The U.S. Acid Program was established under the Title W of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments (CAAA 1990), is the world's first large-scale, public policy experiment in the use of tradable permits to achieve an environmental goal. The programmandates that electric utility sources achieve a reduction from their 1980 levels of acid-rain precursor emissions. The regulated generation units were issued permits, of "allowances requiring an aggregate reduction of emissions.This program establishes an aggregate emissions limit, distributes to individual sources a number of allowances equal to this limit according to certain criteria, and allows them to trade their allowances with other firms. They are not imposed emission or technology requirements, but are required only to have a valid allowance for SO{sub}2 emitted. It is said that utilities take advantage of the cost-saving flexibility provided by emission trading from 1995-1997 results. And analysts believe that tradablepermit system under the Acid Rain Program is a successful example for solution of environmental issue particular global warming.
展开▼
