7 states sign emissions pact

Seven states moved forward without Massachusetts and signed a pact yesterday to reduce power plant emissions, but two state legislators are plotting an end-run around Governor Mitt Romney that would bring the Bay State into compliance with the deal.

After more than two years of helping to negotiate the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, Romney abruptly pulled out last week, saying the initiative should include a strict limit on how much power plants would have to pay for the right to emit pollution. The Massachusetts governor said a cap is necessary to protect businesses and consumers from increases in energy costs. Governor Donald L. Carcieri of Rhode Island, a fellow Republican, declined to join for the same reason.

But environmentalists and officials from the other states say the pact was altered to address Romney's concerns.

Several critics said yesterday that Romney was motivated by politics, and that he switched his stance to curry favor with industry groups that might help him if he runs for president.

''The fact that Governor Romney's turnabout on RGGI occurred on the very day he announced he would not run again for governor, and the fact that his negotiators around the table were comfortable with the agreement we were reaching . . . suggests that it really was a matter of larger politics rather than policy," Bradley M. Campbell, commissioner of New Jersey's Department of Environmental Protection, said yesterday in a conference call with reporters.

Governor George E. Pataki of New York, a potential rival of Romney for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, first proposed the multistate pact in 2003, but Massachusetts has taken a leading role in the negotiations.

Campbell and other state officials said they are hopeful that Massachusetts eventually will join the pact. A spokeswoman for Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey, the leading contender for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, said she backs Romney. Democratic hopefuls Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly and Deval Patrick say they would join the pact.

Senator Pamela P. Resor and Representative Frank I. Smizik, who cochair the Legislature's Joint Committee on Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture, said yesterday they are contemplating a bill that would require Massachusetts to comply with the agreement. Smizik sent letters of congratulation to the governors who signed it yesterday.

''We're talking about at least trying to implement all the appropriate precautions and standards that are in the agreement," Resor said. ''I don't think we can force the governor to join the regional group, which I think is our loss."

The legislative prospects for such a measure are uncertain. House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi said yesterday he was not aware of Smizik's desire to write a bill, and pointed out that Massachusetts is poised to enact tough emissions standards for the worst-polluting power plants.

The pact, which was signed by New York, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, and Vermont, would freeze power plant carbon dioxide emissions and then reduce them by 10 percent by 2020. It is the first government-mandated greenhouse gas trading system in the United States: Power plants that emit less carbon dioxide could sell credits to those that pollute more. The system is designed to encourage investment in cleaner technology.

Material from the Associated Press was used in this report. Scott Greenberger can be reached at greenberger@globe.com.