California pushes cap-and-trade program

California today issued the nation?s first blueprint for a broad-based cap-and-trade program to control global warming emissions, Margo Roosevelt writes.

The pioneering effort would cap greenhouse gases emitted by more than 600 power plants, refineries, cement plants and other big factories at 15% below today?s levels by 2020. And it would allow companies to buy and sell emissions allowances among themselves as a way to meet the overall goal less expensively.

The preliminary rule is a ?milestone ... to address our state?s contributions to climate change, as the eighth largest economy in the world,? said Air Resources Board Chairman Mary D. Nichols. 

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