| Subject: Politicians can be very very stupid... |
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DE
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Date Posted: 04:58:59 07/02/07 Mon
You have to ask yourself, will smog for neighboring states stop at a state border just because the state to the side passed a law to limit smog?
Will INTERSTATE HAULERS have to comply with their laws.
IF sand from the North Africa Region can be found in the Virgin Islands and CO2 produced by Mainland china is circulated over the entire earths atmosphere will this law do any damn good?
OBVIOUSLY this law falles in the same category as laws against Gambling and Prostitution--completely, totally and utterly worthless waste of time and effort.
Politicians can be very very stupid.
Minnesota, other states take lead on climate
The signing ceremony in February for Minnesota's renewable energy law.
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In the race among states to do something about the warming planet, Minnesota legislators this spring voted to reduce carbon dioxide pollution, ordered power companies to conserve more energy and adopted the nation's most aggressive goals for switching to wind power and other renewable energy.
But when it comes to tackling what Gov. Tim Pawlenty called a "huge and defining issue for our time," it's getting tough to stay ahead of the pack.
While Congress and the president remain at odds over global warming, at least 15 states have set goals to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, which are piped into the air from power plants and cars. Twenty-six states have established targets for getting power from renewable energy sources. And most have done so within the past year or two.
"It's gotten increasingly difficult to keep up with everything," said Pat Hogan, a fellow at the Pew Center on Global Change who specializes in state climate change initiatives.
California's Global Warming Solutions Act, signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in September, is regarded as the model.
That's because the state's long-range target is the nation's toughest and because California is the world's 10th-largest emitter of carbon dioxide, seen as the key cause of global warming.
Legislators and other observers argue that Minnesota has in some ways gone further than California by requiring that utilities produce 25 percent of their energy with renewable sources by 2025, and begin reducing their production by 1.5 percent annually put the state in the forefront of climate change mitigation.
Adam Schafer, executive director of the National Caucus of Environmental Legislators, 44 of whose 525 members are from Minnesota, said the state is a leader on the climate change issue.
"There are efforts on the East and West coasts that are comparable, but the fact that Minnesota has been able to be such a leader shows that this is not an East Coast/West Coast issue," Schafer said. "It's really getting to the heartland."
The measures that have passed so far in Minnesota are "heroic, marvelous and way too small" because they ask nothing specific of vehicle makers or drivers, said Sheldon Strom, executive director of the nonprofit Minnesota group Center for Energy and the Environment.
In some ways Minnesota's apparent aggressiveness on the issue is an accident of timing. The renewable energy standard and energy conservation measures have been around for years, but rode into law this year as global warming exploded as an issue, Strom said.
Strom and state Sen. Yvonne Prettner Solon, DFL-Duluth, who sponsored the major bill, said the 2006 election, along with Pawlenty's advocacy, was also key. Last November's election put control of both houses of the Legislature in DFL hands.
More proposals coming
Prettner Solon said she expects the advisory group to present proposals in the next legislative session for a carbon market, as well as measures that would affect fuel efficiency, agriculture, consumers and others.
John R. Christy, a professor and director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama at Huntsville, sees the states' initiatives as little more than politics.
"Legislators tend to respond to things that end up on the front pages of newspapers," he said. "You wouldn't be able to measure the impact on the climate of any of these initiatives I've seen."
Christy said the dynamics of climate change are so vast that individual states' measures would simply be overwhelmed by activities elsewhere in the world, particularly a likely expansion of energy use.
But Hogan noted that a variety of interests and political persuasions are finding common ground on the issue.
"States wouldn't be doing it if they didn't think the net benefits didn't outweigh the costs," he said. "In a lot of cases, states are realizing a lot of climate-friendly policies have a lot of co-benefits."
That also means state legislatures have developed new climate-change policies through bipartisanship -- neither of which has occurred at the federal level, Hogan noted. As happened on clean air issues, California and other states have taken a lead that the federal government may follow -- or may not. States will be watching that issue, Hogan said, mindful that the federal government could seek to pre-empt state efforts on climate change as well.
States are also likely to combine for regional strategies, Hogan said. California is already part of the six-state Western Regional Climate Action Initiative; seven northeastern states have formed the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.
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