The Presidential Climate Action Project has issued a Presidential Climate Action Plan, proposing an action agenda for the next President with 300 specific changes in federal policies, programs, and statutes. Among the key proposals: Modifications in the federal Climate Change Science Program to restore funding for the Earth sciences and to pay more attention to regional and local impacts of climate change so that states and communities can better prepare.

Presidential Climate Action Project

Presidential Climate Action Plan (2.26 MB)

The proposal on the CCSP is on the right track. We will be putting forward additional and more detailed proposals for the next administration, on national climate change preparedness, priorities for climate change research and assessment, and reform and strengthening of the federal climate science research program.

Check out Joe Romm’s post on the plan on Climate Progress on December 3, and updated on Gristmill. An excerpt:

300 ideas in 100 days

Presidential Climate Action Project releases new plan for the next president

How ambitious should the next president be in tackling global warming? A document issued today by a team at the University of Colorado indicates that No. 44 can be, and should be, far more aggressive than any of the candidates has promised so far.

The Presidential Climate Action Project—a two-year effort headquartered at the university—has released a presidential action agenda that contains more than 300 specific changes in federal policies, programs and statutes, and proposes that the chief executive act on all of them within the first 100 days of inauguration, under executive authority or by championing them in the administration’s first legislative and budget packages to Congress.

The plan is being billed as not only the most comprehensive, but in many ways the boldest, climate action agenda yet put before the American public and the presidential candidates.

It calls for the U.S. to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions 30 percent below 2010 levels by 2020 and 90 percent by 2050, in part through an “upstream” cap-and-auction program that regulates the approximately 1,500 “first providers” of fossil energy—wellheads, mine mouths, etc. That regime is simpler to administer than mid-stream and downstream regulation, and would cover 100 percent of the economy….

The plan’s proposals span 13 different areas of government policy, including climate, energy, transportation, buildings, public health, natural resources stewardship, ocean ecology, national security, and agriculture. One chapter offers ideas on how the next president can mobilize the executive branch quickly for action, including how to expedite the process of appointing to climate specialists to key government positions.

The project, which will continue through inauguration in January 2009, is directed by former U.S. Department of Energy official William Becker at the University of Colorado School Of Public Affairs. Its 17-member advisory committee is co-chaired by former U.S. Senator and two-time presidential candidate Gary Hart, and noted green industrialist Ray Anderson, founder and chairman of Interface, Inc….