While Congress Dithers, U.S. States Make Cap and Trade Work

Less than a week before President Barack Obama is to release his widely-anticipated climate action plan, and four years after national legislation died in Congress, Politico reports that cap and trade is alive and well in many U.S. states. Nine northeastern states have formed a regional carbon trading network, California has connected its cap and trade scheme with Quebec, and an energy consultant in the Midwest said “some very red states and some blue states” are “keeping their options open at this point” on how to cut carbon. In the northeast, power plant emissions fell more than 40% between 2005 and 2012, “without any of cap-and-trade critics’ apocalyptic expectations for such a system,” Politico reported.