Sustainability in the Tar Heel State

I went to UNCW's Economic Outlook Conference today where the theme was sustainability. Besides the normal "our economy is in peril" outlook for the next year (which actually didn't turn out to be as pessimistic as the media would have you believe), the conference included a keynote speech by the director of energy for North Carolina and a few panels with local business leaders. What interested me the most was the keynote speech. The director mentioned multiple projects for energy conservation, recent regulations, as well as educational and training services that the state is providing. While all of these things are great (and some are quite surprising from a coal-powered state...), there was little mention of economic incentives. The closest thing to an economic incentive that was mentioned were subsidies for energy conservation projects and tax returns for other projects. While this is great, I wish I would've heard something about entering a CO2 permit system (such as the recently formed system in the NE...with fewer permits issued) or initiating a carbon tax. Maybe with a new president we will see more national attention on this issue as opposed to regional, but I'm not holding my breath.