Environment committee  Definitely there are leaders out there, and the Pew Center has been engaged with a number of those leaders for our entire existence. When we started, we had 13 companies. Now we have 46, soon to be 47, and that's in our Business Environmental Leadership Council. All those companies have taken meaningful steps towards dealing with climate change, whether it's pushing forward on energy efficiency or whether it's doing in-house training figuring out how to manage their emissions.

Environment committee  That's correct.

Environment committee  I think it's important to realize that the Kerry-Boxer bill is one piece of this puzzle, because there is also this initiative that's been started by Graham, Kerry, and Lieberman. They have talked about putting out a framework. There was some suggestion that the framework would come out before Copenhagen, but now we know that's not going to be the case.

Environment committee  I think targets are very important for a number of reasons. Clearly, they focus the discussion, but in even a broader sense, I think long-term targets give folks the certainty that the policy will continue. If you're investing in electricity generation, you want to have that long-term certainty that if you put in your money today, it's going to be worthwhile in the longer term.

Environment committee  And I completely agree.

Environment committee  This is Janet Peace. I can tell you that the Waxman-Markey bill is over 1,400 pages, and that doesn't include the provisions of the Clean Air Act that are used by reference.

Environment committee  I have to agree. I think the level of detail in the bill was essential to get buy-in. At the very last moment 300 pages were added, simply to deal with the issues around agriculture. Having the detail in the U.S. bill, I think the policy-makers who are putting this together feel that is critical to get the votes.

Environment committee  I completely agree. The issue of price and linkage is really important. If the Canadian price were significantly higher, then what we would see here in the U.S., if buyers would be buying U.S. allowances and significantly bringing up U.S. prices, that would not be politically acceptable on the U.S. side.

Environment committee  It's a very good question. I believe there are a number of steps to getting it up and running. The offset portion, for example, will take a bit of time. I know for certain that much effort is actually ongoing currently. For example, the EPA is looking at offset methodologies, looking at the CDM Executive Board, what's come through there, what's coming out of Canada in terms of....

Environment committee  Canada is the United States' largest trading partner, and as such I think it's really essential that there be linkage between the two programs. However, just to echo what you've just heard, I think it will be difficult for U.S. policy-makers to factor in a harmonization goal at the same time that they're trying to get something through the Senate and the House.

Environment committee  There's the Pew Charitable Trusts, and we're the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. We're two separate groups. Speaking as the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, we have talked to a number of Canadian representatives about linkage, about different design options, but as official dialogue, we have not.

Environment committee  We have done quite a bit of work in looking at the benefits of acting and the costs of inaction, if you will. We have not done a cost-benefit type of analysis. We've looked at those done by others. We find that climate isn't the easiest to assess with a cost-benefit type of analysis, because the costs are easy, but the benefits are very difficult.

Environment committee  The Pew Center works with 46 mostly Fortune 100 companies. For them to be part of our Business Environmental Leadership Council, or BELC, they have to agree to four core principles. One of those is mandatory climate legislation. Within our BELC we don't have a framework that specifies what we think that legislation should look like.

Environment committee  I think it's an important foundational piece. I think it's not optimal. It's not optimal for industry to have a piecemeal approach. Now, if every regional program were absolutely consistent.... I have to tell you that the western climate initiative, the regional greenhouse gas initiative, and the midwest climate accord in the U.S. are talking and trying to come up with harmonized rules, because this harmonization is really essential for our cost-effective solution.

Environment committee  Yes, I am. California actually has a low-carbon fuel standard that it put forward and finalized this past summer. There was a letter that was sent by Congressman Waxman. His provision was included in another piece of legislation. I don't know if that has been fully implemented at this point.