Comment Log Display

As a land use and environmental attorney I have followed the
development of the Scoping Plan and the regional transportation
target closely. I do not have a client and I am not representing
any particular interest group or organization, but am commenting on
based on my personal views and professional judgment.

SB 375 requires CARB to participate in a collaborative process to
set regional targets for 2020 and 2035.  The variables between the
diverse regions of California are so extreme that without being
fully informed about them it would be presumptuous to set targets
that are either too high or too low for the state in the
aggregate.

The basis for setting CARB's projected overall goal for 2020 has
serious flaws, in that it is based on a "business as usual"
projection from the 2002-2004 average level of emissions to 2020. 
The projections for GhG emissions for the transportation sector are
made using the EMFAC2007 program, and it incorporates an assumed
increase in VMT in excess of population, which has been a
historical trend. The data from CARB's GhG inventory from the last
period of sustained economic distress in California, 1990-1996,
shows that GhG from the transportation sector actually declined by
4% during that period, and adjusting for population growth, per
capita GhG emissions declined by 10%. Presumably the same trends in
per capita VMT growth and population used in projections for the
Scoping Plan were still functioning -- why then did GhG in absolute
terms and in per capita decline in this period?  

I inquired about the availability of data for 2005 and 2006, which
would begin to reflect the slow-down in the housing market, before
its precipitous drop that occurred in 2007-2008. I am told that
data won't be available until January.

If history is any predictor of what we might expect to learn from
more current data, the sharp decline in the economy will result in
a significant decrease in VMT and GhG, whether or not any tighter
regulatory programs are adopted. When gasoline prices peaked
earlier this year, Sacramento Regional Transit reported a 25%
increase in ridership over the previous year.  Now that gas prices
have declined, fewer workers in large sectors of the economy in
construction, real estate, finance and related fields are commuting
because many have no jobs to which to commute.

It is difficult to predict how long the current slump will last,
but the scope of the problem appears to be must greater than the
fundamentals involved in the 1990-1996 downturn.  Many experts are
predicting that housing will not begin to recover for at least
another 3 to 5 years.  

One implication of this sobering reality is probably good news,
insofar as the predicted increase in GhG in the "business as usual"
scenario is likely significantly overstated. This will provide more
time to get a broad-based and locally fine-tuned program to
maximize benefits from transportation and land use changes put in
place for each region. Some regions are prepared to initiate higher
target from within. Other regions will face much more serious
challenges finding the resources to develop the systems to support
the changes needed. Forcing higher targets across the board when
serious questions exist about the need and the ability to achieve
meaningful results due to slow rates of growth is poor policy.

There is considerable confusion about what measures will be
expected to change VMT growth and land use development patterns
that can result in significant GhG reductions. For the 2020 time
frame, land use will not have had time to make a significant change
in the built environment because of lower rates of growth. Other
measures in the transportation policy toolkit that could have a
more rapid impact, such as congestion pricing, restrictions on
parking and improved transit and ride share programs in part funded
by the revenues from those charges, a "carbon tax" floor on
gasoline prices, are not within the legal authority of counties,
cities or regional transportation planning agencies to impose.

The slow-down significantly effects the amount of GhG reduction
that can be realized from new patterns of development (or forecast
from continuing sprawl development) because the fraction of the
addition to the existing built environment that occurs annually
will be cut by about 1/2, or even more.  There are about 13 million
dwelling units in California.  At the most recent peak of
construction, only about 150,000 single family homes and 60,000
multi-family units were built (2004), altogether less than 2%
annual addition to the existing built environment. By 2006,
single-family home production dropped about 104,000 units and less
than 100,000 in 2007. October of 2008 saw the fewest number of
residential building permits since records began to be kept in
1979, 27% less than the prior year. In 1993 and 1995 the total
number of new units constructed was only about 85,000. That level
of production of new units appears likely to continue for at least
another year or two.

The relative benefits of GhG reduction from leveling or decline in
VMT from new development and population growth also shrink as the
vehicle fleet becomes more efficient.  Although the forecasts show
that fuel economy and other technological fixes in gasoline powered
vehicles is overwhelmed if per capita increase in VMT continue to
exceed the rate of population growth, it also assumes that
development will continue to follow less efficient, auto dependent
sprawl development patterns. A number of structural changes in the
housing market soften the viability of this assumption. The shock
of high gasoline prices, however temporary in the short run, and
the tightening of credit, plus the aging of the baby boom
generation as "empty nesters" all have resulted in turning market
demand to smaller units on smaller lots and other higher density
product with urban amenities.

In short, "business as usual" is seldom "usual" for very long.
Events have occurred in the economy and finance sector which were
not included in the forecasting assumptions used to project
emissions growth from the 2002-2004 average (a market cycle peak)
to 2020 are clearly not valid.  The maxim to "drive 'till you
qualify" that fed the exurban residential growth boom and explosion
of VMT is now inoperative. The forces that impelled that type of
development (high land costs and difficulty and cost of development
in existing urbanized areas meaning home prices exceed consumer
ability to pay) will not be addressed by policies that drive up the
cost of exurban housing above the rhelm of relative affordability. 
Proponents of the view that the problem and solution is merely a
choice in urban form fail to account for these fundamental economic
realities. Suburban and exurban green field development was the
path of lowest cost and least resistance to providing housing
Californians could afford. Putting a cork on that bottle will only
increase pressure of an already inadequate supply to meet the ever
increasing level of demand.

There is another major structural flaw in the Scoping Plan.
Generally speaking, emission source sectors are assigned
responsibility for internalizing the cost of reduction measures,
thus squandering the opportunity to make the most efficient use of
scarce resources by prioritizing relatively efficient, low-cost
reduction measures for early implementation while longer acting and
more costly strategies are developed and refined. One example is
the potential to achieve significant reductions from increasing the
energy efficiency of the existing built environment.  Many existing
structures were built well before the implementation of energy code
Title 12 efficiency standards.  The reductions possible from
insulating and replacing windows and outmoded heating and cooling
units (about $12,000) could be achieved at a much lower unit cost
than would be achieved from pushing relatively efficient new
construction to Tier II with photovoltaic standards (approximately
#25,000) Shouldn't the Scoping Plan prioritize the most
cost-effective means of rapid reduction, while phasing in the
costlier, less efficient and more complex reduction measures over a
longer time frame? 

However, the Scoping Plan places retrofitting the built
environment for higher efficiency in the GhG reduction budget of
the utilities sector. Segregating sector budgets divides natural
syncronicity that could occur if all elements of the built
environment were factored together. Homebuilders have the skills
and the means to retrofit the built environment, but if that is not
linked with their efforts in new development, an opportunity is
lost.  If carbon credits could be aggregated and sold across
sectors to help provide a revenue stream to fund the more
efficient, least-cost solutions without further price pressure on
the housing sector many social policy goals could be served. The
additional unit cost of Tier II with photovoltaic standards for new
home construction could be in part absorbed with carbon credit
revenues, not government or utility rebates that are funded by the
taxpayer or rate-paying consumer.

More compact development and integration of uses to reduce VMT
will only accomplish so much without a huge public investment in
transit. New development cannot alone bear the cost, without again
dampening the level of development for which consumers can afford
to pay. Local and state governments do not have the means to make
this investment without significant changes in California's
Constitutional restrictions on public finance. (Props 13 and 218).

The San Joaquin Air Quality Enforcement District's experiment with
the Indirect Source Rule amounts to a "sprawl tax" to discourage
less efficient, more auto-centric development projects.  What it is
missing is the dedication of the fee revenues to improvements in
transit systems and other public improvements that are the
essential other half of the equation for the full promise of
decreased auto-dependency to be realized. It is also a form of
regulation of the design of development that would more
appropriately be exercised by counties' and cities' planning and
building departments, where it can be integrated with the planning
of the supportive infrastructure more compact development requires.
 The last thing builders and homebuyers need is another regulatory
counter to cross and set of fees to pay in California's incoherent
land use regulatory regime. 

Big changes that require establishment of new laws and many
complex and interactive factors need time, better sources and more
careful evaluation of the data which justify them. It is important
to begin the process, but not to assume we can fully understand and
can provide for all inter-dependencies and contingencies that may
be required.

Regional transportation and land use targets for GhG reduction
need to be based on broad public support and suited for the
particular challenges and opportunities of each region. The biggest
GhG reduction challenge is after 2020, which likely will require
about a 30% cut in per capita GhG. If the population increases
forecast prove accurate, Californian's per capita GhG emission rate
must be cut by 90% of the 2004 rate by 2050, to 1.4 metric tons per
person per year, which is about what the average citizen of
Columbia, South America, emits  There is time and unmet need enough
to set transportation and land use targets for 2035 and beyond,
rather than precipitously set targets that prempt the process the
legislature mandated be followed in SB 375.