Education reform springs from New Jersey; so too does pushback against the state-by-state campaign for cap-trade

An anti-regulatory earthquake is stirring in New Jersey that could potentially free other states and regions from economically unsound energy restrictions and renewable mandates that have further burdened America's already beleaguered consumers with higher costs.

Representatives from private industry have joined with the state branch of Americans for Prosperity (AFP), a grassroots free market advocacy group, to organize a series of protests and media events targeting global warming policies modeled after the Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement that came into force in 2005. Most recently, the New Jersey Restaurant Association (NJRA), which represents the state's largest employment sector, announced its support for a bill introduced in the state assembly that would both repeal "cap and trade" legislation and rescind N.J.'s membership in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI).

If successful, this one-two punch could reverberate in other parts of the country that have succumbed to higher energy prices. Michael Patrick Carroll (R-25) and Alison Littell McHose (R-24) are leading the charge for A 3147 on the Assembly side. They are now joined in this effort by Sen. Mike Doherty (R-23) and Sen. Steven Oroho (R-24), who have introduced mirroring legislation in the upper chamber.

"The opposition that is building up against 'cap and trade' in our state could have national implications since the program here was crafted as a model for what President Obama had in mind for the whole country," Steve Lonegan, a former mayor of Bogota, who heads up AFP's N.J. chapter, said in an interview. "The American people are opposed to these costly environmental regulations but they are still growing right under our feet at the state level with these regional initiatives. It's shocking how few people realize New Jersey already has the program."

A key figure here is Lisa Jackson, President Obama's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator, who previously served as the N.J. environmental commissioner under former Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine. Jackson helped formulate what is arguably the most restrictive and economically damaging global warming regulatory regime now in operation throughout the country. The N.J. law, which became effective in 2008, calls for greenhouse gas emissions to be reduced to where they were in 1990 "no later" than 2020. It further requires that emissions not exceed 80 percent of their 2006 levels "no later" than 2050.

Unfortunately, the New Jersey experience is part of a larger story.

Although the Kyoto Protocol has been held at bay on the federal level, environmental pressure groups have successfully lobbied for greenhouse gas regulations within various states. A crucial player in this area has been the Center for Climate Strategies (CCS), an unheralded but politically potent outfit that has worked successfully to bypass state legislatures and formulate regulatory policy with compliant governors in both parties. Chris Horner, a senior fellow with The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), has documented the organization's activities and methodology in a very detailed report for the Capital Research Center (CRC) that is worth reviewing in light of recent developments.

"The activists' new state-based strategy avoids open political debate," Horner explained in his report. "Instead, it depends on having the full range of left-wing pressure groups -- feminists, abortion and animal rights activists, labor organizers and other leftist factions -- make 'global warming' part of their message and mission. CCS is among those activist groups. This is the familiar 'crazy quilt' strategy of the Left, a long-march approach by which activists lobby states to adopt policies that cannot advance on their merits under the brighter glare of national legislating."

Under the existing Kyoto Protocol requirements, participating countries must commit to reducing their greenhouse gas emissions to five percent below 1990 levels by 2012. Thus far, 187 countries have signed and ratified the treaty. While the U.S. was a signatory, President Clinton declined to seek ratification after the U.S. Senate voted 95-0 in favor of a resolution that opposed the treaty on economic grounds. For his part, President Bush described the treaty as "fatally flawed" and also refrained from pursuing Senate approval