The Incredible Shrinking Compact Clause: States Sign On to International Global Warming Effort

The International Carbon Action Partnership was launched yesterday in Lisbon. The effort comprises an initiative

to create an international forum of governments and public authorities that are engaged in the process of designing or implementing carbon markets. ICAP will establish an expert forum to discuss relevant questions on the design, compatibility and potential linkage of regional carbon markets. The forum will convene regularly and define a work program, including joint research and studies. It will identify barriers, including barriers posed by applicable state, federal and national laws, and it will identify solutions with the view to developing recommendations for consideration by each of the signatories hereto. ICAP aims to support the United Nations process on climate change by facilitating working relationships among governments and public authorities engaged in developing and implementing programs to combat climate change.

Among the 18 founding signatories are the UK, Germany, and New Zealand, and then California, New York, Maine, Maryland, and New Jersey. Yet more evidence that Washington is being boxed in on global warming. And what of constitutional constraint on this sort of activity? As long as states aren’t foolish enough to call their international agreements “compacts” or enter into undertakings that would otherwise violate the commerce clause, it may now be anything goes; and there’s nothing obviously wrong with this additional track to a higher international profile for subfederal actors.