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The California Air Resources Board is on the verge of destroying the collaborative work of an unlikely coalition of environmentalists, labor, employers and municipalities. These diverse interests worked together to pass SB375, a bill to create more sustainable communities through regional planning. Now, CARB staff have issued SB375 greenhouse-gas emission targets that were never considered by stakeholders to the SB375 implementation process. Rather than keep all parties involved, the CARB staff has set lofty goals that communities realistically won't be able to achieve. ... The higher targets would have severe ramifications for our state's economic recovery. The MTC analysis indicated...

A Sacramento judge on Tuesday ordered Attorney General Jerry Brown to reword a ballot initiative that would roll back the state's landmark climate change law. In a ruling Tuesday, Sacramento Superior Court Judge Timothy Frawley agreed with measure proponents charging that Brown's office used misleading language when it drafted the initiative, Proposition 23. As the Democratic candidate for governor, Brown opposes Proposition 23 and supports the state's climate change law, AB 32. Frawley said use of the term "major polluters" in election materials carried negative connotations with voters and ordered Brown's office to use the less loaded term "major sources...

Many California planning and environmental groups are heralding the passage of legislation designed to address global warming by curbing suburban sprawl as a watershed moment, perhaps the state's most important land-use law in more than 30 years. "It's a sea change in the way we're planning and funding growth and development," said Stephanie Reyes, senior policy advocate with San Francisco's Greenbelt Alliance. "The winds are shifting, and this is the time to get on board." But she and other advocates acknowledge that the importance of SB375, signed into law by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in late September, lies as much in...

Many California planning and environmental groups are heralding the passage of legislation designed to address global warming by curbing suburban sprawl as a watershed moment, perhaps the state's most important land-use law in more than 30 years. "It's a sea change in the way we're planning and funding growth and development," said Stephanie Reyes, senior policy advocate with San Francisco's Greenbelt Alliance. "The winds are shifting, and this is the time to get on board." But she and other advocates acknowledge that the importance of SB375, signed into law by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in late September, lies as much in...

Economist Tom Sowell once aptly wrote that “there are no solutions; there are only tradeoffs.” This can be no better seen than in the recent enactment of California Senate Bill 375 which will unknowingly trade precious groundwater resources for “Smart Growth” anti-urban sprawl policies. Under this legislation water will no longer be gold in California ; ethereal concepts about reducing “global warming” and producing “green power” will be California ’s new fools gold. It is little wonder that California is experiencing a “perfect drought” with the adoption of such policies. SB 375 is a piece of legislation which requires regional...

The message delivered by Mary Nichols, chairwoman of the state's Air Resources Board, was clear: Businesses, especially small and midsize operations, will be the among the primary drivers behind the state's sweeping goal of reducing emissions to 1990 levels within 12 years. Underscoring that call to arms was the choice of venue. Nichols unveiled the fleshed-out plan at Advanced Micro Devices in Sunnyvale during a conference held by the Climate Group, a consortium of business leaders that released its own plan for helping employers toe the green line. The meeting was attended by officials from valley giants like Apple and...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Legal Newsline)-A Wall Street Journal opinion article that claimed California Attorney General Jerry Brown had waged "war on the suburbs" continues to reverberate around rural and suburban towns in California. Critics of Brown's efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and slow urban sprawl have another target, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who rekindled the debate when he signed pro-environmental bills earlier this month. Editors at the Sun-Herald in rural Colusa, Calif., which lies 90 minutes north of Sacramento, became the latest to rebuke the Republican governor for acting too much like the Democratic attorney general. "In his zeal to battle...

SACRAMENTO -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed first-in-the-nation legislation Tuesday that takes the campaign to curb global warming to the streets. The complex measure includes a series of incentives and penalties aimed at encouraging cities and counties to be more aggressive in enacting land use policies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions linked to global warming. Sen. Darrell Steinberg, a Sacramento Democrat who carried SB 375, said the measure "will be used as the national framework for fighting sprawl and transforming inevitable growth to smart growth. This is a historic day for California." The legislation would use up to $12 billion in...

California 'Central Planning'   If you live in California,  you already know  that the Inmates have taken over the Asylum.    ...If you don't want to end up 'living in a condo by the Railroad Tracks', do yourself a favor and either phone, or fax a letter to, Governor Schwartzenegger TODAY, urging him to oppose, and NOT sign SB 375.   See: http://reason.org/commentaries/staley_20080826.shtml for details... (...and see below for Arnold's fax number/address.) http://www.seadogbytes.com/sbimages/SB375_Steinberg.jpg   Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger State Capitol Sacramento, CA 95814 Phone: (916) 445-2841, ext. 0 (and tell them you oppose SB 375) Fax: (916) 558-3160  

Former Calif. Gov. Jerry Brown is waging war on California suburbs because of global warming, says Joel Kotkin, a presidential fellow in urban futures at Chapman University. Brown is concerned about the alleged environmental damage caused by the suburbs. He wants to compel residents to move to city centers or to high-density developments clustered near mass transit lines: • Brown has threatened to file suit against municipalities that shun high-density housing in favor of building new suburban single-family homes, on the grounds that they will pollute the environment. • He is also backing controversial legislation -- Senate bill 375 --...

SACRAMENTO – California is on the verge of initiating a historic rewrite of local planning laws, fusing for the first time the issues of urban growth and global warming. Unprecedented nationally, the complex legislation would steer communities toward land-use policies to contain sprawl, using as much as $12 billion a year in state-controlled transportation funds as an incentive. “This bill will change the way California grows,” said state Sen. Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, its author. Under the measure, the state Air Resources Board would establish targets for 17 regions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as part of a broader campaign to...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — For decades, California cities and counties knew one way to grow — by sprawling outward. That approach, which has led to ever longer commutes, jammed freeways and worsening air quality, is being challenged under a bill that was approved Saturday in the state Legislature. If signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has not yet indicated whether he would do so, the bill would require local governments to plan their growth so that homes, businesses and public transit systems are clustered together. The goal is to help California meet the emission mandates spelled out in a wide-ranging...

Shorter commutes. Less sprawl. Cleaner air. Denser housing closer to downtown near transportation hubs. "Smart growth" it's called. California policy makers have been yakking about this -- dreaming about it -- for decades. But too many interests have been prospering from dumb growth or have merely been skittish of a future they can't quite visualize. Enter a tenacious policy wonk with roots in local government: state Sen. Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento). He has just managed to finesse to the verge of legislative passage a visionary smart growth bill that, by its nature, also fights global warming. ... (snip) The measure (SB...

SB 375 requires all regional transportation planning decisions and all transportation funding to be limited to a “preferred growth scenario,” that requires a minimum housing density of 10 units per acre. It was adopted by the Senate on June 7, 2007. Here is Senator McClintock’s speech in opposition to the bill: Mr. President: This measure says that all transportation plans and transportation funding decisions must be made with the object of concentrating people in dense urban cores. In this bill, it is called a “Preferred Growth Scenario.” It says all transportation plans and funds must serve this “Preferred Growth Scenario,”...