Climate Plan Shows California Can Be A Leader

Back in the 1950s and 1960s, California was a genuine public policy innovator. Since then, it has spent decades lost in details and diversions. But with the draft scoping plan for implementing the state's greenhouse gas law, California is once again addressing the big picture in creative ways.

Naturally, there will be arguments over details of the plan, but those are not as important right now as the state's willingness to take the public policy lead. The plan has been praised by everyone from the chairman of the UN's climate change panel to the usually circumspect local newspaper.