Climate Change

Legislative Framework for Greenhouse Gas Regulation

California legislators have responded to climate change with some of the strongest environmental laws ever passed. Three prominent laws that will shape the Bay Area's efforts to regulate GHGs include:

Assembly Bill 1493 (Pavley)
Assembly Bill 1493, enacted in 2002, requires the California Air Resources Board (ARB) to develop and adopt regulations that achieve maximum feasible and cost-effective reduction of GHG emissions from passenger cars and light- and medium-duty trucks sold in California for 2009 and subsequent model years. Under ARB regulations adopted in 2004, automakers must meet increasingly stringent GHG emission standards that phase in between 2009 and 2016. California has committed to implement revised, more-stringent GHG emission limits by 2020 (the Pavley Phase 2 rules).

Assembly Bill 32 (Pavley/Núñez)
The California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, a groundbreaking law, which requires reduction of statewide GHG emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2020. This means cutting approximately 30 percent from business-as-usual emission levels projected for 2020, or about 15 percent from today’s levels. The ARB in December 2008 approved a scoping plan that outlines strategies the state will use to reduce GHGs.

Senate Bill 375 (Steinberg)
Senate Bill 375, signed into law in 2008, establishes a process for the ARB to implement AB 32 by requiring the Board to adopt by September 30, 2010, regional GHG targets for emissions associated with the automobile and light truck sector. Metropolitan planning organizations such as MTC are required to develop a Sustainable Communities Strategy (SCS) element in their long-range plans to strive to reach the GHG reduction targets. The SCS adds three new elements to the plan: 1) a land-use component; 2) a resource and farmland protection component; and 3) a demonstration of how the development pattern and the transportation network can work together to reduce GHG emissions. In the Bay Area, the provisions of Senate Bill 375 will apply to Plan Bay Area, scheduled for adoption in 2013.

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