THE CALIFORNIA BUILDING Industry Association (CBIA) held a private meeting in May with state Attorney General Jerry Brown to discuss its concerns about a lawsuit filed by his office, which seeks to require San Bernardino County to rewrite its land-use plan to take into consideration the impact of development on greenhouse gas emissions.
The lawsuit comes on the heels of Brown's efforts to take on the federal EPA over tailpipe emissions and six lawsuits over development in California similar to the one against San Bernardino County, the bulk of which were filed by the environmental group Center on Biological Diversity.
Builders are miffed that Brown used a lawsuit to require San Bernardino County to adjust its 25-year land-use plan to comply with AB 32, a law signed last year by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger that requires a 25 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions statewide by 2020.
“How is the county supposed to establish a plan that people have to follow with no guidance, no policy, and no instructions on what to mitigate?” asks Tim Coyle, CBIA's senior vice president of governmental affairs, who adds that the state Air Resources Board isn't required under AB 32 to issue regulations until 2012.
Coyle says that, while the meeting with Brown was positive, CBIA will continue to fight any efforts to prematurely implement AB 32 through activist lawsuits.
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