By Katy Grimes

Just when Californians thought implementation of the state’s Global Warming Solutions Act couldn’t get any worse, it is.

AB 32, California’s Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, and SB 375, the sustainable communities companion bill enacted in 2008, both are under implementation by the California Air Resources Board. But CARB has taken a great deal of liberty, particularly with its interpretation of AB 32.

CARB devised a cap-and-trade system whereby it holds a quarterly auction program “requiring many California employers to bid significant amounts of money for the privilege of continuing to emit carbon dioxide — or be faced with closing their doors in California, laying off their employees, and moving their businesses to other states,” the Pacific Legal Foundation recently said.

The PLF ought to know. They are suing CARB over its cap-and-trade scheme, calling it an “unconstitutional state tax.”

Now, using the guise of AB 32 and SB 375 implementation, a new bill would assist the cap-and-trade program by directing the hundreds of millions of dollars of revenues into the “Sustainable Communities Infrastructure Program.” However, AB 574 by Assemblywoman Bonnie Lowenthal, D-Long Beach, also is about justifying the the cap-and-trade tax revenues for use on the California High-Speed Rail Authority.

While Democrats may hold a supermajority in the Legislature, Lowenthal got an earful from Republican Assemblyman Jim Patterson, R-Fresno, in the Assembly Transportation Committee Monday. (Video here)

Money to blow

If AB 574 is passed, Californians could expect to see a jump in the size of the massive state bureaucracy. This would allow for even more government waste, and the state would be exposed to substantial legal liability by improperly, and possibly illegally, authorizing the use of cap-and-trade revenue for high-speed rail.

Assemblyman Patterson lit into the bill with a directness rarely seen in California politics. “Are cap-and-trade funds going to be used for high-speed rail?” he asked Lowenthal.

But Lowenthal did not answer Patterson, and instead deferred to Jim Earp with the California Alliance for Jobs, the sponsor of AB 574. CAJ is a big supporter of public infrastructure and represents 80,000 union construction workers in the state.

“They could be used for rail modernization… yes, for high-speed rail,” Earp said.

Patterson asked Lowenthal and Earp if they or anyone had addressed the concerns the Legislative Analyst’s Office expressed over the use of the cap-and-trade auction revenues. But Earp insisted that the cap-and-trade revenues would have to pass intense scrutiny before anything was spent.

Patterson was not satisfied. “While high-speed rail could in the long run help reduce greenhouse gasses, not by 2020,” he said.

“I believe high-speed rail could support that,” Earp said.

“I want to know the justification and rationale for supporting this bill,” Patterson said. But he got no justification.

Patterson was referring to the LAO report, which found that construction of the massive rail project would actually increase carbon emissions. The LAO found that, because reducing greenhouse gases is not the primary purpose of high-speed rail, it would be difficult to justify how the cap-and-trade revenues could be used to pay the large capital costs, when it is not the reason why the rail system is even being built.

Transportation and sustainability

“For cities to remain habitable, profound changes need to occur both in cities themselves and in the ways they impact the surrounding landscapes and hinterlands,” the UCLA Center for Sustainable Communities claims. The center’s main research themes include:

* “Integrated social-biophysical research on human environmental interactions and their impacts and feedback loops.

* “Social justice and urban environmental sustainability through revitalizing and renaturalizing the urban environment.

* “Research and analysis of systems of governance and government for democratic accountability and greater sustainability.”

AB 574 establishes the statutory framework to be able to spend cap-and-trade auction revenues on sustainable communities plans. The Strategic Growth Council, only created in 2008, and the California Transportation Commission, in conjunction with CARB, will be charged with establishing the standards for the use of the cap-and-trade tax revenues.

Lowenthal told the committee that Sustainable Communities Strategies would create:

* “Livable Communities — Funding to increase transit mode share through focused transit expansion and ridership programs, transit-oriented development, and complete streets investment.

* “Rail Modernization — Infrastructure investments in high-speed rail, conventional passenger rail, and local mass transit that maximize system integration and increase rail and transit trips.

* “Infrastructure — Funding for infrastructure for smooth/GHG pavements, complete streets, ramp meters/traffic management.

* “Active Transportation – increasing bike and pedestrian trips and associated infrastructure.”

And CARB has indicated that 25 percent of these funds will be used to benefit disadvantaged communities.

But this is merely loosely worded language to allow the money go to “rail modernization,” as well as local transportation projects. And the only “rail modernization” taking place in California is the $68 billion high-speed rail scheme.

What is AB 32 and cap and trade?

AB 32 established the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions statewide to 1990 levels by 2020. Ostensibly, in order to achieve this goal, CARB implemented regulations to establish a cap-and-trade program that places a “cap” on aggregate greenhouse gas emissions from businesses and utilities, which CARB says are responsible for most of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions.

CARB issues carbon allowances and businesses are required to buy or sell these in the open market.

CARB has already conducted two quarterly cap-and-trade auctions, in November and March. Allowances were purchased by the regulated businesses in order to be allowed to continue doing business in the state. The LAO estimates roughly $660 million to upwards of $3 billion will be generated by the early auctions, and in the tens of billions of dollars over subsequent years.

This is the money Lowenthal wants funneled to transportation projects and sustainable community programs.

Authorizing the use of cap-and-trade revenue for high-speed rail could expose the state to legal liability, particularly if the Pacific Legal Foundation lawsuit against the CARB prevails.

‘Sustainable Communities’: Is this government housing?

Opponents of AB 574 say the Legislature cannot fund a program designed to dictate where Californians live, where they work, and how they travel. Nor should all Californians be forced to live in urban high-density developments, and be forced to use public transit, as the sustainable communities programs dictate.

This is government at its worst. This is central planning, which will force citizens into a government-sanctioned lifestyle incompatible with a free market economy. This is a fundamental threat to liberty. Yet this is what AB 32 and SB 375 really were about.

By DAVE ROBERTS

Like a giant octopus grabbing helpless humans in a horror movie, a new bureaucracy is squeezing the Bay Area.

One Bay Area is a plan to push Bay Area residents out of their cars and jam them into pack-and-stack high rises in the coming decades. The goal: cut greenhouse gas emissions and supposedly help save the planet from global warming.

One Bay Area is mandated by SB 375, the Sustainable Communities and Climate Protection Act of 2008. It was passed by the Democratic-controlled Legislature and signed into law by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican. SB 375 is not as well known as AB 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006. But SB 375 well could affect Californians’ lives more directly.

One Bay Area is supported by the Bay Area’s liberal politicians, planning bureaucrats, environmentalists, social justice advocates and other elites. The plan is scheduled to be approved by the Association of Bay Area Governments and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission in spring 2013.

Fighting Back

In the meantime, a few folks, many affiliated with the Tea Party, are putting up a fight, despite the long odds. A number of them raised objections last year at the first round of public input meetings in the nine Bay Area counties. And they did so again this month in the second round’s first meeting in San Francisco.

An additional 2 million people are expected to live in the Bay Area by 2040, bringing the current population of 7.1 million to more than 9 million. This will result in a need for an additional 770,000 to 1 million apartments, condos and houses. That’s a jump from the current 2.6 million units. And, theoretically, an additional 1 million-1.4 million jobs will be created to provide employment for them. That’s up from the current 3.2 million jobs.

One Bay Area is designed to accommodate that growth while meeting the SB 375 goal of reducing carbon dioxide, particularly from cars and light trucks, by 7 percent by 2020 and 15 percent by 2035. The five planning scenarios actually fall short of that goal. So more social engineering will be coming, in addition to One Bay Area’s realignment of land use policies.

The plan attempts to thwart individualistic human nature in the name of communitarian progress. Basically, people who live in the suburbs and drive to work are bad. Those who live in apartment/condo buildings above shops in mass transit-oriented villages where everyone walks, bikes and rides buses and BART are good.

Blowback

Sensitive to the blowback from suburbanites who cling to their McMansions and SUVs, Lou Hexter, the moderator at the San Francisco meeting, was careful to emphasize that the plan “will not prescribe what a property owner must do and will not change the authority of local jurisdictions to make decisions.”

But money is power. The Metropolitan Transportation Commission has the ability to determine where to spend the $256 billion that is slated for transportation improvements in the Bay Area in the next 25 years. If the Bay Area’s nine counties and 101 cities toe the transit-oriented infill development line, they are more likely to get a piece of that funding. If they allow more suburban growth, particularly into farms, orchards and open space, they could lose out.

In any case, those who prefer to drive where they want to go, rather than taking a bus to BART and then another bus to their destination, are likely to suffer in the coming decades. Despite an approximate 30 percent increase in population, under current plans roadway capacity is planned to increase by only about 7 percent between 2005 and 2035. The One Bay Area plan likely will not affect that much.

Double-Nickle Speed Limit

On the other hand, mass transit capacity is currently planned to increase by about 22 percent from 2005 to 2035. One Bay Area’s initial vision scenario would increase that to 55 percent.

The idea seems to be to make traffic congestion in the Bay Area, which is already among the worst in the nation, so horrible that tens of thousands of people, perhaps hundreds of thousands, will voluntarily leave their cars at home and instead crowd onto buses, trains and ferries. And if they don’t get sufficiently discouraged from the daily freeway bump-and-grind, the One Bay Area options include increasing parking fees and setting the freeway speed limit at 55 mph (on the rare occasions that such speeds would be possible).

In essence, One Bay Area is the San Franciscation of the Bay Area. So it was appropriate that two San Francisco supervisors who also sit on the Metropolitian Transportation Commission provided the opening remarks. They were David Campos (a leader on the board in sponsoring anti-business legislation) and Scott Wiener (who elicited national snickers by requiring nude San Franciscans to place a cloth underneath them before they sit down in public)

“We have to identify what our priorities are to make sure we have effective use of the limited resources, and equitable outcomes so we have a Bay Area that works for everyone,” said Campos.

“We can’t just bury our heads in the sand and pretend we won’t have more people here and don’t need more housing and transit infrastructure,” said Wiener, who touted San Francisco as leading the way in transit-friendly housing. He also put in a plug for High-Speed Rail, “despite the Republican and media feeding frenzy against it.”

Limited Info

The intent of the meeting was to inform the public — or at least the 100 or so people allowed in to each of the nine meetings — about the plan and gain their feedback. But the information provided was limited, general and vague. And public input was mostly circumscribed to fit the pro-urban bias of the plan. Participants were broken into three groups, who then rotated among three rooms that focused on either transportation trade-offs, quality of complete communities or the Bay Area in 2040.

Any doubt on whether the fix was in to turn motorists into an endangered species was dispelled in the transportation room. Participants were asked to select their five most important transportation investments out of nine options — none of which included building more roads. Most of the options focused on mass transit and pedestrian and bicycle paths. Participants were also asked to select “the five most appropriate policies to reduce auto emissions.” The final question asked whether they supported finding ways to improve public transit.

Blood, Sweat and Tears

The presentation on the quality of complete communities was, naturally, skewed in favor of transit-oriented villages on infill land. San Francisco was touted as a model of urban planning by Ken Kirkey, director of planning for the Association of Bay Area Governments. He said, “No place in the region has done more than San Francisco. There’s been a lot of hard work and pain and blood, sweat and tears in the city.”

Not everyone at the meeting welcomed the prospect of sharing or spreading San Francisco’s pain, blood, sweat and tears.

“There are lots of assumptions about complete communities,” said one man. “I hear they will work because we get neighborhood services so people can walk and won’t have to have a car. In my time in San Francisco, the local supermarkets have shut down, corner stores have gone away. People have to drive for services. Nowhere have I seen how those factors are addressed.”

Another man said, “This is one of the most superficial meetings I’ve been to in a long time. Things were skimmed over, videos were at a middle-school level. I’m shocked at the low level of discourse and ideas presented today. We were shortchanged by MTC and ABAG. Let people speak and listen to them.”

Criticism also came from a man who said, “I have a very hard time with this process. This notion of trying to urbanize and turn the Bay Area into Brooklyn seems like madness to me. Forcing people into four-story walk ups. Those are the places people fled from. These are not homes, folks.”

Frankenstein

One woman warned that One Bay Area could be a Frankenstein’s monster or Pandora’s box. “Whenever you plan and build for two million people, four million people will come,” she said. “Growth has some of its own natural limitations. What you’re doing removes those natural limitations. You are altering things, and there will be many unintended consequences. The densification theories you apply, apply to Europe. They do not apply to the West Coast.”

Despite the fact that nearly three-fourths of the participants live in San Francisco, they were split evenly on whether they support the One Bay Area plan. The tally was 43 percent in favor and 43 percent opposed, according to the electronic polling at the end of the meeting.

They also were asked whether they agreed or disagreed with the statement, “Changes will be needed in my community and lifestyle to improve the quality of life in the future.” On that question, 47 percent strongly disagreed, which was the top choice. Asked whether the meeting presented the right level of detail on the One Bay Area plan, 62 percent strongly disagreed.

Ironically, for a process touting the virtues of mass transit, at the beginning of the meeting the moderator announced that the shuttle to the BART station would stop running in 20 minutes. “If you need a ride, see us,” said Hexter. “We want to make sure you don’t have to sleep in the auditorium.”

Similar meetings have been scheduled in the coming weeks in the other Bay Area counties:

Regional Advisory Working Group
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
9:30 a.m.

Housing Methodology Committee
Thursday, February 23, 2012
10:00 a.m.
The Housing Methodology Committee meets on the fourth Thursdays of the month at 10:00 a.m.