Governors of 10 Eastern States Form Regional Approach to Global Warming.

Byline: Stephanie Ebbert

Jul. 25--Governor Mitt Romney and five other Republican governors this week joined forces to tackle an issue that environmentalists say their fellow Republican, President Bush, has ducked: Curbing carbon dioxide emissions to control global warming. A total of 10 eastern states, convened by New York Governor George E. Pataki, plan to spend two years developing a regional market-based system to limit carbon emissions, in an acknowledgment that global warming is a current problem.

"Climate change is beginning to affect our natural resources and . . . now is the time to take action towards climate protection," Romney wrote in a letter to Pataki, sent Monday.

While the White House has acknowledged the effects of pollutants on climate change, it has downplayed the influence and questioned whether natural trends are more at play. Early in his administration, Bush angered environmentalists by backing out of the Kyoto accord -- an international treaty that called for the largest industrial nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Last month, the Bush administration was criticized for killing language on global warming in an EPA report on the state of the environment.

Yesterday, the White House announced a 10-year study on global warming that some derided as delaying action and obscuring the causes of a well-documented problem. The first goal of the White House study is to review the "natural variability" in climate change.

"I hate to compare my government with the tobacco industry, but that's what comes to mind," said William L. Pardee, Massachusetts assistant attorney general, alluding to the industry's stalling tactics against regulation of cigarettes.

Now, the governors themselves are taking action, and though they are treading lightly around the political issues, environmental advocates say their quiet boldness speaks to the scope of the problem. The United States is the world's leading producer of carbon dioxide, which many scientists believe is partly responsible for increasing the planet's temperature by one degree Fahrenheit over the last century. The Conservation Law Foundation in Boston reports that climate change is threatening New England weather conditions that shape colorful fall foliage, maple syrup production, and ski conditions, rendering climate change not just an environmental threat but an economic one.