U.S. Environmental Governance and Local Climate Change Mitigation Policies: California's Story

Lauren C. Heberle and Isabella M. ChristensenUniversity of Louisville, Louisville, KY

AbstractPurpose - This paper investigates local climate change mitigation planning in California with the goal of understanding how the relationships between the state, the local air agencies, and the localities within their jurisdictions shape the willingness and capacity of local communities to plan for climate change mitigation through greenhouse gas emissions reduction.

Design Methodology / Approach - Analysis of documents relating to localities’ climate change mitigation planning activities, including the production of action plans, general plan elements, emissions inventories, or official resolutions supporting mitigation planning, establishment of partnerships with other governmental and non-governmental organizations, and development of community input processes and planning committee membership and structure. Measurement and descriptive analysis of variables capturing 1) local air agencies’ institutional character, orientation regarding climate change policymaking, and mitigation planning activities and programs, and 2) localities’ mitigation planning processes and policies, institutional and demographic characteristics, and relationships with other sub-state entities working on climate change mitigation.

Findings - Intergovernmental partnerships can powerfully impact localities’ technical and financial capacities for pursuing climate change mitigation planning. This exploratory study points to the potential for strong leadership by air quality control agencies to greatly influence the decision of localities within their jurisdictions to engage in voluntary mitigation planning. Furthermore, decentralized collaboration does not prevent, and may encourage, policy harmonization through localities’ widespread reliance on the technical assistance from specialized non-governmental organizations.

Practical Implications - The findings might enable advocates of local-level climate change mitigation planning to target their resources for maximal returns in terms of geographic policy coverage and pledged GHG emissions reductions. Theoretically, this study contributes to discussions on the relationship between the quality of policy outputs and various forms of environmental governance.

Originality / Value - Climate change mitigation planning in the USA is in a formative stage. In fact, we found that even the California Governor’s Office of Planning and Research (OPR) must work continuously and with imperfect data to compile a list of the state’s local-level mitigation planning efforts. This study contributes to the growing body of knowledge of local planning policy innovations in California and highlights the importance of leadership from the regional scale for city-level engagement with mitigation planning.

Keywords – climate change mitigation, GHG emissions reduction, California, intergovernmental, networks, governance, scale

Paper type - Research paper

Introduction

The causes of and the potential solutions to climate change involve governments on every level -

global, national, state and local. In the United States, the lack of a national framework specifying

the roles of federal, state and sub-state institutions in addressing climate change has thrown these

institutions and their relationships to one another into a state of flux and creative disharmony.

Complicating the situation further is the fact that the form and function of environmental

governance vary across U.S. local governments depending, in large part, on the scope of state-

granted authorities and the capacities of the city and county governments. These variations

permit us to analyze the impact of inter-governmental relationships and local capacity on the

production of local climate change policy.

California continues to strengthen its leadership position in the national climate change

mitigation policy arena; having positioned itself as an environmental policy innovator among the

U.S. states, California is now pursuing internal policy coherency by utilizing increasingly tough

legislation as well as generous incentive systems to influence the policy agendas of its sub-state

governments. One clear example of this strategy is the landmark AB 32 and its companion bill,

SB 375, that together create a governance model in which the state air pollution regulatory

agency enjoys not only considerable control over the allocation of state funds for local air

pollution control activities but also a final say in local land use planning. How do the

relationships between the state, the local air agencies, and the localities within their jurisdictions

shape the local communities’ willingness and capacity to plan for climate change and green

house gas reduction or mitigation?

California provides an ideal context for studying local-level variations in mitigation planning

because it offers both consistency (the state actively supports policy innovations at the sub-state

levels; the localities experience the same larger economic and political context; NGO access is

even throughout the state; and the institutional relationships are dense, with every locality in the

state under the jurisdiction of one of the 35 air agencies) and variation (localities have

differentiated political and economic characters; local air agencies and localities have the

freedom to opt in or out of climate change planning; and local air agencies have varying areas of

expertise and capacity).

Background

The California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 was signed into law by Governor

Schwarzenegger in September, 2006. Known as Assembly Bill 32 or just AB 32, the law

establishes state greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction goals (1990 levels by 2020 and 80

percent below 1990 levels by 2050) and charges the California Air Resources Board (CARB)

with identifying and implementing the measures for achieving these reductions within a specified

timeframe. CARB can monitor and regulate GHG emissions in several ways: by developing

reporting requirements for GHG emissions; by devising rules, regulations, and strategies for

achieving GHG emissions reductions; and by meeting numerous strategy adoption and emissions

reductions interim deadlines. In December, 2008, following a number of public workshops and

comment periods, CARB adopted the Climate Change Scoping Plan (Scoping Plan) as its AB 32

compliance framework (CARB, 2008).

CARB monitors the regulatory activity of California's 35 local air quality agencies. Each of the

air local districts has statutory authority under federal law (the Clean Air Act, which enables

local agencies to regulate local stationary air pollution sources) and under state law (the Mulford-

Carrell Air Resources Act, which provides local air districts with primary responsibility for

controlling non-vehicular sources of air pollution); furthermore, although they are primarily

concerned with stationary sources, “local districts do have authority to implement control

measures which affect transportation sources, including automobiles” (CAPCOA, 2010). The

California Air Pollution Control Officers Association (CAPCOA) lists local agencies’ activities

as permitting, planning and research, rule propagation for emissions control, monitoring,

outreach and compliance enforcement (CAPCOA, 2010). The precise program of activities

varies by agency according to jurisdiction air quality issues (which differ for rural and urban

areas, for example), historical experience of the agency (considerable in the case of the Butte

County Air Quality Management District which dates from 1967 and formative in the case of

Antelope Valley Air Quality Management District which splintered from the South Coast Air

Quality Management District in 1997), and technical and financial capacities of the district.

None of the agencies is required to monitor or control stationary sources of GHG emissions;

neither AB 32 nor the Scoping Plan has (yet) articulated any responsibilities of local air agencies

in GHG regulation. Given the lack of a defined role for the local air agencies, the extreme

variation in the extent to which the individual agencies have voluntarily developed policies and

programs to address GHG emissions, both in their internal operations and in their outreach

efforts to other agencies and governmental units is to be expected. While some do not even

mention climate change on their websites, others dispense multi-million dollar loans to

encourage and support local governments to engage in GHG mitigation planning.

We ask how the air agencies’ policy positions interact with the interests and efforts of other sub-

state entities. California has 58 counties and 480 incorporated cities, every one of which is

located within a local air agency jurisdiction (League of California Cities, 2010). Hundreds of

these localities have committed to climate change mitigation planning by becoming signatory

members of non-binding emissions reductions agreements such as the U.S. Conference of

Mayors Climate Protection Agreement (USCMCPA), the Local Governments for Sustainability

(or ICLEI, an acronym referring to the organization’s previous name, International Council for

Local Environmental Initiatives) Cities & Counties for Climate Protection (CCP) Campaign, and

the United Nations Urban Environmental Accords. ICLEI (“AB 32 and Local Governments,

2010) claims that “local governments are integral to the success of the Global Warming

Solutions Act (AB 32)” because

Local governments control the day-to-day activities that determine the amount of energy

used and waste generated as well as the long-term planning for the community – from

land use and zoning decisions to control over building codes and licenses, infrastructure

investment, municipal service delivery and management of schools, parks and recreation

areas. Local government leaders are also uniquely positioned to influence citizen

behaviors – their transportation options, energy consumption patterns and general

consumer decisions (ICLEI, “Programs,” 2010).

Unfortunately, despite the interest among local governments in mitigation planning, relatively

few of California’s well-intentioned localities have translated voluntary GHG reduction

commitments into comprehensive policy or hard action. This is particularly vexing since local-

level interest in mitigation planning is well-supported by California’s leadership. Certainly,

California’s state and regional organizations have taken numerous actions to ease the

administrative, technical and financial burdens of mitigation planning on localities. One example

is the Local Government Operations Protocol, a tool to help local governments inventory and

report municipal GHG emissions that was jointly created by the Climate Registry, the California

Climate Action Registry, CARB, and ICLEI (Climate Registry, 2009).

Furthermore, localities that are not independently motivated to pursue mitigation planning are

wooed and even forced into the fold by state actions. Recent history has demonstrated that, while

California legislation does not mandate local action to reduce GHG emissions, it is possible to

use a number of pieces of state legislation to effectively limit local autonomy where local actions

threatens to interfere with the state’s emissions reductions goals. In an extreme example, a group

of so-called “climate change lawsuits” have utilized the reductions targets established by AB 32

in concert with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), the state environmental

review statue, to challenge decisions by sub-state actors that can be expected to increase GHG

emissions and therefore require mitigation plans.

California Attorney General Jerry Brown filed such a suit against San Bernardino County,

charging that the county’s comprehensive land use plan update failed to quantify and mitigate

GHG emissions or “explain how population growth predicted under the plan would impact the

State’s ability to attain the GHG reduction targets” established by AB 32. As a result, the county

must perform an inventory of current and projected GHG emissions; create and implement a

stand-alone GHG Reduction Plan; amend the general plan update to reflect mitigation planning;

and establish reduction targets and mitigation actions to address GHG emissions “attributable to

the County’s discretionary land use decisions and internal government operations” (Marten Law,

2007). In addition, Attorney General Brown has given other formal comments under CEQA to

several other localities (Office of the Attorney, 2007).

A less litigious yet equally bold strategy for achieving local action in support of state emissions

reductions goals is Senate Bill 357 (SB 357) which requires some of the state’s metropolitan

planning organizations to create a so-called Sustainable Communities Strategy (SCS) that will

“align regional transportation, housing, and land use plans to reduce the amount of vehicle miles

traveled and thus attain the regional GHG reduction target” (Garrett, et al, 2009). SB 357 further

requires that

funding decisions for regional transportation projects be internally consistent with the

strategy. In essence, SB 375 ties state transportation funding decisions to land use and

links regional planning efforts for transportation and housing. Local governments will

play an important role in designing and meeting these requirements in their land use and

transportation plans (City of Santa Monica, 2009).

Despite the many state-level strategies and the apparent interest of local governments,

California’s localities have been slow to generate climate change mitigation policies and

programs. The list of sub-state governments engaged in climate change planning compiled for

and by the OPR indicates that, as of October 30, 2009, only 43 localities claimed a GHG

reduction policy or program. In fact, as the following discussion makes clear, the situation is

even less dynamic than the OPR’s list might suggest. Similarly, The Public Policy Institute of

California published the results of a 2008 survey of cities and counties that found that only 7% of

the responding 280 cities and 30 counties had a completed plan, although 75% reported some

sort of climate change work being done. This report also states a main reason that localities cite

for not creating a plan is that they are waiting for more clarity in State level policy (Hanak, et al,

2008).

In the next section, we look closely at the localities on the OPR’s October 20, 2009 list. In

addition to noting the general characteristics of California’s local mitigation policies, we are

interested in understanding whether the localities that are actively creating or even executing a

mitigation plan are anomalies, motivated by internal and unique sets of characteristics or

circumstances, or beneficiaries of an effective and replicable governance model.

Data and Methods

The 43 cases in this study include the 37 cities and 6 counties included on the October 30, 2009

revision of OPR’s list of “plans and initiatives adopted by California cities and counties to

address greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions” (California Governor’s Office of Planning and

Research, 2009). Using the websites of the 43 localities, the 35 air agencies, and other state and

federal agencies as needed, we examine the localities’ mitigation planning documents, GHG

inventories, various institutional characteristics of the localities, and the relationship of the

localities to their local air agencies.

There are several data and methodological limitations that merit discussion. First, our non-

random sample is drawn from a list of cities and counties that is conservative; only those

localities that responded to the OPR’s request for information are included in our sample, but we

are aware of several more, like San Luis Obispo which had completed and publicly presented a

GHG inventory draft, who apparently did not ask to be included on the OPR’s list despite

meeting the requirements for inclusion (City of San Luis Obispo, 2009). We did not randomly

survey California’s 480 cities and 58 counties to determine the prevalence of climate change

planning since we would expect to get a response similar to that obtained by the OPR, which

expects that its list is representative “of local government plans, but is not comprehensive. . .”

(California Governor’s Office of Planning and Research, 2009).

Additionally, all of the data that we collected came from a locality or agency website. Our data

are therefore limited to those localities that have a web presence and reflect the extent to which

relevant information was made available to the online public. Finally, there are several, varying

data collection timeframes. Except where otherwise noted, air agency data was current as of

October 2009, when the OPR published its list revision, while locality information (including

plans and policies details and demographic and political information) was compiled as of

January 1, 2010 in order to capture the last full month preceding the change of administration

accompanying President Obama’s inauguration. We do not expect this to be problematic.

Locality Characteristics

Of the 43 local governments that reported climate change planning activities and policies, 72.1%

have a city council - city manager form of government. A majority (60%) of the cities operates

under a charter while the remainder formed under general law; in other words, the majority of

the cities in the dataset were incorporated under their own charter rather than under state laws.

All of California’s largest cities are charter cities and, more importantly, charter cities “have

broader powers to enact land use regulations than do general law cities” (California Governor’s

Office of Planning and Research, 2005). Most of the localities (53.5%) are urban areas that meet

the U.S. Census classification for a Metropolitan Statistical Area (having a population of more

than 50,000) (State of California, 2009; U.S. Census Bureau, Population Division, 2010).

Network Characteristics

We are interested in the context in which these plans have developed and whether localities

accessed external resources in the form of technical or financial assistance during the mitigation

planning process. (By technical assistance, we mean knowledge of climate change science and

policy or expertise with emissions quantification or other planning software.) Therefore, we

examine localities’ connections to their state and sub-state air agencies, external NGOs and, in

the case of cities, their counties.

Connections to air agencies

A total of 12 of California’s 35 air agency jurisdictions are represented in this data set. The 12 air

agencies included in this data set are all independent, stand-alone agencies that are not located

within a larger municipal department or agency; therefore, they enjoy a certain amount of

political, economic, and programmatic autonomy.

The Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD) contains the majority of the

localities (22) and the remaining 21 localities belong to the other 11 air agency jurisdictions, with

the South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) containing the next highest

number of localities with plans (7). This clustering effect presents somewhat of a problem for

analyzing variation across air agency jurisdictions, though we see variation across plans

produced within the BAAQMD jurisdiction; importantly, the clustering also indicates that

special attention should be paid to BAAQMD and SCAQMD.

The majority of the 12 air agencies had (as of February 2010) established internal policies to

mitigate emissions from their own activities and facilities. In addition, a majority (86%) of the 43

localities fall within the jurisdiction of an air agency that advertised a formal policy or program

providing outreach and support to localities engaged in mitigation planning; interestingly, only 4

localities received technical assistance from their air agency, including 3 within the BAAQMD

jurisdiction, and only10 localities received financial assistance from their air agency, with 6 of

these in the BAAQMD jurisdiction. There is a contradiction here in that while the air agencies

seemingly have good experience with establishing internal policies there does not appear to be an

indication that localities are receiving technical assistance from their air agency with the

exception of those in the BAAAQMD .

Connections to other sub-state entities

We cannot document with our data whether localities made use of county climate change

outreach programs. Even so, we find that 21 of the 37 cities with climate programs or plans in

the sample were located in counties with a climate change outreach program and five of the six

counties in the sample offered outreach to the cities within their boundaries. We also note that, of

those cities that completed plans as of January 2010, 57% were located in counties with a climate

change outreach program.

The majority the localities are signatory members of GHG reduction programs sponsored by

organizations like ICLEI, the USCMCPA, and the UN Urban Environmental Agenda. Most

(81.4%) have connections to ICLEI, and 67.4% of these received technical assistance from

ICLEI during the mitigation planning process.

The fact that cities with completed plans are likely to be located in counties with a climate

program and to have received technical assistance from ICLEI suggests that external resources

and support matter for local mitigation planning decisions. Furthermore, the influence of external

organizations like ICLEI that offer localities a set of templates and best practices can be expected

to contribute to the degree of policy harmonization among California’s sub-state plans. For

example, about 79% used ICLEI’s format for reporting GHG emissions by activity sector (i.e.

waste, water, utilities, transportation, etc.) and only 16.3% discussed climate change adaptation

planning.

Finally, we find that only 23.3% of the localities began mitigation planning efforts prior to the

passage of AB 32, a fact that suggests that most localities began mitigation planning efforts in

response to perceived state pressure or in anticipation of state or federal policy changes. The

23% who did begin plan prior to AB 32 passage could be considered innovators.

Community Involvement

We examined the localities’ and county websites for references to any sort of planning activity,

precursor campaigns, or other efforts to mobilize or involve the community in the mitigation

planning. We find that most localities (46.5%) did not document any such community

involvement efforts, although a sizeable percentage (32.6%) did. A near-majority (48.8%) of

localities posted process documents on the web, fulfilling requirements of basic public

disclosure.

Plan and Policy Characteristics

With an eye to understanding what process factors determine the form of a final policy, we focus

on the status of the plans, whether they utilized a best practice or template, and whether they

specified institutional changes, implementation plans, or funding sources.

We find that only 44.2% of localities indicated that their mitigation plans were completed and

adopted, while another 11.6% made completed plans available on the web but did not indicate

whether the plans had been adopted. A sizable number (30.2%) were under development.

Interestingly, 4.7% of the localities stated that their mitigation planning processes were meant to

yield guidance documents or general plan elements rather than stand-alone policy. The

remaining 9.3% had not yet begun the planning process and did not discuss the form of any

intended policy output.

We consider whether public participation levels might impact the rate of completion or adoption.

The openness of the processes varied among the localities, with 23.3% of planning processes

involving only municipal officials and experts, 32.6% of the processes open to the public, and

23.3% requiring some level of public involvement. Checking for a relationship between the

degree of public participation in the planning process and the status of the plans, we find

completion rates of 40% for plans associated with planning processes requiring public

involvement; 50% for those that were simply open to the public; and 80% for those that were

closed to the public.

We look for evidence of policy diffusion and innovation, finding that 46.3% explicitly

acknowledged using some combination of templates and best practice from another locality or

NGO; this percentage is sufficiently large to suggest that it is common practice in local policy

development to examine and adapt existing policy forms and information to local needs. We find

that, in terms of process and outputs, this ‘borrowing’ approach is distinct from defensive

planning strategies which evidence an anticipation or perception of state or federal policy

changes.

Climate change mitigation involves multiple policy arenas and cross-media considerations. This

kind of policy making is not readily suited to the structure of most municipal governments.

Municipal agencies and departments are often stove-piped so that policy areas are isolated within

distinct bureaucratic structures by ordinance, law, or tradition. Therefore, local institutional

structural change is sometimes necessary; 34.9% of the localities’ completed plans recommended

some level of institutional change, and 16.3% required or enacted the change. Additionally, close

to 63% of the plans specified implementation procedures and about 42% discussed funding

allocations (and one plan actually allocated funding).

Conclusions

While this exploratory study did not aim to demonstrate causal relationships, a few patterns and

ideas that emerged in the course of our study merit particular attention. Municipalities that

completed plans were more likely to have access to external resources such as technical

information, plan templates, and GHG estimation tools from their county, air agency, or

organizations like ICLEI. While innovators are important for establishing a path, real

momentum towards broad policy diffusion comes from those localities that build resources by

borrowing best practices from one another and utilizing outside knowledge resources. This will

be important to acknowledge as federal and perhaps international policies filter down to U.S.

localities. Templates, technical assistance, and access to best practice information will be crucial

tools as localities begin to develop their own capacity to create and implement their plans.

We also see that many municipalities recognize that institutional changes are necessary for

implementing plans. There is a broader move to undo the policy stove-piping that occurs at the

federal level which could impact how states and localities access federal resources and create

their own new structures to deal with climate change. That municipalities recognize this in their

own plans bodes well for future implementation.

Understanding existing organizational or institutional relationships and the lack thereof will also

be important as higher level policies are put in place. Intergovernmental partnerships can

powerfully impact localities’ technical and financial capacities for pursuing climate change

mitigation planning. This exploratory study points to the potential for strong leadership by air

quality control agencies to greatly influence the decision of localities within their jurisdictions to

engage in voluntary mitigation planning. Furthermore, decentralized collaboration does not

prevent, and may encourage, policy harmonization through localities’ widespread reliance on the

technical assistance from specialized non-governmental organizations.

This study is only an initial step in summarizing the state of local climate change planning efforts

in a state that is normally considered to be an environmental policy innovator. More systematic

information should be collected from a more comprehensive list of localities to provide a better

picture of the actual content of the local plans and empirical, grounded studies like this one

should be used to inform a larger dialogue about environmental governance of climate change at

the local level.

References

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City of San Luis Obispo (2009), Community and Municipal Operations 2005 BaselineGreenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory, available from http://www.ci.san-luis-obispo.ca.us/communitydevelopment/download/GHGInventory.pdf (accessed 25 April

2010).

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About the AuthorsDr. Lauren C Heberle is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Louisville, Louisville, KY. She is also Director of the U.S. EPA Region 4 Environmental Finance Center at the University of Louisville. She can be contacted at lauren.heberle@louisville.edu.

Isabella Christensen is a Ph.D. candidate in the Louisville School of Urban and Public Affairs, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY. She can be contacted at imchri01@louisville.edu