States Take the Lead

Call it the Greenhouse in the Statehouse effect. While climate change may sow no fear in the White House, plenty of worried governors, legislators, and other local officials are rejecting Washington’s cue.

The result is an increasingly energy-schizoid land. From the state level, the United States is actually something of a global leader, passing laws sharp enough to take a bite out of climate change. “Sometimes the government leads the people, and sometimes the people lead the government. In this case, the states are way ahead of Washington,” says Mickey Glantz of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.

Propelled by subsidies, tax breaks, and mandates to wean industry from fossil fuel, broad swaths of the country bristle with aggressive programs to put the brakes on global warming. More than half the states have climate action plans, and 22 have specific targets their utilities must reach in the share of their power from renewable sources, according to the Pew Center on Global Climate Change.

Evidence is hard to miss, such as the five huge wind turbines that sprouted last year in a marsh near Atlantic City’s casinos. Says Jeanne Fox, head of New Jersey’s Board of Public Utilities, “I’m in this job because this is the No. 1 priority for the world. Our species could literally be destroying the Earth.” Her state typifies the trend. Governors of both parties have backed ever tougher conservation and energy standards. In four years, six solar cell installations have grown to more than 1,000, with hundreds more applications each month.

U.S. News and World Report