On April 24, 2007 BC joined Arizona, California, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington in the Western Climate Initiative (WCI). On May 8th BC announced that it would join the Climate Change Registry (TCR), a cross-border registry with 34 states, 2 provinces and 3 tribal members.

Representatives appointed by British Columbia's government participate on the Western Climate Initiative's five Working Subcommittees. Public input in response to Options Papers for the five committees is posted on the WCI's website, and during the week of February 11th toll-free conference calls will be held for stakeholders to discuss public comments on the five options papers. British Columbia has never seen such a wide open invitation for public input and participation in the formulation of public policy, but British Columbians can participate in the WCI's public process. The Business Council of British Columbia, the BC Forest Industry Working Group on Climate Change (representing 15 forest companies), and the Pembina Institute have done so, as well as dozens of US based entities including the City of Seattle.

While Premier Campbell has been silent on what his promise to reduce greenhouse gases means to BC, his delegates have been active on the WCI's subcommittees, which according to the Washington State website, will produce a regional cap and trade system by the end of August.

The submission from the Business Council of British Columbia is not yet available for download from the WCI's website, but on its own website the Council has a paper that discusses the Harper government's proposed framework for regulating air emissions, not to be confused with greenhouse gas emissions. The Harper government intends to regulate certain criteria air contaminants (CACs), particulate matter, sulphur oxides, nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds. The Business Council's paper argues that the Harper government's proposals suffer from "significant flaws". The Harper government's proposed CAC standards don't begin to deal with greenhouse gases (GHG); we can only guess that the Business Council's brief to WCI on GHG was similar to its response on CACs.

The submission from the BC Forest Industry Working Group on Climate Change to the subcommittee
answered the subcommittee's questions on whether third party verification of emissions should be required by saying:

"The Working Group believes that the WCI should not require mandatory verification. Rather, an approach similar to regulatory reporting should be embraced that requires regulated sectors to self report carbon using defined protocols and tools. The jurisdiction would have the right to audit the data as they do today in BC regarding all emissions reporting."

When BC's forest companies argue that there should not be mandatory third party verification of reporting requirements, but instead reliance on the system currently in place in BC, it makes one wonder how BC's current emission reporting requirements work. The Environmental Protection Division of BC's Ministry of the Environment has a website on industrial emissions. With a little effort, from there you can find a link to the Ministry's Field Manual for monitoring emissions, but you cannot find any report on an audit of industrial emissions of gases, greenhouse or criteria air contaminants. What you can find is a discussion of deregulation, substituting permits for "Minister's Codes of Practice". The Campbell government's first term enthusiasm once again comes back to haunt it when its emphasis on deregulation runs head-on into the requirements for a greenhouse gas cap and trade system. What is the forest industry so pleased about when it comes to BC's regulatory system? To answer that question a freedom of information request has been submitted for any audit reports that relate to the submission made by BC's forest industry to the Western Climate Initiative.