Big news from the White House today with the announcement that President Obama is taking the most significant steps ever for the U.S. in fighting climate change. California Governor Jerry Brown, Governor Jay Inslee (WA), Governor John Kitzhaber (OR), and Premier Christy Clark (B.C.) added their own statement applauding the President's action. It's exciting that we are seeing this type of action at the federal level given California's leadership on these issues for many years.

Last month, I was pleased to join other business leaders in supporting the state's first update to the AB 32 Scoping Plan -the guiding document for ongoing implementation of California's climate and clean energy law. We released a joint statement which said, in part: "California business leaders wholeheartedly support efforts to champion a rapid transition to a clean energy economy. The first update to the AB 32 Scoping Plan is a promising strategic plan for weaning our economy from expensive fossil fuels, putting a price on efficiency, and developing creative programs to accelerate the adoption of clean fuels, clean vehicles and renewable energy sources." You can read more in the feature story below or view the full statement here.

These sentiments were similarly supported in two prominent op-eds from Business Alliance founding member Tom Bowman (Bowman Design Group) in the Long Beach Press Telegram and Business Alliance member Mike Mielke (Silicon Valley Leadership Group) and Dan Adler (CalCEF) in the San Jose Mercury News, which you can find here.

You may want to check out an interesting TIME magazine profile on philanthropist and activist, Tom Steyer; I was pleased to be quoted in the article entitled "Green Giant."

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