A bill scheduled for hearing today before the Legislature’s Natural Resources Committee tells Maine to do what it committed to do years ago: Work intelligently and incrementally toward reducing pollutants that contribute to climate change. LD 845 is a modest bill and would merely help Maine catch up with some of its neighbors, which already have such plans in place. But it is important to act on this global problem now that Congress has demonstrated it is incapable of acting.

LD 845 is expected to be further simplified today through an amendment by its lead sponsor, Rep. Ted Koffman of Bar Harbor. The bill, which is supported by the Department of Environmental Protection, would require the state to develop a plan to reduce greenhouse gases to 1990 levels by 2010 and then reduce them by another 10 percent by 2020.

The DEP would create a list of state-owned facilities and programs that create substantial amounts of greenhouse gases and develop ways of reducing the emissions and encourage businesses to voluntarily reduce emissions, many of which do it without being asked because being efficient saves them money. Compared with work being done on this issue in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, New York and New Jersey, these steps merely let Maine keep up with the pack.

The reasons for working with other states to reduce the effects of man-made climate change are compelling. More drought, harsher pollution, more extreme weather and resulting damage and more flooding are just a few of the results from the nation’s current path. Can humans adapt to such changes?

In developed countries, probably, for effects that are properly anticipated, but at a cost of health, quality of life and billions of dollars spent so that outdated coal-and oil-fired plants, inefficient automobiles and a generally wasteful fossil-fuel culture gets a free pass. It is a poor exchange.

Former Gov. Angus King committed Maine more than two years ago to develop and carry out an action plan on climate change, and while the commitment was sincere, the follow-through should have been more vigorous. The governor made this commitment along with the rest of New England’s governors and eastern Canadian premiers meeting in August 2001, soon after a report from the National Academy of Sciences requested by the Bush administration concluded the Earth is warming and human activity has contributed to this. In response, the governors and premiers agreed to the 2010 goal now in the Maine bill and suggested ideas for reducing gas emissions, from buying more fuel-efficient cars to reducing energy demands to encouraging the planting of native trees.

All very nice, but not very effective without a plan to make them happen. The LD 845 amendment is not the plan; it is the formal recognition that Maine needs one and the push to move it along. Lawmakers have a chance with this bill to let Maine lead by example and support Maine businesses that want to become more fuel-efficient. They should urge the state to catch up with its neighbors by approving this bill.