Governors Making Progressive Environmental Changes on the State Level

This Salon article highlights environmentally significant gubernatorial races in New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Florida, arguing that it's at the state level where truly progressive change is happening on the environmental front.

For example: "Examples of ambitious state-level environmental initiatives are legion: Twenty-two states have implemented a renewable portfolio standard (RPS) mandating that a certain percentage of electricity come from clean sources such as solar and wind power. Ten states have followed California's lead in adopting clean-car legislation requiring new automobiles to have lower greenhouse-gas emissions starting in the 2009 model year. Seven states in the Northeast have joined the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, committing to carbon dioxide reductions of 10 percent by 2019. And California has, of course, outdone all the rest by becoming the first state in the nation to impose mandatory caps on greenhouse-gas emissions."

Speaking of progressive governors (or governors to-be) Spitzer does it again: Honeywell Inc. will spend $451 million to help clean up Onondaga Lake, once a sacred American Indian waterway turned into a toxic stew by a century of municipal and industrial pollution.