On June 30, 2016, California's First Appellate District
Court of Appeal rejected a challenge to a regional plan
("Plan") to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
("GHG") adopted by the Bay Area's Metropolitan
Transportation Commission and the Association of Bay Area
Government (collectively, "Agencies"), and approved by
the California Air Resources Board ("CARB"). Bay Area
Citizens v. Association of Bay Area Governments, et al., No.
A143058. Bay Area Citizens ("Citizens") filed a petition
for writ of mandate in August 2013 in the Alameda County Superior
Court to challenge the Plan and appealed after the Superior Court
denied the petition.
The Agencies created the Plan in response to legislation enacted in
California in 2008, known as the "Sustainable Communities and
Climate Protection Act of 2008" ("Act"). The Act
empowers CARB to set targets for each of California's regional
planning agencies to reduce GHG from automobiles and light trucks
in its region. In 2010, CARB issued its GHG reductions targets for
the Bay Area region, which specifically required the Agencies to
develop regional land use and transportation strategies that would
result in per capita percentage reductions in emission of seven
percent by 2020 and 15 percent by 2035, as compared to emissions in
2005. The Agencies complied, and the Plan was approved by CARB in
April 2014.
Citizens argued that, under the Plan, the Agencies imposed
unnecessary land use restrictions on the Bay Area to meet 2020 and
2035 emissions reductions targets. Specifically, Citizens argued
that the Agencies ignored GHG reductions expected from preexisting
statewide mandates, making the Plan unnecessary. Citizens' main
concern was that the Agencies planned to meet CARB's targets
"primarily through reduction in the vehicle miles traveled of
passenger motorcars and light trucks" resulting from
"high-density land-use patterns" and "construction
and extension of light and heavy rail." The Plan required
"78 [percent] of new housing and 62 [percent] of new jobs,
through 2040, to be located within priority development
areas," i.e., "'[l]ocations within existing
communities that present infill development opportunities and are
easily accessible to transit, jobs, shopping and
services.'" The new development was to be concentrated in
areas that covered only five percent of the Bay Area's surface
area. In Citizens' view, the Agencies unnecessarily adopted
"a draconian, high-density land-use regime."
Citizens relied heavily on the language of the Act, which states
that regional targets "must take account of" GHG
reductions expected from statewide mandates. However, the Appellate
Court explained that the Act requires CARB to consider statewide
mandates in formulating regional targets, not that the regional
agencies consider the reductions expected from the statewide
mandates in determining how to meet those targets. According to the
court, the "only legally tenable interpretation of [the Act]
is that it requires the Board to set targets for, and the Agencies
to strive to meet these targets by, emissions reductions resulting
from regionally developed land use and transportation strategies,
and that it requires those reductions to be in addition to those
expected from the statewide measures." If Citizens'
argument that the statewide mandates targets were sufficient for
the regional plan was correct, then the Act's requirement for
"an elaborate planning process" to create, adopt, and
approve a regional plan would be superfluous. The court ultimately
held that it was within CARB's discretion to require the
Agencies to "achieve emissions reductions entirely through
regional planning strategies so as to produce emissions reductions
beyond those produced by statewide mandates" and affirmed the
trial court's denial of Citizens' petition.
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