Legal news and trends for Canadian in-house counsel and c-suite executives
Issue link: https://digital.canadianlawyermag.com/i/50892
WE CAN incoming U.S. administration signaling its readiness to take more aggressive ac- tion, some observers argue the WCI is more hot air than a plan for concrete ac- tion. For Pamela Lacey, senior managing counsel with the American Gas Associa- tion, the WCI remains relevant even if a national framework eventually replaces the patchwork of climate change laws de- veloping across the U.S. "We will have eventually, and I hope sooner rather than later, a uniform na- tional law that will address what we're doing on climate change. On the other hand, the states are working out a lot of ideas that are going into the congressional draft bills." As a result, her organization, which represents natural gas utili- ties across the country, has been busy lobbying at consultations for the WCI, which will begin capping emissions in 2012. Lacey notes the WCI is particularly relevant since no one yet knows when any federal rules would come into play. For his part, Obama has already laid out plans to deal with what he called a lack of leadership by the U.S. federal government on climate change. While he praised state governors for taking action, he lamented the policies of U.S. President George W. Bush during a Nov. 18 Internet posting. "That will change when I take of- fi ce," he said. "My presidency will mark a new chapter in America's leadership on climate change that will strengthen our security and create millions of new jobs in the process. That will start with a fed- President-elect Barack Obama pledged to begin a cap-and-trade system to combat greenhouse gases, during a web-address Nov. 18 posted on Change.gov, the Obama-Biden transition team web site. eral cap-and-trade system. We'll establish strong annual targets that will set us on a course to reduce emissions to their 1990 levels by 2020 and reduce them an addi- CAP AND TRADE . . . tional 80 per cent by 2050." During the November Speech from the Throne, the Canadian federal govern- ment laid out specifi c promises on what it plans to do about climate change, in- cluding a vow to have 90 per cent of the country's electricity come from so-called low-emitting sources such as hydro, wind, and nuclear power by 2020. More contro- versially, the pledge included clean coal as one option for reaching that goal. The government also talked about joining the cap-and-trade system mentioned by Obama under a North American framework. Companies in Canada have tended to have a wait-and-see, and perhaps somewhat skepti- cal, approach to the WCI pact between the seven western states and four provinces. "The WCI is planning to roll itself out in 2012, which is exactly the time when the U.S. feds are likely to have their program ready to go. So, in the U.S., the federal government can simply pre-empt state programs — they don't have this constitutional problem that we have in Canada," says Gray Taylor, leader of the climate change and emission trading practice group at C ANADIAN Lawyer INHOUSE DECEMBER 2008 13