Glossary

Enacted policies have been passed or established in a state by a governing body via legislation, executive orders, rules, regulations, and/or other program creation, and remain in effect.

In progress policies have been established in a state, but final regulations, rules, or plans are pending final approval. This also includes legislation and executive orders that require regulations to be put into effect.

Partially enacted policies have been enacted in the state, but are missing one or more policy components. Dashboard policies cannot be considered partially enacted unless policy components are available. 

Not enacted policies have not been passed or established in the state or are no longer in effect.

Policy opportunities are either partially enacted or not enacted.

A current policy scenario is a state-level projection of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions between 2020 and 2050, with the state’s enacted climate policies modeled. Projections are provided by the Energy Policy Simulator, managed by RMI and Energy Innovation.

A business as usual scenario is a state-level projection of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions between 2020 and 2050, without modeling a state’s enacted climate policies. Projections are provided by the Energy Policy Simulator, managed by RMI and Energy Innovation.

Policy components are a set of established criteria that, when fulfilled, suggest whether a given policy is effectively designed. Policies with missing components are considered partially enacted.

A policy area is the highest-level grouping of policies available on the Dashboard, typically categorized by sector or topic.

A policy category is a sub-group of policies within each policy area, based on common mechanisms or desired outcomes.

A policy is a program, legislation, executive order, rule, regulation, or other official document issued by a state government.

Year enacted is the year in which a policy was passed in a state.

Key resources are useful reports, toolkits, databases, or other documents that provide actionable information about a given policy area or policy.

Model rules are template guides that outline the policy language and design choices required to craft a given policy effectively in any state.

Model states are strong examples of a given policy, and have notable design features for other states to consider.

Establishing policies are the legislation, rules, regulations, executive orders, or other documents that enacted each policy in a given state. States can enact multiple establishing policies for each policy.