“The rumor of my demise has been greatly exaggerated.” So famously spoke Mark Twain, combating constant stories about his death. With the United States Senate abandoning efforts to pass CT legislation this session and with an unknown election result coming in November, the national press was sensing that CT in North America was dead or dying.

But earlier this week the Western Climate Initiative (WCI) proved that theory to be false and released their latest report –Design for the WCI Regional Program (Design Plan). This report outlines the basic program design parameters to be used by the participating partner-jurisdictions when their respective CT programs come on-line in 2012. The release of this document was intended to show that state and regional GHG efforts are continuing, particularly with a lack of national direction.