Stealth Kyoto

Environment | A national environmental group is quietly reshaping American policy on climate change—one gulible state at a time | Mark Bergin

President George W. Bush has consistently opposed federal caps on greenhouse-gas emissions, a policy position many environmentalists say contributes to global warming and is an embarrassment to the United States around the world. But Bush is not the country's only politician with executive power. State governors are increasingly taking the matter of climate change into their own hands, many pushing legislation that mirrors the international Kyoto Protocol—the very kind of top-down restrictions Bush rejects.

In more than a dozen states, special governor-commissioned advisory groups have completed climate-change action plans that include such measures as tightened vehicle emissions standards, investment in alternative fuels, government incentives for consumers and manufacturers to go green, strict limits on development in forested areas, and involvement in regional or national cap-and-trade programs. It's enough to make California look like Germany, where efforts to curb greenhouse-gas emissions have wrought significant economic damage, despite falling well short of targets.