{"id":132,"date":"2007-06-26T16:46:36","date_gmt":"2007-06-26T20:46:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/2007\/06\/26\/nj_climate_bill\/"},"modified":"2008-05-12T11:37:49","modified_gmt":"2008-05-12T16:37:49","slug":"nj_climate_bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/2007\/06\/26\/nj_climate_bill\/","title":{"rendered":"New Jersey Leads the Way!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><i>The author of today&#8217;s article, Derek Walker, is deputy director of the state climate initiative at Environmental Defense.<\/i><\/p>\n<p>Last week, New Jersey&#8217;s House and Senate Budget Committees passed a landmark global warming bill called the &quot;Global Warming Response Act&quot;. It sailed through the full House and Senate two days later and Governor Jon Corzine says he will sign it in July.<\/p>\n<p>The bill will cap greenhouse gas emissions at 1990 levels by 2020, and lower the cap to 80 percent below current levels by 2050 (see <i><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2007\/06\/22\/nyregion\/22warming.html\">New York Times article<\/a><\/i>). It is the first bill in the nation to legislate a 2050 target. This is important because 2050 targets are crucial to <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/2007\/03\/21\/us_emissions\/\">avoiding the global warming tipping point<\/a>, and are a component of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.environmentaldefense.org\/page.cfm?tagID=1075\">bills currently before Congress<\/a>. When forward-looking states pass legislation like this, it can force the federal government to do likewise.<\/p>\n<p>I went to Trenton to testify before the Budget Committee, and left there inspired.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>It wasn&#8217;t the first time I&#8217;d testified in New Jersey. Two weeks prior I testified before the Senate Environmental Committee, and everyone was still unsure whether the legislature would pass the bill this year. I told the committee that passing this bill would make New Jersey a global leader in environmental protection, plus there were practical benefits such as increasing home values.<\/p>\n<p>By the time I went back on June 18, it was all over but the voting. A majority of the full House and Senate were co-sponsors of the bill. My testimony was quite short this time. I simply said that New Jersey should be proud to be the first state to pass a 2050 target.<\/p>\n<p>The legislation doesn&#8217;t specify how the targets will be met &#8211; it instructs state agencies to get together and work it out. Some say this is a weakness, but I think the built-in flexibility is a strength. The emissions monitoring program will include emissions from power plants in other states that export power to New Jersey &#8211; also a good thing.<\/p>\n<p>You might think, New Jersey is just one state &#8211; and a small one at that &#8211; so how much does this matter? It matters quite a bit! State action has the power to force federal action.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The author of today&#8217;s article, Derek Walker, is deputy director of the state climate initiative at Environmental Defense. Last week, New Jersey&#8217;s House and Senate Budget Committees passed a landmark global warming bill called the &quot;Global Warming Response Act&quot;. It sailed through the full House and Senate two days later and Governor Jon Corzine says &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>New Jersey Leads the Way! - Climate 411<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/2007\/06\/26\/nj_climate_bill\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"New Jersey Leads the Way! - Climate 411\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The author of today&#8217;s article, Derek Walker, is deputy director of the state climate initiative at Environmental Defense. Last week, New Jersey&#8217;s House and Senate Budget Committees passed a landmark global warming bill called the &quot;Global Warming Response Act&quot;. 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