more on CCS

When I first wrote about the Center for Climate Strategies last November, after they made a pitch to the state's climate change sub-cabinet, I got a lengthy response from someone at a conservative think tank called the John Locke Foundation challenging the group's claims of economic reductions in GHG emissions and its overall approach. When I mentioned it last week in a post, I got another response.
I'm not really in a position to judge, so here's a little more info on CCS, the charges against it, and maybe a few thoughts at the end.
CCS is a non-profit that helps states develop responses to climate change through a stakeholder process. It's currently working in 16 states, according to its Web site.
The John Locke Foundation is a conservative think tank that tackles all kinds of issues. It criticizes CCS for developing plans that raise taxes and dig into personal freedoms. Here's a Web site it developed specifically against CCS, and here's an example of a column written by an editor there, Paul Chesser, who contacted me last November.
As for comments made in the comment about the cost of the CCS process, I got my information from a public notice issued by the state, which said the $180,000 contributed by the state would amount to about 16 percent of the total cost of the project.
I certainly don't have enough information to judge the accuracy of CCS's claim that many of the recommendations typically made under its stakeholder processes actually save money, but the criticisms levied by Chesser and others don't really prove otherwise. They attack CCS is an activist group "Funded by wealthy liberals" and challenge that climate change is even an issue worth addressing. But I'll let you form your own opinion.
For now, the state money to get the project moving is gone from the budget anyway.