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Budgets and Funding Issues


	Acid Rain Allowance Auction EPA and the Chicago Board of Trade announced that the fifth annual acid rain allowance auction resulted in proceeds totaling over $32 million, which will be returned to the utilities from which the allowances were drawn. The auction is part of EPA's program to significantly reduce acid rain by cutting utility sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions in half nationwide. Acid rain can damage lakes and aquatic life and affect the human respiratory system. The auction gives power plants, brokers, and private citizens anywhere in the world the chance to buy and sell SO2 allowances. An allowance is an authorization, established by the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, giving affected sources (mainly existing electric power plants) the right to emit one ton of SO2 in a designated year or any year thereafter. Electric utilities account for 70 percent of nationwide SO2 emissions. From the Daily Regulatory Reporter

	New Bank to Control Gas Emission Permits? The United Nations Development Program has issued a report proposing the creation of an international bank to regulate the trading of greenhouse gas emission permits. According to author Graciela Chichilnisky, the Global Environment Facility (GEF), an existing international funding institution, could be transformed into this new bank. The GEF currently provides help to developing nations in dealing with environmental issues such as climate change, biodiversity conservation, international water pollution, and depletion of stratospheric ozone. The new bank would be supplementing the work of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization. The GEF will hold a meeting to discuss this possible new role in Italy in December. Copies of the report, titled "Development and Global Finance: the Case for an International Bank for Environmental Settlements," may be ordered by calling (212)906-3683. From Daily Regulatory Reporter, based on an article in the Daily Environment Report