The Voice of Reason

Dale Bryk brokers agreements to curb global warming.

Get her started and Dale Bryk will just keep on talking. That's a good thing. As NRDC's top negotiator on state climate policy, talking is her job. About six years ago, Bryk took the lead on a multistate effort to bring about the nation's first mandatory cap on greenhouse gas emissions from the electric utility industry: she talked to stakeholders, debated details with opposing parties, and searched for compromise. In January of this year, the endless negotiations paid off and the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative went into effect in 10 Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states.

Often known by its acronym, RGGI (pronounced "Reggie"), the agreement requires that participating states set greenhouse-gas pollution limits and then auction off permits to polluting companies. This market-based system differs from previous programs that simply gave pollution permits away for free. It creates a pot of money that states may use to invest in clean-energy technologies and energy-efficiency programs -- weatherizing homes and providing rebates for energy-saving appliances, for example. The emissions cap will be reduced every year until 2019, when carbon dioxide pollution from the power sector will have been cut by 10 percent.

At first there was little business support for RGGI. Even environmental groups were at odds over details. Eventually they settled on a plan, and Bryk set out to find willing partners in the energy industry, focusing on more progressive companies that were eager to find ways to reduce their global warming impact. From there she moved on to the industry stalwarts and state governments. "Government officials were committed," Bryk says, "but they wanted to launch the program in the quickest, easiest, and least controversial way. We wanted the best way. So you have to negotiate."

In this sort of process, seldom does anyone get everything he or she wants. "People come to the table with a worldview that is very hard to shake," Bryk says. "It's really difficult to move the negotiations forward when you have so many complicated issues and some people who are trying to increase those complications or derail the negotiations. But that's my job. I have to figure out how to address legitimate concerns without diluting the environmental benefits."

As a law student, Bryk interned for Ashok Gupta, NRDC's chief economist and director of the Air and Energy program. She left to finish her degrees at Harvard Law School and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. After that she clerked for a federal judge and spent three years as a corporate lawyer, honing her ability to broker deals while keeping stakeholders happy. By 1997, she was back at NRDC. "Corporate law may seem like an unlikely training ground, but in terms of professional skills, it was a great education," she says. "I learned how to negotiate with companies, which is what I spend a lot of my time doing now, only now I care much more about the outcome!"

Bryk's early work as a lawyer at NRDC paved the way for RGGI. She started out working on state energy regulation and turned herself into an expert on energy efficiency as well as on the restructuring and regulation of the electricity industry. It was frustrating for a lawyer who loves to talk: in the late 1990s, few were ready to listen. "I was beginning to understand the extent to which energy issues are at the root of so many problems today, but most states had other priorities," she says. "Climate had become a glamorous issue to take the lead on, but utility regulatory reform? Who wants to talk about that at a cocktail party?"

Things have changed a lot since then, particularly with the Obama administration's attitude toward global warming. RGGI has set a new paradigm for market-based environmental policy and showcases the importance of energy efficiency in fighting global warming.

Scaling the initiative up to the federal level could bring in about $200 billion in annual sales of pollution permits. For a cash-strapped federal government, that's a big incentive, and a boon for consumers and businesses alike. Investing in more efficient appliances would help individuals save money on their electricity bills, and renewable-energy industries would benefit from subsidies and other investments in clean technologies.

If all that doesn't make Bryk eager to get going, the promise of more talking -- and being heard -- certainly will.

Photo: Matt Greenslade/Photo-NYC.com