Gov. Corzine joined the growing list of state leaders who are taking the climate change issue into their own hands, after he signed an executive order that would dramatically cut greenhouse gas emissions. The order calls for a 20 percent reduction by 2020, which would cut its emissions to 1990 levels.

He gave the feds a bit of a jab in the process: "In the absence of leadership on the federal level, the burden has now fallen upon state executives and legislatures to lead the way on this issue, and I'm proud that New Jersey is helping to blaze that trail."

Jersey is also part of the Northwest's Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a ten-state effort, largely spearheaded by New York's former Governor George Pataki, to cap emissions from power plants and other sources by 2009.

So where's Spitzer on the matter? He's committed to RGGI, and he just set up a new Office of Climate Change that will add 12 climate experts to DEC. (A Times Herald-Record article says that right now there's just two, and one's part time.) The office is a big deal. California, who's been light years ahead of the world on climate change for a long time, is the only other state to have a climate change bureau at the state level. The office will work to implement and expand RGGI, and word on the street is that Spitzer is looking to make New York the national leader on this issue.