The Western Climate Initiative (WCI) Partners have recommended a comprehensive regional effort to reduce emissions of global warming pollution, combining a broad cap-and-trade program with complementary policies to achieve the WCI 2020 regional emissions goal.  As part of this effort, the WCI Partner jurisdictions formed the Complementary Policies Committee to address market barriers that can limit the use of low-cost GHG emission reduction options and examine opportunities to reduce emissions from a variety of sources, including from sources not covered by the cap-and-trade program.

• The recommended evaluation criteria for complementary policies;
• The policies recommended for further evaluation;
• Key issues or barriers to harmonization; and
• The benefits that may accrue to jurisdictions and businesses that operate in more than one jurisdiction if implementation is harmonized.

To provide stakeholders with an overview of this white paper and answer any questions, the Committee will hold a webinar on December 7th at 11am Pacific Time.  Information on the webinar is available here.

It is important to note that many important complementary policy initiatives are not proposed to be evaluated by the Committee because they are being fully examined and developed in other venues.  These other important policies are described briefly at the end of the draft white paper.  The Committee also realizes that there are important efforts underway that were not identified in the white paper and are seeking recommendations for additional policies to be considered.  To recommend additional policies for consideration, the committee requests that stakeholders provide:

• A description of the policy;
• The key issues to address or evaluate; and
• The potential benefits to harmonizing the policy across jurisdictions.