Bay Area Citizens v. Association of Bay Area Governments

The primary issue raised by this appeal is whether the Bay Area agencies newly charged by state law with adopting a plan to reduce regional greenhouse gas emissions from cars and light trucks over the coming decades should have relied on emissions reductions already expected from preexisting statewide mandates to fulfill their statutory obligation, rather than adopting regional strategies to reduce emissions beyond those already expected from the statewide mandates. We conclude, as did the trial court, that the relevant agencies correctly declined to count statewide emissions reductions in developing their regional plan because doing so would have been inconsistent with the statute, including as interpreted by the state agency responsible for implementing California’s greenhouse gas emission laws.

In 2008, the Legislature enacted the Sustainable Communities and Climate Protection Act of 2008 (Sen. Bill No. 375 (2007-2008 Reg. Sess.)), which we refer to as Senate Bill 375. Senate Bill 375 is one in a series of executive, legislative and administrative measures enacted to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and their adverse effects on our climate. Prior measures empowered the…