Reggie goes West, where the skies are blue
The governors of Washington, Oregon, Arizona, California and New Mexico announced yesterday that they are going to keep the Villiage People’s idyllic view of the West alive by forming a five-state regional alliance to curb greenhouse gas emissions. This new program is called the “Western Regional Climate Action Initiative.”
The five states will basically do what the federal government refuses to do by establishing targets for greenhouse gas reductions and then coming up with a plan, which may include a cap-and-trade system, to reach those goals.
If this sounds familiar, it should. It is exactly how the Regional Green House Gas Initiative started in the Northeast. (I have to say that our acronym of RGGI is far more pronouncable — “Reggie” — than their WRCAI. Or, maybe they will pronounce it “Rocky” and use the ever-inspirational “Gonna Fly Now” as their theme song!)
So, if you put this plan together with RGGI, and if you assume that Maryland, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island will all join per their previous plans, we could easily get to the point where 16 of the states in the country are members of either RGGI or WRCAI. On top of this the Eastern Canadian Provinces have already expressed interest in also joining RGGI. I wonder if the Western Canadian Provinces will start to look at WRCAI.
If we get enough of these states all pooling together, then it really helps offset the fact that the U.S. refuses to do anything significant at the federal level. Of course, we still look like nincompoops to the rest of the world.
More importantly, this could start to create more pressure for companies to ask for federal regulation. As we’ve talked about in previous threads, as you start to get more and more states enacting their own regulations, it becomes harder and harder for national (or even regional) companies to manage their businesses; the unpredictability of constantly changing rules is terrible for them and the “certainty” offered by a single, uniform set of federal regulations is in their interests.
Anyway, this is exciting to see. This should be a good program to watch.
on February 28th, 2007 at 8:22 pm
I think Rocky Mountain High would work better as their theme song.
on March 1st, 2007 at 10:32 am
Young man, there’s no need to feel down.
I said, young man, pick yourself off the ground.
I said, young man, ’cause the suns beatin’ down
There’s no need to be unhappy.
Young man, there’s something you can do.
I said, young man, to stop CO2.
You can reduce greenhouse gas emission
With a cap and trade system.
It’s fun to support the W-R-C-A.
(i)
It’s fun to support the W-R-C-A.
(i)
on March 1st, 2007 at 4:58 pm
I gotta say…this post along with comments has been the most humorous!
And of course this is good news about WRCAI.
on March 1st, 2007 at 9:22 pm
Great news! and great humor! In these times a serious sense of humor is needed.