California and Greenhouse Gas Emmissions
Thursday, July 23rd, 2009
Over the last couple of years, California has adopted a couple of important pieces of legislation that are aimed at reducing the production of Greenhouse Gases (GHG). GHG emissions are major contributers to the problems of global warming. Through the implementation of Assembly Bill 32 (AB 32, 2006), the State of California is directing its regulators and citizens to reduce the production of GHG to 1990 levels by the year 2020.
Senate Bill 375 (SB 375, 2008), provides for the same levels of GHG reduction from new land development or redevelopment projects through a new system for land use planning focused on the reduction of vehicle miles traveled (VMT) by light trucks and cars. SB 375 also called for the creation of a technical advisory committee to advise the California Air Resources Board (CARB) on the methodology and policies to be used to calculate the GHG reduction targets for each of the regional planning areas in the state. I have the honor of being selected to serve on this Regional Targets Advisory Committee (RTAC) and have been doing so since its creation in February of this year. The RTAC report to CARB is due at the end of September.
RTAC is investigating the current status of transportation and land use planning tools in the 17 major Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) in the state. We are debating the merits of transportation modeling tools and policy programs. We are reviewing current published data on the issues and researching new ideas. Starting with our next meeting (August 5th), we will begin to put the structure of our recommendations into place.
August and September will be very busy months for the RTAC. We will be meeting for five or more days as we push our way through volumes of technical material and public comments. Balancing the current capabilities of MPO’s, CARB and local jurisdictions to implement new rules and guidelines for land use planning and transportation management is no small task. When you add in issues like the current economic conditions and the weakness of the California economy, the RTAC has its hands full … and then some.
If you are more interested in the workings of the RTAC and the details surrounding most of the information we are handling, you can visit the CARB website and the RTAC pages in particular. Our meeting notes, agendas and even the webcasts are all stored on the RTAC pages. I will try to keep you informed as we work our way into and through the recommendation process. Just check back here regularly for future updates.
