ARB Board Considers Regional Targets Advisory Committee Final Report

Posted Dec. 7, 2009

On September 29, the Regional Targets Advisory Committee (RTAC) issued its Final Report, Recommendations of the [RTAC] Pursuant to Senate Bill 375. The California Air Resources Board (ARB) considered the Report at its November 19, 2009 meeting. One of the goals of SB 375 was to better integrate land use and transportation planning to reduce vehicle miles traveled (VMT) and the GHG emissions related to them. The statute´s approach toward this end was to call on ARB to develop regional GHG targets for regions covered by Metropolitan Planning Organizations - and to provide CEQA exemptions for local agencies where regional land use and transportation plans were consistent with reaching the targeted reductions. RTAC´s duty under the statute was to make recommendations to ARB regarding the development of regional targets, and its report provided a number of suggestions.

In the Scoping Plan adopted late last year, ARB projected a 5 million metric ton CO2 equivalent reduction from regional transportation planning measures in reaching AB 32´s 2020 goal of returning to 1990 GHG levels.

Since SB 375 and the Scoping Plan call for an actual reduction of GHGs related to transit and planning, both the RTAC Report and clean air and transit advocates at the ARB meeting emphasized that increased, rather than decreased, funding is necessary to achieve planning-related reduction goals. State raids on transportation and redevelopment budgets have actually reduced the levels of funds to rely upon.

Additional recommendations the RTAC made were:

• ARB should use a uniform statewide reduction metric, expresed in terms of percentage of transportation-related GHG emissions reduction per capita, for all MPOs, and the metric should be the same across MPOs at least for the initial period.
• ARB should develop a list of Best Management Practices (BMPs) with associated estimated reductions, and allow smaller MPOs to use them, given the lack of adequate modeling capability and resources for smaller MPOs.
• MPOs should be permitted to seek, and ARB should be open to allowing for a change in the statewide reduction target, subject to a “reasonably tough test.”
• More work should be done on quantifying housing and social equity benefits and their relation to the BMP list, MPOs should endeavor to quantify “co-benefits” regarding GHG pollution reduction strategies, and significant public education and participation should be part of the statute´s implementation to assure its success.