Isramart : Up to 1,000 Maine jobs linked to carbon trading

Isramart news:
The nation's first mandatory carbon trading scheme is being credited with potentially creating nearly 1,000 jobs while promoting energy efficiency projects in industries located across Maine.

Sixteen projects were awarded $8.9 million in state and federal grant money on Wednesday. Gov. John Baldacci announced the grants in a press conference.

"These projects are ready to go," Baldacci said.

These funds are a combination of federal stimulus money, plus revenues from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI, which requires industry to pay for each ton of carbon dioxide they release into the atmosphere.

Recipients include Tex Tech Industries in North Monmouth, Prime Tanning Company in Hartland, Bowdoin College and Maine Renewable Energy Consortium, Inc., which is promoting a biomass energy production plant in South Portland.

Tex Tech says its grant means 45 people at the textile plant in North Monmouth, which specializes in tennis felt, ballistic material for soft body armor and thermal and acoustic aerospace insulation, will keep their jobs.

"Most important to me is that 45 highly-skilled textile manufacturing jobs that were slated to go offshore to the Far East will remain in Maine thanks to this project," said John Stankiewicz, chief operating officer of Tex Tech, which was awarded $746,776 to convert a 1963 oil burner to a biomass electrical generation system fueled by Maine wood chips. "It's beyond exciting for us."

All told, the 16 project recipients employ about 7,000 people in Maine.

And, according to the U.S. Department of Energy, the $90 million in total investment these projects represent (which includes $82 million of private money) could create another 950 jobs.

The 16 projects were selected to promote energy efficiency, economic growth, and decreased reliance on foreign oil.

About $6 million of the grant money came from the $36 million promised to Maine under the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act.

The remaining $2.9 million, however, was earmarked from earnings from the RGGI carbon-credit auction.

A principle of RGGI was returning revenue, in the form of efficiency grants, to the industries that bought credits to offset their carbon emissions.

Environmental advocates said Wednesday's grant awards proves RGGI, and cap-and-trade programs as a whole, can work.