnext ten to fifteen years or so in terms of green power,
and we're very interested in green power, we're a region that's been hurt very badly by the lack of attention to uh the mid-west power plants that the president is now proposed an energy bill that would prevent us from suing which is our last hope in getting the air cleaned up and so i'm particularly interested in canadianpower because its clean power and midwesternpower is not clean power.. 38

Canadian Premiers want to
exploit that U-S market..

Newfoundland Premier Roger Grimes
is negotiating now with neighbouring
Quebec to develop a new
hydro electric project in
Labrador. The only reason
for developing that new
project is to
export its energy to the
north eastern states..

MK 013
clip we'll have another major energy project a clean energy project in labrador with a great partnershp with quebec and energy available for export, its an export energy project that we're talking about that can meeet energy needs in the north eastern united states so its an issue that meets some of the mandate for all of us at this table.. ..24

Maine Governor Angus King
envisions a new way of
bringing that energy
to New England markets that
would remove criticism of
those huge transmission towers
and the high tension lines
that scar the countryside..

clip another transmission option that you should be aware of isa
projedc that's
called the neputne project which is underwater transmission from the maritimes down along the gulf of maine to the large centres along the new england and north atlantic coast of dc power which would be then be convertedto dc at the sending end, go dc under the water, which eliminates
alot of the electromagnetic radiation kind of issues,30,

Using clean Canadian electricity
can resolve some of the clean air
issues.. but others remain..

The Governors and Premiers
adopted a resolution to
keep working to achieve
the climate change action plan
they adopted at last year's
session..

The resolution didn't go far
enough though for David Coon.
He's the policy director for
the Conservation Council of New Brunswick..

clip
when you think about the recommendations they made to the premiers and governers they said these are things that we would do anyways even if we weren't facing an upheaval in our climate well we don;t need to do things we'd do anyway we need to do new things that are going to decrease greenhouse gas emissions which last year increased.. 18

The governors say that's unfair
criticism.

Massachusetts governor Jane Swift
says tackling global warming
through regional co-operation
with neighbouring Canadian provinces
is compatible with President
George W Bush's approach to
tacking greenhouse gasses..

And, Rhode Island's Lincoln
Almond says the Conference of
New England Governors and
Eastern Canadian Premiers has
established a good track
record for meeting its
environmental targets,,

In Quebec City,, I'm Rick Kalb