Attorney General rips San Diego Pollution-Reduction Plan

Attorney general rips San Diego pollution-reduction plan

The state attorney general issued strong criticism of the San Diego region’s draft transportation plan for the next several decades because it “sets too low a bar” in reducing pollution and contains “significant legal problems.”

The target of Kamala Harris’ critique is the 2050 Regional Transportation Plan and its companion piece, the Sustainable Communities Strategy, as well as the underlying draft environmental impact report. These documents, drafted by the San Diego Association of Governments, are a roadmap for the next 40 years of transportation and residential/commercial development in the county.

Within hundreds of pages of documentation, the plans lay out the county’s strategy for meeting state-mandated reductions in greenhouse gases, which are widely believed to contribute to global warming.

The reductions, under the plan, would be 7 percent by 2020 and 13 percent by 2035 through land use policy and expansion of public transit and highways.

Among the criticisms outlined by the attorney general in her 12-page letter to SANDAG are:

• That by merely conforming to state standards, SANDAG’s plan fails to address a region “already overburdened with pollution.”

• That SANDAG needs to identify minority and disadvantaged communities and better-analyze how their health would be affected by the transportation plan.

• That pollution will ultimately increase over the 40 years covered by the plan.

• That a “suite of strategies” outlined by SANDAG (roadway expansion, more public transit) do not deliver long term reductions in pollution.

• That SANDAG fails to fully disclose some of the methodology and models used to come up with its predictions.

Harris calls upon SANDAG to rework a number of parts of the plan to meet the state standards for air quality.

The staff of the California Air Resources Board, which is charged with setting and enforcing pollution reduction standards, is submitting a report Thursday which says the SANDAG plan does meet state standards.

In the largely positive report, the air board staff indicates that if SANDAG approves its own draft plan substantially as is in October, it should also be approved by air board. The San Diego regional plan is the first in the state to reach this level.

Lynda Gledhill, a spokeswoman for Harris, said Wednesday that the attorney general’s office has been monitoring the SANDAG plan because it is the first of its kind in the state.

While the tone and concerns of the letter may echo similar comments submitted by groups including the Sierra Club and the Cleveland National Forest Foundation, Gledhill said the report was generated internally.

The attorney general reviewed the plan, in part, to make sure it complied with state law.

SANDAG executive director Gary Gallegos expressed disappointment that the letter was received four weeks after a specially extended deadline for comments. But he added that Harris’ “comments will help us strengthen the air quality portion of the plan.”

He said that part of the concern results because SANDAG’s plan extends 15 years beyond the 2035 date set by the Air Resources Board. This is unchartered territory for air pollution modeling, noted Gallegos. “This one reason why the plan will get reviewed every four years. It will be reviewed 10 times by 2050,” he said.

Gallegos also noted that technological developments — much like the introduction of the electric car today — and alternative fuels of the future could dramatically change their projections in coming decades.

SANDAG board chair Jerome Stocks was less generous. “We just spent three years in a very public process to reach this draft,” he said. “If the attorney general wants to talk with us at this late hour — if they want to talk about the next RTP, good — we’re talking about in 2012.”

Stocks said he is “deeply troubled by the attorney general stepping out of the role as the state’s top cop and into the role of regulator. (The air board) is the regulator.”

Contact: bob.hawkins@uniontrib.com • (619) 718-5253