Sons of Kyoto.

ITEM: The Scripps Howard News Service for May 6 reported that "state governments, especially in the Northeast and on the West Coast, are stepping up efforts to reduce global warming in the absence of federal action...." Among these actions, noted the news service, the "Connecticut state legislature passed a bill that would set greenhouse gas emission reduction targets...."

BETWEEN THE LINES: Having largely failed on an international and national scale, some environmental fanatics have set their sights on the state level. The goal is the same: Impose an economically damaging regulatory scheme, supposedly to combat global warming.

Implementing statewide "Sons of Kyoto" would be expensive. Charles River Associates conservatively estimated that the "cost per Connecticut household of meeting these caps would be between $700 and $1,300 per year over the next three decades, accompanied by the loss of 20,000 jobs."

A study by the Heartland Institute determined that if Connecticut enacted legislation similar to Kyoto, "the average Connecticut household will pay more than $6,200 per year in higher-priced goods and services and lost income." However, as Heartland's James Taylor put it, this would have "no measurable impact on climate."

Ken Colburn, executive director of the Northeast States lot Coordinated Air Use Measurement, has opined that state action "cannot be a substitute for collective national action." Toward this end, Senators John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) plan to reintroduce their previously failed legislation.

How much "global warming" would that prevent? Environmental scientist Patrick Michaels has put it in perspective: The difference between doing nothing and passing the McCain-Lieberman bill would probably be 6/100 of a degree Celsius in a half-century.