Washington state's initiative 937 and the environment: the emerging impact of grassroots movements on national policy

Albany Law Review, Summer, 2007 by Paul D. Trumble

(17) Although the seven proposals varied slightly in their respective methods of addressing global warming emissions, each had the shared goal of reducing emissions in future years. Some sought to reduce emissions to 1990 or 2000 levels via percentage decreases per year, while others sought to have incremental decreases in the amount of emissions over a fixed number of years. See John Larsen, Global Warming Legislation in the 109th Congress, WORLD RES. INST., Nov. 3, 2006, http://www.wri.org/newsroom/topic_content.cfm?cid=4182 (using charts to compare the seven proposals' impact on national emissions).

(18) Id.

(19) See infra note 20 and accompanying text.

(20) See Simon, supra note 9. Mayors from many American cities have agreed to cut harmful emissions in accordance with the Kyoto Protocol, despite the Bush Administration's failure to adopt the international global warming measure. E.g., Andrew Gumbel, US Direct Action: How American Cities Have Bypassed Bush on Kyoto, INDEP. (London), Sept. 1, 2006 (noting that over 300 American mayors have pledged to cut global warming pollution levels "to 7 per cent below 1990 levels by 2012").

(21) See, e.g., Shay Totten, Sanders to Push Global Warming Legislation in Senate, VT. GUARDIAN, Jan. 15, 2007 (addressing a bill to be proposed before the 110th Congress, the Global Warming Pollution Act, that aims to reduce U.S. global warming emissions to eighty percent below 1990 levels by 2050).

Paul D. Trumble is a 2007 Juris Doctor candidate at Albany Law School.