Back to the States

In the waning days of the Bush-Cheney administration, environmental groups and concerned businesses started a dramatic shift in strategy in the effort to combat radical climate change. They shifted from a state level strategy back to a Capitol Hill strategy. With the election of Barak Obama and a super majority Democratic Congress, this choice made even more sense. For a brief moment, it seemed like the United States would adopt national legislation to promote clean energy and reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change. Unfortunately, that moment may have passed. Seems like it's time to go back to the states.

The benefits of doing something at the Federal level vs. the state level are clear. We can cause a much more significant change in our fossil fuel use at the national level. The problem is that we seem to live in an era (and hopefully it's temporary) when our political system is simply broken, and unable to solve the large national questions of the day. Maybe the problem is the Senate, where tiny Wyoming, with about 1.5% of the population of California has the same number of Senators. Maybe the problem is the money in politics, the fundraising and the favors. Who knows? Bottom line - I don't expect any significant bill to come from Capitol Hill.

So, we're back to working the states. The record there is pretty impressive. Thanks to a lot of hard work in Maryland, we've got some pretty progressive environmental/clean energy laws here. Maryland is part of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), committing to a ten percent reduction in greenhouse gases from power plants along with nine other states in the northeast. RGGI is on the right track and with some improvement can make some real significant cuts in greenhouse gases. California and other western states are adopting a similar plan.

The way to make these kind of efforts even more impactful is to deal with the issue of "leakage," or out-of-state emissions related to energy use in state. This can be done. California, for example, can require a large portion of power delivered to it to come from clean sources, or have a cap on greenhouse gases associated with it. That way, emissions from power plants in Nevada, Idaho, or other western states would be reduced. If we did this in the Mid Atlantic, we could reduce emissions from plants in states such as Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and elsewhere. In other words, an action in a few states could have an impact in many. We don't need to pass progressive environmental and clean energy laws in every state, just in the states where most of the people live and most of the jobs are. Luckily, those states are generally the most open to progressive legislation to combat climate change or to promote clean energy.

I hope I'm wrong about Capitol Hill. But if I'm not, let's get back to work in the states.