states

After nearly a decade of waiting for two presidents and Congress to embrace the principles of the Kyoto Protocol, California decided to take unilateral action in 2006. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill that would bring his state into near compliance with the international treaty's climate goals and timetables.

California’s capping of greenhouse gas emissions has since been followed by other states.

These sub-national actions on climate change are far from insignificant.

When it comes to U.S. environmental laws, individual states almost always blaze the trail for the nation.

They launched the first auto emissions regulations, building efficiency standards and emissions reporting rules. Now, they’re testing cap-and-trade programs, renewable electricity standards and renewable fuel standards, just to name a few.

So, as U.S. senators prepare to write their version of the federal climate and energy bill, five states are speaking out, urging them to step carefully and ensure that Congress preserves the authority of individual states to set even higher standards and to enforce the rules.

The five want a federal climate bill expedited, no question.

“We believe that the climate bill passed by the House, the American Energy and Security Act (ACES), represents a strong foundation upon which the Senate can build,” the attorneys general of California, Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware and New Jersey write in a letter to senators.

But the bills and proposals offered right now need work if they're going to succeed.

In addition to preserving state authority, the Senate should remove the House bill’s shackles from the EPA and allow it to regulate CO2 so the nation’s aging power plants aren’t free to pollute the air with impunity, the attorneys general write:

“In the absence of any controls for existing facilities, the bill would allow owners of older, dirtier plants to continue operating (or expand) their plants, free from controls such as improved efficiency or cleaner fuels."

The Senate also needs to get its reduction targets back on track with the science.

Back in 2006, Time Magazine ran a global warming cover that has become a negative icon of the climate movement’s message: “Be Worried, Be Very Worried,” the headline proclaimed.

The dark cloud has yet to dissipate, even with Obama’s clean energy and green jobs optimism, because the polluter-friendly climate bill moving through Congress has weak targets and large loopholes, the talks paving the way to Copenhagen have shown little progress, and the body of scientific evidence documenting accelerating climate change each week grows larger and deeper.

None of that fazes Terry Tamminen, the world’s one-man climate fixer, whose unique understanding of global climate progress arms him with an infectious supply of hope. He’s too busy to sink into worry and unafraid to offer perspective you’d never hear inside the Beltway climate policy hothouse.

The Waxman-Markey climate bill, working its way through Congress? “It’s not the only game in town,” Tamminen says.

The bill’s passage in the Senate? “Actually it could tie our hands in Copenhagen.”

In other words, while all the rest of us seem to be worried, very worried, about Waxman-Markey and Copenhagen, Tamminen is skating to where nobody else can imagine the puck is going to be.

In the last three months alone he’s been to Bahrain, Norway, Holland, India, England, Switzerland, Singapore, Hong Kong and of course, Beijing. At every stop, he meets with business leaders, NGOs, policymakers and government officials.

After eight years of watching their environmental work hamstrung by Washington, the nation’s governors got a strong signal over the weekend that they finally have a partner in the White House willing to listen to their expertise on clean energy and climate change.

President Obama's energy and environment team traveled to California on Saturday to meet with a dozen state governors and begin building a state-federal partnership capable of moving the entire country toward a clean energy future.

The president’s commitment to the partnership was clear from the attendance list. The White House didn't send department deputies – it sent the Cabinet-level officials themselves: Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson and the president’s energy and climate change adviser, Carol Browner.

Jackson and two of the governors will also be speaking Monday at the opening of a new State-Federal Climate Resource Center in Washington designed to keep that policy conversation going.

California's Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger described the weekend meeting this way:

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson isn't wasting any time as she begins untangling the Bush administration's corporate-protectionist policies on greenhouse gases.

This morning, Jackson filed a notice with the Federal Register that she would reconsider the Bush administration's refusal to let California set higher state standards for auto emissions. Once the Federal Register gets that notice down in ink, supporters and opponents will have 60 days to comment, and then Jackson will make her decision.

Jackson promised an impartial review, saying:

It is imperative that we get this decision right, and base it on the best available science and a thorough understanding of the law.

The new EPA administrator is widely expected to approve California’s long-delayed waiver. Last week, President Obama urged his administration to begin taking action to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

The administration also today dropped a Bush-era appeal of a ruling in New Jersey v. EPA. The court found that the EPA violated the Clean Air Act when it exempted coal-fired power plants from strict mercury emission controls. Jackson's EPA now plans to develop "appropriate standards" consistent with the ruling.

Next up: The EPA needs to act on a nearly two-year-old U.S. Supreme Court requirement that the Bush administration swept under the rug – making an official determination under the Clean Air Act that greenhouse gases are endangering the public health and welfare.

The attorneys general of 18 states sent a letter to Jackson yesterday asking her to act quickly and decisively on the case. Action could be swift. The attorneys general say the leg work required for advance notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPR) is finished and all that remains is the official determination:

The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) has just handed out its annual energy efficiency rankings for the US states. Here are the top 10:

10. New Jersey
9. Wisconsin
7. Minnesota (tie)
7. Massachusetts (tie)
6. Washington
5. New York
4. Vermont
3. Connecticut
2. Oregon
1. California

Stats: California earned 40.5 total points, out of 50. Wyoming was dead last with zero. Idaho (number 13) earned "most improved." Wisconsin scored in the top ten (a first). Rhode Island was the most energy-efficient as a percentage of its total electrical sales -- achieving a savings of 1.23 percent.

More to the point: The US states, combined, spent two to three times more than the federal government did on energy efficiency -- the most common-sense and available solution to energy and climate change.