Cowlitz County, WA, USA. There’s a huge demand for coal in right now in Asia, and states in the American West have plenty of it. But more use of coal anywhere in the world adds to greenhouse gas emissions. One state is arguing over whether to treat the concern about overseas coal shipping seriously.

When the Board of Commissioners in Cowlitz County, Washington, met a few months ago, they had a surprising guest: Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer. To point out the obvious, Schweitzer doesn’t usually attend local government meetings 400 miles outside Montana’s borders.

Washington, DC, USA. After steadily inching upward, the average pay for states’ chief executives slid a bit in 2010. A big pay cut in California offset a big raise in Tennessee and modest pay increases in a few other states.

Just like American workers, whose pay has slipped in recent years, the average salary of U.S. governors also has begun to slide. According to the Council of State Governments' most recent compensation survey, the average governor's salary was $130,595 in 2010 — down 4 percent from the year before.

Lansing, MI, USA. State-appointed emergency managers move into depressed local jurisdictions with the power to abrogate labor contracts and even break up local governments if deemed necessary for community survival.

Amid all the pleas being expressed around the country for drastic change to cope with state and local fiscal emergencies, one state has launched something pretty radical: Michigan has a new law dramatically expediting the process by which financially distressed localities can be taken over by a state-appointed emergency financial manager.

Salt Lake City, UT, USA. Business leaders and the Mormon Church helped one of the nation’s most conservative states enact a compromise immigration package.

Less than a year ago, Utah business leaders worried that their state would follow in Arizona’s controversial footsteps by passing tough new laws to crack down on illegal immigration.

Washington, DC, USA. A few years ago, the time for creating a large-scale cellulose energy industry seemed about to arrive but it hasn’t arrived.

“When people think of biofuel and ethanol, they think of corn and Iowa,” Sonny Perdue said four years ago. “But we will be changing that.”

It’s understandable why Perdue, who was governor of Georgia at the time, felt optimistic. He was speaking at the groundbreaking of a facility to turn wood into fuel, where a company called Range Fuels was supposed to build the nation’s first commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol plant.

Samuel Bodman, who was then the U.S. energy secretary, was there too, promising $76 million in federal money, vastly increasing Georgia’s $6 million commitment. Sun Microsystems co-founder Vinod Khosla was the facility’s major private financial backer. Perdue was hardly alone in seeing a new ethanol boom.