Cleveland Nat'l Forest Found. v. San Diego Ass'n of Governments

• Decision Date: 13 July 2017
• Docket Number: S223603
• Citation: 397 P.3d 989,220 Cal.Rptr.3d 294,3 Cal.5th 497
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: CLEVELAND NATIONAL FOREST FOUNDATION et al., Plaintiffs and Appellants, v. SAN DIEGO ASSOCIATION OF GOVERNMENTS et al., Defendants and Appellants; The People, Intervener and Appellant. CREED-21 et al., Plaintiffs and Appellants, v. San Diego Association of Governments et al., Defendants and Appellants; The People, Intervener and Appellant.

3 Cal.5th 497

397 P.3d 989

220 Cal.Rptr.3d 294

CLEVELAND NATIONAL FOREST FOUNDATION et al., Plaintiffs and Appellants,

v.SAN DIEGO ASSOCIATION OF GOVERNMENTS et al., Defendants and Appellants;

The People, Intervener and Appellant.

CREED-21 et al., Plaintiffs and Appellants,

v.San Diego Association of Governments et al., Defendants and Appellants;

The People, Intervener and Appellant.

S223603

Supreme Court of California

Filed July 13, 2017

Kevin P. Bundy ; Cory J. Briggs, San Diego, Shute, Mihaly & Weinberger, Rachel B. Hooper, Amy J. Bricker, Erin B. Chalmers, San Francisco; Daniel P. Selmi ; Coast Law Group and Marco Gonzalez, Encinitas, for Plaintiffs and Appellants.

Frank G. Wells Environmental Law Clinic UCLA School of Law, Cara Horowitz and Jesse Lueders for Climate Scientists Dennis D. Baldocchi, Robert A. Eagle, Marc Fischer, John Harte, Mark Z. Jacobson, James C. McWilliams, Aradhna K. Tripati and Anthony L. Westerling as Amici Curiae on behalf of Plaintiffs and Appellants.

Michelle W. Anderson, Deborah A. Sivas and Luke W. Cole for League of Women Voters of California, Audubon California, Bike San Diego, California Native Plant Society, California Wildlife Foundation, Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment, Climate Action Campaign, Coalition for Clean Air, Committee for Green Foothills, Communities for a Better Environment, Defenders of Wildlife, Environmental Defense Center, Environment Now, Environmental Protection Information Center, Food & Water Watch, Friends of Harbors, Beaches and Parks, Greenbelt Alliance, High Sierra Rural Alliance, Hills for Everyone, Landwatch Monterey County, League to Save Lake Tahoe, Marin Conservation League, Mono Lake Committee, Mountain Area Preservation, Napa County Farm Bureau, SanDiego350, Save Mount Diablo, Save the Bay, Sierra Nevada Alliance, Sierra Watch and Solano County Orderly Growth Committee as Amici Curiae on behalf of Plaintiffs and Appellants.

Law Offices of Stephan C. Volker, Stephan C. Volker, Alexis E. Krieg and Daniel P. Garrett-Steinman, Berkeley, for Backcountry

Against the Dump, Inc., as Amicus Curiae on behalf of Plaintiffs and Appellants.

Julie D. Wiley ; Cox, Castle & Nicholson, Michael H. Zischke, Andrew B. Sabey, Linda C. Klein, San Francisco; The Sohagi Law Group, Margaret M. Sohagi and Philip A. Seymour, Los Angeles, for Defendants and Appellants.

M. Reed Hopper and Jonathan Wood, Sacramento, for Pacific Legal Foundation as Amicus Curiae on behalf of Defendants and Appellants.

Thomas Law Group and Tina Thomas for California Infill Builders Federation and San Diego Housing Commission as Amici Curiae on behalf of Defendants and Appellants.

Richard M. Frank, Jayni Foley Hein and Ethan N. Elkind for The Council of Infill Builders and The Planning and Conservation League as Amici Curiae on behalf of Defendants and Appellants.

Miller & Owen, Nancy C. Miller and Jennifer V. Gore for Building Industry

Legal Defense Foundation, American Council of Engineering Companies, Associated General Contractors of California, Associated General Contractors of America, San Diego Chapter, California Building Industry Association, California Chamber of Commerce, California Construction and Industrial Materials Association, Construction Industry Air Quality Coalition, Golden State Gateway Coalition, Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, San Gabriel Valley Economic Partnership and Southern California Contractors Association as Amici Curiae on behalf of Defendants and Appellants.

Remy Moose Manley, Whitman F. Manley, Laura M. Harris and Christopher L. Stiles, Sacramento, for California Association of Councils of Governments, Southern California Association of Governments, Metropolitan Transportation Commission, League of California Cities, California State Association of Counties, Self-Help Counties Coalition, American Planning Association-California Chapter, Association of Environmental Professionals and Riverside County Transportation Commission as Amici Curiae on behalf of Defendants and Appellants.

Kamala D. Harris and Xavier Becerra, Attorneys General, Edward C. DuMont, State Solicitor General, Mark J. Breckler, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Sally Magnani, Assistant Attorney General, Janill L. Richards, Principal Deputy State Solicitor General, and Timothy R. Patterson, Deputy Attorney General, for Intervener and Appellant.

Liu, J.

The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA; Pub. Resources Code, § 21000 et seq. ) requires that public agencies assess the environmental impacts of projects requiring government permits. The law is intended " ‘to alert the public and its responsible officials to environmental changes before they have reached ecological points of no return.’ " ( Laurel Heights Improvement Assn. v. Regents of University of California (1988) 47 Cal.3d 376, 392, 253 Cal.Rptr. 426, 764 P.2d 278 ( Laurel Heights ).) One of the impacts that public agencies must analyze under CEQA is whether a project will significantly increase greenhouse gas emissions.

In this case, the project is a regional development plan for the San Diego area intended to guide its transportation infrastructure from 2010 to 2050. The Attorney General and various environmental groups challenged an environmental impact report (EIR) accompanying the plan on several grounds. At issue here is their claim that the EIR failed to adequately analyze the plan's impacts on greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. In particular, the challengers contend that the EIR should have evaluated the plan's impacts against an executive order signed by Governor Schwarzenegger in 2005 declaring a goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions in California to 80 percent below 1990 levels by the year 2050. The EIR projects that under the plan, greenhouse gas emissions will fall through 2020 but then rise and maintain an upward trajectory through 2050. The challengers claim that this trend is at odds with the state's climate change goals, as reflected in the 2005 executive order, and that the EIR should have clearly analyzed and informed the public about that inconsistency. The San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG), the regional planning agency that issued the EIR, argues that it was not obligated under CEQA or any other law to use the executive order in its analysis.

We conclude that SANDAG did not abuse its discretion by declining to explicitly engage in an analysis of the consistency of projected 2050 greenhouse gas emissions with the goals in the executive order. The EIR sufficiently informed the public, based on the information available at the time, about the regional plan's greenhouse gas impacts and its potential inconsistency with state climate change goals. Nevertheless, we do not hold that the analysis of greenhouse gas impacts employed by SANDAG in this case will necessarily be sufficient going forward. CEQA requires public agencies like SANDAG to ensure that such analysis stay in step with evolving scientific knowledge and state regulatory schemes.

I.

We begin with an overview of the regulatory scheme by which this state seeks to address greenhouse gas emissions as part of a global effort to slow climate change.

In June 2005, Governor Schwarzenegger signed Executive Order No. S-3-05, which set overall greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets for California. (Governor's Executive Order No. S-3-05 (June 1, 2005) (hereafter Executive Order or EO).) The Executive Order established three general benchmarks: (1) reduce emissions to 2000 levels by 2010; (2) reduce emissions to 1990 levels by 2020; and (3) reduce emissions to 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. These targets were based on a scientific consensus that climate change was largely caused by human activity resulting in elevated levels of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere and that drastic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions were required to stabilize the climate.

As the California Air Resources Board (CARB), the agency charged with implementing the state's climate change policy, has explained: "The experts tell us that an additional increase in global average temperatures of just 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) is very likely dangerous. With a 2 degree Celsius increase, disastrous effects become likely, including more extreme and more frequent severe weather, more wildfires, greater frequency of droughts and floods, rapid and higher sea level rise, and increased habitat destruction and extinctions. These environmental effects will undoubtedly lead to serious economic, political, and national security disruptions.

"In order to reduce the risk of dangerous climate change, we must stabilize atmospheric levels of GHG [greenhouse gas emissions] at approximately 450 parts per million (ppm) by mid-century. We are fast approaching this limit.... [¶] In response to the challenge of climate change, California has taken a leadership role by committing to reduce its GHG emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 (about a thirty percent reduction in business-as-usual emissions in 2020) and to eighty percent below 1990 levels by 2050. The latter target is consistent with the scientific consensus of the reductions needed to stabilize atmospheric levels of GHGs at 450 ppm by mid-century." (CARB, Recommended Approaches for Setting Interim Significance Thresholds for Greenhouse Gases under the California Environmental Quality Act (Oct. 24, 2008) p. 3, fns. omitted [preliminary draft staff proposal].)

In 2006, shortly after the Executive Order was issued, the Legislature enacted the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (Stats. 2006, ch. 488, adding Health & Saf. Code, § 38500 et seq. ), commonly known as Assembly Bill No. 32 (AB 32). AB 32 partially adopted the Executive Order's goals by directing CARB to "determine what the statewide greenhouse gas emissions level was in 1990, and approve in a public hearing, a statewide greenhouse gas emissions limit that is equivalent to that level, to be achieved by 2020." ( Health &...