With due appreciation to the organizers and sponsors of this week’s California APA conference, there’s been a lot of food to keep over 1,500 planners sustained and energized this week. >>read more

Burden to hit 2030 target will fall especially hard on MPOs if cap-and-trade program goes away. >>read more

This morning, Hector Tobar, a respected Los Angeles-area commentator, personally heaped all the ecological sins of humankind on to the current residents of Los Angeles in an editorial in the New York Times, a publication that has gotten increasingly feisty about its hatred for California of late. Tobar writes:  

This week, Gov. Jerry Brown announced an executive order to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 40% from 1990 levels by 2030. It's being hailed as the most aggressive climate change policy pursued by any government in North America – but will it put the squeeze on California's metropolitan planning organizations and their sustainable communities strategies?

Brown's order has drawn attention for its combination of ambition and immediacy. But it does not come out of thin air. Brown's 2030 targets fit, substantively and chronologically, between those of Fran Pavley's 2006 law Assembly Bill 32, which mandates lowering GHG emissions to 1990 levels by 2010, and former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's goals of 80 percent reduction by 2050, also established by executive order. Meeting them means that, in relatively short order, California will look, drive, and power itself far differently than it does today — especially as its population continues to rise. 

The order requires all state agencies with jurisdiction over sources of greenhouse gas emissions to participate. Agencies must prepare implementation plans by September 2015, with guidance from a technical advisory group that will be set up by the Governor's Office of Planning and Research. 

As the inane "debate" over climate change drags on in the more benighted corners of our republic (Washington, D.C., included), it's becoming abundantly clear that California is no longer the place where America's fruits, nuts, and loose ends come to rest. I've been on the periphery of the stateside discussion of SB 375 for the past two years, so I know that it's not news to say that there have been many earnest, productive discussions about it across the state.

As the inane "debate" over climate change drags on in the more ignorant corners of our republic (Washington, D.C., included), it's becoming abundantly clear that California is no longer the place where America's fruits, nuts, and loose ends come to rest. I've been on the periphery of the stateside discussion of SB 375 for the past two years, so I know that it's not news to say that there have been many earnest, productive discussions about it across the state.

You may not yet have heard, but tanks are massing on the border of Santa Clarita. 

The entire California planning world now seems to revolve around combating climate change and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. But Proposition 23 – a long-term suspension of the state's climate-change law – is on the ballot this fall. The proposition is behind at the polls – but if it passes – will that be the end of SB 375, Sustainable Communities Strategies, greenhouse gas emissions analyses in environmental impact reports, and the whole industry that has been built up around climate change planning?