Dive Brief:

• Only one U.S. emissions market trade was completed last week, Platts reports, possibly underscoring the uncertainty brought on by ongoing court challenges to the Cross State Air Pollution Rule.
• The sole transaction, a futures deal, was completed on ICE for CSAPR Group 1 SO2.
• Last year, in response to legal challenges, federal regulators opted to delay by three years the time states have to comply with emissions restrictions.

Dive Insight:

The Cross State Air Pollution Rule was finalized in 2011, but has since been tied up with legal challenges that observers say are impacting the nation's emissions markets. According to Platts, only one trade was completed last week, a futures deal done at $10.50/st.

Traders told Platts that uncertainty over the CSAPR rule is likely dampening market activity. "You never know what's going to happen,” one broker told the news outlet.

The caveat is that change “will probably be slow," he told Platts.

Last year the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit  allowed the EPA to move ahead with implementation of its CSAPR rule while the Supreme Court takes up final pending issues. Regulators then delayed implementation for three years while other challenges play out.

EPA’s CSAPR, established under the Clean Air Act "good neighbor" provision in 2011, has two steps: It first determines if one state is adding more than 1% to a neighboring state’s federal-standard-violating pollution level, and then applies a model to impose limits on emissions under a federal plan.