Citiwire.net

For Release Sunday, August 24, 2008
Citiwire.net

By William Fulton

In the age of climate change, California is once again on the cutting edge of environmental policy, busy figuring out how to implement its nationally-hailed new greenhouse-gas emissions reduction law. A big new question: how can “smart growth” be part of the answer?

There’s little question that California’s growth and development patterns will have to change significantly if the state’s greenhouse ambitious gas reduction goals are to be met. Technological fixes will only take the state so far, and even Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s own experts agree that “smart growth” must be part of the answer. But state officials are reluctant to dictate development patterns from Sacramento, so they’re trying to figure out whether incentives alone will do the trick. As Schwarzenegger’s chief planning deputy, Cynthia Bryant, puts it: “We need a carrot so big it’s a stick.”

The “carrot stick” is likely to be a requirement for a smart growth regional plan in every metropolis in the state, with the flow of transportation funding officially tied to implementing the local plans. This could be a national model of how to promote smart growth — if it passes the legislature without being watered down too much.

Two years ago, Schwarzenegger signed California’s AB 32, a sweeping bill that called for a 20 percent reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions by 2020 — the most aggressive state policy in the country. Since then, the state’s policy wonks have been trying to figure out how to actually implement the new law. The state has already enacted a new policy to reduce the amount of carbon in fuels. Schwarzenegger is engaged in a battle with the Bush Administration over higher fuel economy standards for California only. And now the state is on the verge of passing a law that would implement the requirement for smart growth development patterns at the regional level as well.

This is nothing new. Big enough to be a country — and innovative enough to be one of the world’s most powerful economies all on its own — California has led the nation in cleaning up the environment since the 1970s, starting with requirements for more fuel-efficient appliances rather than building more nuclear power plants. Californians’ per capita use of electricity has been flat or declining for 25 years. On tougher tailpipe standards that the United States followed (at least until the Bush administration balked), on measures to reduce the carbon intensity of gasoline, on new “green building” practices and other measures, it’s consistently led the conservation parade.

But now comes the smart growth challenge. Everyone agrees that all technological breakthroughs are likely to achieve only 85-90 percent of the reductions required to meet the targets in AB 32. Some kind of change in growth and development patterns is required as well — one that can permanently reduce the overall amount of driving in the Golden State.

Attorney General Jerry Brown — the odds-on favorite for governor in 2010 — jumped out front on this one, claiming that new state law requires local governments to measure and minimize emissions from new development. Brown sued San Bernardino County — the largest county in the country, and one of the most conservative in the state — to make his point. The county settled out by agreeing to inventory its greenhouse gas emissions and revise its General Plan to minimize the increase in emissions.

But the law Brown sued under — California’s version of the National Environmental Policy Act — only requires local governments to undertake “feasible mitigation measures” in protecting environmental quality. So while it’s likely that Brown’s action will mean that new development will cause the emission of less greenhouse gas than before, it’s not likely that actual emissions will go down as a result.

Meanwhile, Darrell Steinberg — one of California’s most powerful state legislators — has been working for two years on a bill (SB 375) that would tie state transportation money to regional smart growth plans to reduce driving. All four major metropolitan regions in the state are already working on such plans but the Steinberg bill would provide a powerful incentive to actually implement those plans by directing transportation dollars toward infill locations and transit-oriented development projects. (In California, the regional planning agencies, not the state Department of Transportation, make most decisions about how to spend transportation money.)

In order to keep the bill alive, Steinberg has had to insert all kinds of caveats protecting local governments’ power over land-use planning. Nevertheless, the bill is likely to move to Schwarzenegger’s desk this month — and the governor will have to sign the bill in order to show he is sticking to his word on climate change. If California moves forward on a smart-growth approach to climate change, it will be a powerful precedent that reformers in other states can capitalize on.