underzealous

Nine northeastern states plan to work on emissions regulations, since the Bush administration dropped the chalupa on the Kyoto Protocol:

Nine northeastern U.S. states are working on a plan to cap and then reduce the level of greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, the first U.S. deal of its kind and one which would see the region breaking with President George W. Bush who refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol

The move comes as California, Washington and Oregon are considering a similar pact -- a dynamic environmentalists say could pressure the federal government to adopt a national law. Bush refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol, the greenhouse gas reduction plan adopted by more than 150 countries.

Under the plan being worked on, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont would cap carbon dioxide emissions at 150 million tons a year -- roughly equal to the average emissions in the highest three years between 2000 and 2004.

Starting in 2015, the cap would be lowered, and emissions would be cut by 10 percent in 2020.

This is the kind of federalism I love to see, and the kind of federalism the Bush administration and Republicans hate to see. They're hypocritical, of course; federalism is okay ONLY if it meets their ends (e.g. chastising Massachusetts about gay marriage). Congress has tried to curb this sort of state-level environmental policy before, for example, when the law was changed so that states could only have either California emissions regulations or federal emissions regulations for automobiles. We'll see how this goes, but it looks promising.