The poor economy and a decrease in manufacturing activity led to a precipitous decline in greenhouse gas emissions allowances in the most recent Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative auction.
The September auction resulted in pricing of $2.19 per ton for 2009 GHG emissions allowances, and $1.87 for 2012 allowances, according to RGGI.
That's down more than 32 percent from $3.23 in the June auction.
In total, the auction yielded $66,278,239.35 from the sale of 28,408,945 allowances for 2009 and 2,172,540 allowances for 2012.
Analysts were quick to jump on the results.
"Soft power demand and coal-to-gas switching makes for weak CO2 allowance demand/prices," stated Tudor Pickering Holt, reports MarketWatch.