San Diego Union Tribune reporter Sandra Dibble asked NACTS to provide some background and commentary on a potential new binational air quality control program between the U.S. and Mexico. The initiative was announced by Mexico's Secretary for the Environment, Juan Rafael Elvira Quesada, at the 2008 Border Governor's Conference held this week in Hollywood and hosted by California Governor Arnold Schwarzennegger.

The binational districts would “give us clearer control over emissions and allow us as a fundamental goal to have cleaner air,” Elvira said in a telephone interview from the conference.

We are keeping tabs on an interesting and quite vigorous debate on Canadian environmental policy that’s raging north of the border at the Calgary Stampede in oil-rich Alberta. Liberal leader Stéphane Dion’s “Green Shift” plan calls for raising taxes on activities that produce high carbon emissions coupled with broad-based tax cuts for individuals affected by the resulting rise in prices. The CBC reports that:

Dressed in a Stetson and a checkered cowboy shirt, Harper told a crowd of Conservative party faithful Sunday night at a Calgary Stampede barbecue that Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion's plan to shift taxes toward carbon-emitting industries and away from individuals would devastate the Canadian economy.