Local climate solutions constrain federal options

By Doug Struck
for the Daily Climate
published 11 November 2008

When the new Administration and Congress arrive in Washington to face their campaign pledges to address climate change, they will find themselves playing catch-up with the states.

State legislatures, governors and citizens groups that saw the environmental threat more urgently than the federal government for eight years have pushed full throttle to pass laws to reduce greenhouse gases, boost renewable energy and set up carbon trading systems.

Those laws will help shape a national program, analysts say, but also may complicate federal efforts to set nationwide standards. Many of the state laws are boldly ambitious, and Congress will be pressed not to undercut those goals.

“The states to set the bar at a certain level, and the federal program will have to be at least as good,” said Dan Sosland, executive director of Environment Northeast, a non-profit that works to shape state policies.

Twenty states have passed mandatory reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, mimicking  the Kyoto Protocol.  Almost half the states and four of the most populous Canadian provinces are constructing regional carbon cap-and-trade programs. Ten northeastern states started selling tradable carbon allowances this fall to power companies.  Twenty-nine states have adopted laws setting deadlines for their utilities to meet stiff quotas for providing renewable energy.

“They decided they could not wait. The federal government was not doing enough,” said Judi Greenwald, director of innovative solutions at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change in Washington.

“I think Barack Obama will certainly adopt and expand on some of the states’ strategies,” said Joseph Romm, a former Department of Energy official in the Clinton Administration and an author of books on climate policy. Obama has said, for example, he wants to adopt California’s tough vehicle emission standards nationally.

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