GHG & CEQA Seminar - Program Materials

On June 10, 2009, Wendel Rosen presented this in-house seminar. State regulators from the California Natural Resources Agency, the Attorney General’s Office and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District came to Wendel Rosen to explain new CEQA Guidelines and their policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
   
PRESENTATION MATERIALS:
Click here to download a PDF of the presentation.

BACKGROUND:
In April 2007, the Office of the Attorney General sued San Bernardino County for failing to properly analyze GHG in its EIR adopted with the update to its General Plan. This lawsuit led to the passage of Senate Bill 97, which required the Office of Planning and Research (OPR) to draft CEQA Guidelines to advise lead agencies and the public of how the impacts of GHG should be analyzed and mitigated under CEQA.

The new CEQA Guidelines, as finalized and submitted to the Natural Resources Agency on April 13, 2009, are required to be adopted and certified not later than January 1, 2010.  These Guidelines as drafted by the OPR contain no quantitative amounts to determine what level of project or program emissions of GHG should be deemed significant. Furthermore, the California Air Resources Board has not developed any final rules concerning CEQA and GHG thresholds of significance and may not take a position in the near future – or ever. Consequently, the view of the Attorney General’s Office and our local air district, BAAQMD, will be essential to understand.

BAAQMD has already commenced the process through workshops and white papers to update its CEQA Guidelines, including the development of threshold of significance for GHG emissions, which may become the de facto standard used by lead agencies throughout the Bay Area.

SPEAKERS: