That's the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that will be cut over the next 13 years by the members of the Western Climate Initiative. The WCI is a regional cap and trade program, similar to the Northeast's Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), but more ambitious. While RGGI is developing a cap and trade program for power plant emissions, WCI has an "any-which way you can" approach, looking to reduce emissions from a range of sources according to this story in the L.A. Times. More coverage is available from the San Francisco Chronicle, Arizona Daily Star, Deseret Morning News, and the Tacoma News Tribune.
The cuts will bring emissions to 15 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. Green Car Congress has more technical details.
This is yet another instance of the powerful politics of global warming. States recognize that the federal government should take the lead, but they aren't waiting. As Margot Roosevelt reports in the L.A. Times:
California officials took pointed aim at the Bush administration's refusal to enact a national program to cut greenhouse gas emissions. "The federal government needs to step up to the plate, but the states aren't waiting," said Linda Adams, California's secretary for Environmental Protection. "Ideally, we would have a cap at the federal level."
...White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said that the charges of federal inaction are "false" and that Bush is "supportive of actions by the states and respects the role governors play."
If the President is so supportive of state action, why is he content with EPA foot-dragging on California's clean car law waiver? More broadly, if he really wants to support the states, he'll listen to what state officials and governors are saying, and get behind a serious federal greenhouse gas reduction program.
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