ALBANY – New York and 10 other Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states will cooperate to develop a regional "Low Carbon Fuel Standard" to reduce the carbon concentration in fuels used in vehicles and buildings, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and New York State Energy and Research Development Authority officials announced Tuesday. The 11 states - the 10 members of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative plus Pennsylvania - will work together to create an emissions-performance standard that will eventually provide incentives for energy providers to use low-carbon fuel - which will result in the use of fewer greenhouse gases and aid in the fight against global warming.

Last week, officials from Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont signed a statement to jointly tackle the challenge of reducing greenhouse gases from fuels. Over the past six months, the states have begun to examine how a low-carbon fuel standard could be implemented regionally, creating a larger market for cleaner fuels, reducing emissions associated with climate change and supporting development of clean energy technologies.

The Low Carbon Fuel Standard initiative envisions the creation of a market-based, technologically neutral policy to address the carbon content of fuels. In addition to covering vehicle fuels, a low-carbon standard potentially could apply to fuel used for indoor heating, industrial processes and electricity generation. In the transportation sector, such a standard could potentially encourage the use of electric-powered vehicles and biofuels that have a lower-carbon footprint than traditional fuels, based on a full life cycle analysis. The effort will discourage the use of biofuels that are likely to cause negative impacts such as crop diversion and land-use changes.