Clean Start: October 20, 2011

Welcome to Clean Start, ThinkProgress Green’s morning round-up of the latest in climate and clean energy. Here is what we’re reading. What are you?

– California is poised to formally adopt the nation’s most comprehensive so-called “cap-and-trade” system, designed to provide a financial incentive for polluters to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. [Associated Press]

– A Canadian company has been threatening to confiscate private land from South Dakota to the Gulf of Mexico, and is already suing many who have refused to allow the Keystone XL pipeline on their property even though the controversial project has yet to receive federal approval. [New York Times]

– Democratic lawmakers, split over whether to support a massive oil pipeline crossing the U.S.-Canada border, continue to lobby the Obama administration on both sides of the question. [Washington Post]

– U.S. solar-equipment makers asked the government to slap duties on more than $1 billion of Chinese imports, joining the wind-power industry in seeking compensation for alleged unfair state aid undercutting American competitors. [Bloomberg]

– Leaders of nearly 200 major companies around the world have called for tougher action on climate change. The 2C Challenge, co-ordinated by the Prince of Wales Corporate Leaders Group, says that climate change puts society’s future prosperity at risk. But the window to keep global warming below 2C has “almost closed”, it warns. [BBC]

– Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has reached an agreement with Republicans to vote on President Obama’s Commerce secretary nominee. The nominee, John Bryson, has come under fire from Republicans for his previous support for cap-and-trade legislation and his role in founding a major environmental group in the 1970s. [E2 Wire]