Gov. Phil Murphy's administration announced steps on Monday to return New Jersey to a group of Eastern states that places limits on how much carbon dioxide power plants can emit into the atmosphere and charges them money if they go over it.

But New Jersey won't get back into the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative until 2020 as it looks to curb the state's contribution to climate change.

The greenhouse gas initiative aims to reduce emissions — a leading cause of global warming and rising sea levels that have led to extreme weather events. Nine other states are in the pact: Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Delaware and Maryland.

A set of rules proposed by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection sets its first cap at 18 million metric tons of carbon dioxide that the energy sector is allowed to spew into the air before being forced to buy credits to spew more.

The cap will decline 3 percent annually through 2030. The cap does not include the biggest contributor to greenhouse gases in New Jersey: the transportation sector, which accounts for about 60 percent of the state's emissions.

Several environmental groups had pushed for New Jersey's limit to be around 12 million to 13 million metric tons. From 2012 to 2016, New Jersey's energy sector emitted an average of 17 million metric tons of carbon dioxide a year, according to data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

New Jersey was taken out of RGGI in 2012 by Gov. Chris Christie, who said the program was a tax that had little benefit to the environment. Shortly after taking office in January, Murphy signed an executive order to return to the pact.

Murphy has set an ambitious goal of generating all of the state's electricity from renewable sources by 2050. The goal could be in jeopardy from a proposed gas-fired power plant in the Meadowlands that could generate more than 2 million metric tons of carbon dioxide.

Aside from the 18 million metric ton cap, the DEP issued a rule Monday that would spend money raised by RGGI on communities that are disproportionately burdened by pollution.

Hearings scheduled

The DEP will hold two public hearings on Jan. 25.

One begins at 9 a.m. and the other at 1 p.m. at DEP headquarters, 401 East State St., Trenton.

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