Franz Litz is currently engaged in advising the Western Climate Initiative, a group of western U.S. states and Canadian provinces developing an economy-wide cap-and-trade program. He is also active in ongoing state and regional climate action in the U.S. Midwest, and is part of a WRI team focused on informing the debate on climate change legislation in Washington, D.C., including how best to capitalize on state and regional experience in any future nationwide climate change program.

Before joining the World Resources Institute, Franz served four years as the Climate Change Policy Coordinator for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. In that role, Franz served as New York’s principal representative to the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), an effort by 8 Northeast states to implement the first flexible, market-based cap-and-trade program for carbon dioxide in the United States. During the first 3-and-a-half years of the RGGI effort, Franz chaired the group of state staff representatives conducting the RGGI discussions. As chair, Franz was instrumental in bringing the states to consensus around RGGI decisions. He facilitated the multi-state RGGI staff meetings, served as the principal author of the Memorandum of Understanding that was executed by the region’s governors in December 2005, and was a principal drafter of the RGGI model rule–the set of rules for the RGGI carbon trading program.

Franz is a member of the Advisory Board of The Climate Group, a worldwide non-profit organization dedicated to spotlighting positive action on climate change by businesses and governments. He also served on the California Environmental Protection Agency’s Market Advisory Committee that issued recommendations on how to implement California’s landmark Global Warming Solutions Act (a.k.a. “AB32”).

Prior to entering public service in New York in 2001, Franz practiced environmental law with the large Boston law firm Brown Rudnick. He is a graduate of Boston College Law School, cum laude, where he served as Executive Editor of the Boston College Environmental Affairs Law Review.