U.S. GLOBAL WARMING and climate change policy is a hotly contested issue, one fraught with partisan bickering throughout the course of at least the last three presidential administrations. The official U.S. position has vacillated considerably over the last two decades, swinging from initial global leadership displayed during the very first climate change hearings in the U.S. Congress during summer 1988, to a mixed bag of sorts during the tenures of President George H.W. Bush and President Bill Clinton, to periods of obstruction and outright suppression of scientific studies during the early 21st century under President George W. Bush.

Despite this checkered past, though, a previously politically hamstrung United States is now making considerable advances in climate change policy. Thanks in large part to the federalist model ...