This is the first post in a three-part series on recent efforts to place justice and equity at the center of California’s climate plans. Part II and Part III will run October 11 and 12.
In a major victory for climate justice, California regulators recently announced significant improvements to the statewide plan, the AB32 2022 Scoping Plan Update, to reduce carbon emissions in the coming decades. The improvements came in response to guidance from California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), and to many groups and members of the public who called for a more ambitious and equitable plan to significantly reduce carbon emissions by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2045. The plan will be finalized this year.
The California Air Resources Board (CARB), the state agency charged with developing plans to fight climate change, strengthened the plan in response to a letter Newsom sent the agency in July. In his letter, the governor pressed the agency to more quickly reduce the state’s dependence on oil and gas in the transportation and electricity sectors; accelerate the deployment of offshore wind capacity; address pollution and emissions from methane leaks; incorporate goals for carbon removal in the final plan; and more.
The governor’s letter aligned with public outcry expressing similar themes. Over the summer, environmental and racial justice advocates, including the Center for Progressive Reform, and others decried the plan online and in person during a June hearing and in regional listening sessions in the Bay Area, Los Angeles, San Joaquin Valley and virtually from July through August.
Advocates and members of the public called for stronger commitments and protections for communities overburdened by pollution from fossil fuels, including diesel trucks, oil wells, and refineries. They also called on the state to use the plan to address the housing crisis, accelerate the deployment of sustainable transportation alternatives, and ensure that low-income people have reliable access to affordable electricity.
A Stronger Plan
The governor’s leadership and the efforts of advocates worked.
In September, the agency unveiled modifications to the plan, including more ambitious targets to reduce carbon emissions in the transportation sector (via increased targets for reducing driving, cleaner fuels for cars and airplanes); more offshore wind power and no new natural gas plants in the electricity generation sector; and more homes and buildings outfitted with electric appliances and heat pumps in the building sector.
The agency also revised their assumptions about controversial strategies like carbon capture and storage (CCS, a largely unproven process of capturing carbon emissions and storing them underground) and carbon dioxide and removal (CDR, the removal of carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere). Models used to inform the scoping plan will now reflect permitting for carbon capture and storage beginning in 2028, instead of 2021.
The final scoping plan will also include new CCS targets to accelerate the state’s progress towards carbon neutrality; call for safety around pipelines, injection sites, and other carbon capture and storage technology; and to prioritize nature-based carbon sequestration on natural and working lands.
The final plan also better quantifies the impact of climate change on overburdened and underserved communities, which are disproportionately low-wealth people of color. In addition to its assessment of the “social cost of carbon” (the damage to society per extra ton of carbon dioxide emissions), the final plan also includes a “community vulnerability metric” to identify more severe climate burdens in frontline communities and will assess economic impact by household income level and race and ethnicity.
Not Far Enough
The California Air Resources Board presented an overview of these changes at a joint meeting in September between board members and the Environmental Justice Advisory Committee (EJAC), the advisory group established under AB32, which aims to center environmental justice and engage disadvantaged communities in state-level climate planning. Environmental justice committee members welcomed the revisions but also said these changes are only necessary first steps and a more transformative plan is still needed to address historical racism and pollution in the most impacted and burdened communities.
At the joint meeting (covered in Part II of this series, to be published October 11), EJAC members recommended additional actions and strategies and engaged with CARB board members in a dialogue about including environmental justice priorities and for protections for communities in the final scoping plan.
Part III, to be published October 12, will examine the $54 billion spending package approved by the legislature and bills recently signed into law that will also significantly accelerate the transition to clean energy.
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Catalina Gonzalez | October 10, 2022
This is the first post in a three-part series on recent efforts to place justice and equity at the center of California’s climate plans. Part II and Part III will run October 11 and 12. In a major victory for climate justice, California regulators recently announced significant improvements to the statewide plan, the AB32 2022 Scoping Plan Update, to […]
Allison Stevens | October 6, 2022
From Florida’s sea-battered coast to small mountain communities in landlocked Kentucky, nowhere, it seems, is safe from flooding these days. Even California’s Death Valley — the arid trough in the Mojave Desert known as “the hottest place on earth” — saw record floods this year. Flooding is, of course, nothing new. The story of human civilization is […]
James Goodwin | September 29, 2022
Last month, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released what is almost certainly the best regulatory analysis it has performed in over 40 years. (To be clear, though, the bar for these analyses is pretty low.) More importantly, it provides President Biden with new impetus to finally follow through with the long overdue implementation of his administration’s “Modernizing Regulatory Review” memorandum.
James Goodwin | September 28, 2022
What does President Joe Biden believe on regulatory policy? It is striking that after 20 months of his administration, we still do not know. Unfortunately, rather than shed light on this crucial issue, September 29th's Senate confirmation hearing to consider the nomination of law professor Richard Revesz as the next administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) is likely to raise more uncertainty.
Alexandra Rogan, Allison Stevens | September 28, 2022
This month, three Member Scholars – Dave Owen, Rob Fischman, and Rob Glicksman – take center stage in the latest edition of Land Use and Environment Law Review (LUELR), an anthology of last year’s best writing on environmental law. In August, Member Scholar Rebecca Bratspies, earned the 2022 International Human Rights Award from the Centre for International Sustainable Development Law, and […]
Marcha Chaudry, Sidney A. Shapiro | September 26, 2022
As Cole Porter crooned in 1948, “It’s too darn hot.” California and other parts of the American West are heading into another week of excessive heat that not only threatens public health and safety but also power shortages, which would cut millions off from the energy they need to fuel their lives. Workers, particularly those […]
Daniel Farber | September 22, 2022
Since 1981, cost-benefit analysis has been at the core of the rulemaking process. The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), the so-called “regulatory czar” in the White House, must approve every significant regulation based on a review of its cost-benefit analysis. But cost-benefit analysis has had a major blind spot. It embodies techniques for analyzing possible harmful outcomes when the probability of those outcomes can be quantified with reasonable confidence. When those probabilities cannot be quantified (“deep uncertainty”), the analytic path is more difficult. This issue is especially important in the context of climate change, given the potential for tipping points to produce disastrous outcomes.
Allison Stevens | September 13, 2022
The founding of the United States was far from perfect, reflecting the deep flaws and exploitative practices of the founders themselves. But there was one thing they got right: They created a government charged, in part, with protecting the general welfare. That includes you, me, the American people writ large, and our environment. We at […]
Katlyn Schmitt | September 12, 2022
At the end of August, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed a draft rule to better protect people who live near industrial facilities with hazardous chemicals on site. The rule would strengthen EPA’s Risk Management Program (RMP), which regulates more than 12,000 facilities in the United States that store, use, and distribute significant amounts of dangerous chemicals.