Richardson and four other governors create regional climate change initiative

New Mexico Business Weekly - 2:58 PM MST Monday, February 26, 2007

Gov. Bill Richardson has joined the governors of four other Western states to form a coalition focusing on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Richardson and the governors of Arizona, California, Oregon and Washington announced the formation of the Western Regional Climate Action Initiative at the annual winter meeting of the National Governors Association. Richardson and Governors Chris Gregoire, Ted Kulongoski, Janet Napolitano and Arnold Schwarzenegger all signed an agreement that directs their respective states to develop a regional target for reducing greenhouse gases within the next six months.

During the next 18 months, they will devise a market-based program, such as a load-based cap and trade program, to reach the target. The five states have agreed to participate in a multi-state registry to track and manage greenhouse gas emissions in their region.

The initiative builds on existing greenhouse reduction efforts n the individual states, according to Richardson's office, as well as two existing regional efforts. In 2003, California, Oregon and Washington created the West Coast Global Warming Initiative, and in 2006, Arizona and New Mexico launched the Southwest Climate Change Initiative.

http://www.bizjournals.com/albuquerque/stories/2007/02/26/daily7.html

Richardson is making quite a few points at once!

to keep a low profile and wait to see if some of the others running for president knock eachother our, or to get a VP slot..

will pick him as her VP. I suspect Richardson will withdraw within the next 12 months and endorse Hillary.

I know you are just looking to stink up another Richardson thread, but VPs are usually chosen to provide some sort of balance. Lieberman was chosen because he gave Gore "distance" from Clinton. Cheney was chosen to give Bush credibility with the far right nutjobs, since Bush was at that time claiming he was a compassionate conservative.

Richardson's experience, the fact that he is from a southwestern swing state, his love of diplomacy, etc would make him a likely VP to about anyone. He was on Kerry's list.

shows Hillary lagging among Hispanic men, which is a voting block where a Richardson VP would help her.

Richardson would provide no ideological balance for Hillary because they are both full-on DLCers, but Bill didn't seek ideological balance in Gore (just like Kerry didn't seek ideological balance in Edwards) so there is no reason to doubt that the geographical and demographic balance Richardson provides Hillary would be enough.

You canbet they are the brains behind this!

Three this week!

a presidential candidate walking the walk on environmental standards

You know, on one point, Larry, on energy...

KING: You have 30 seconds.

RICHARDSON: Exxon Mobil announced $37 billion in profit. It's 65 percent dependence on imported oil. The president made that good phrase "addicted to oil." But few solutions, hardly any, you need an Apollo-like private-public partnership, renewable energy, fuel efficient vehicle, conservation, massive new research funds into especially solar wind and biomass. That's the only way out of this.

http://www.vote-smart.org/speech_detail.php?speech_id=149962&keyword=apollo&phrase=&contain=

Cause I like all of my Democrats.

Some more than others. Richardson in the more category! :)

Running for VP, and there's nothing wrong with that.

A successful Hispanic governor from a Southwestern state would round out almost any ticket.

And governors like Carter and Clinton had starts as slow as Richardson, since governors are usually not nationally known, unlike senators.

I would not be surprised to see Richardson as the dark horse candidate, just like Carter and Clinton were.

After Cuomo dropped out in 1992, Bill's biggest competition was a political nobody in Paul Tsongas.

And after Carter got the ball rolling his only competition was another governor in Jerry Brown.

Its very rare that we have a season with political superstars like Hillary and Obama both running, let along this early.