It was another all-day hearing filled with testimony about the effects of climate change and about the repercussions of the California Air Resources Board’s (“CARB” or “Board”) proposed cap and trade regulation. It was a scene that has played out many times over the past three years.

Stakeholders were making one last argument in front of the Board before another vote on the initial version of the regulation. At the end of the day, the Board produced a unanimous vote in support of California’s fledgling market-based approach to reducing greenhouse gases. What it wasn’t, was an ordinary meeting. This vote was different. This vote was the final vote needed for program approval. It was the concluding vote in what had become a multi year regulatory development process aimed at establishing the nation’s first economy wide carbon cap and trade program.