Reuters: Senate urged to let states keep climate plans (more stringent than federal requirements)

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-GreenBusiness/idUSTRE58064F20090901

Senate urged to let states keep climate plans

Tue Sep 1, 2009 5:13pm EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Five states have asked U.S. Senate leaders to let them impose stricter limits on greenhouse gas emissions than what would be permitted under the climate legislation working its way though Congress, saying both levels of regulation are necessary to fight global warming.

The climate bill the House of Representatives narrowly passed in June would preempt statewide caps on greenhouse gases, while cutting total U.S. emissions by 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020.

Senate leaders will reveal their version of the bill later this month and hope to vote on it later in the year.

…

"States should continue to be able to adopt caps that are more stringent than federal requirements in order to ensure that the ambitious targets set by the act, and required to avoid disruptive climate change, are met," the attorneys general wrote in a letter obtained by Reuters.

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[HillbillyBob]

1. We don't have to let our government be all end all.

By all means let states set limits.

WE as citizens can set our own limits too.
When our old (1990 Dodge Grand Caravan) finally kicked the bucket at 280,000 miles, we replaced it with a Nissan Versa the van got 19 mpg on the road the Versa has a good bit of room enough for 4 adults in comfort(even leg room in the back!) 5 if you're friendly. It rides like a bigger car, has plenty go..enough to get speeding tix w/o realizing it you can be doing 80mph! and it gets 36 37 mpg. We put a K&N high flow air filter in it last week, we should get at least 2 or 3 mpg. We also have a 1998 Dakota that gets 22 since making some changes, low friction Michelin tires (last about 80,000 miles) put in a K&N, tonneau cover and put a teflon based protectant, it is more slippery in the wind, sheds mud, the paint still looks showroom new. We try to keep both clean and use a car wash that recylces water in town. Make every trip count and do several errands each trip

WE have done a lot of little things round the house too, now we use only 1/3 of the heating fuel, added insulation, insulated curtain liners that I open during sunny winter days, in fact if the night temp only goes to 30 degrees or so then we don't even need to turn on the heat.
We use the small toaster oven instead of the big oven for many meals, cook in covered pots(30% savings), try to get everything you need out of the fridge at one time.

We have cut our carbon foot print from 12 tons to 3 tons in a bit over 5 years.
We always did do the reduce, reuse, recycle, and try to buy stuff that we needed not just wanted and tried to buy the least packaging possible.
We have been swapping our CFLs for LEDs as the CFLs that we bought 5 years ago.
Replacing old appliances as they die off for the highest efficiency we can scrape up the $ for.

[OKIsItJustMe]

2. Every once in a while I rave about my old Nissan Datsun 210

What LED's have you been going with?