Date: January 25th, 2012
Topic: Climate Change Mitigation, Environmental Assessment
Type: Lawsuit v. Other Public Entity
Jurisdiction: California
Citation: Cleveland National Forest Foundation v. San Diego Association of Governments, 180 Cal.Rptr.3d 548 (Cal. Ct. App. 2014)
In 2012, the State of California intervened in litigation alleging that the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) Regional Transportation Plan failed to consider the long term climate impacts in its environmental impact review. The plan focused on expanding freeway lanes at the expense of public transportation. Prior to the suit, The AG’s office sent a letter to SANDAG indicating that its draft Environmental Impact Review (EIR) was inadequate. The plaintiffs (Cleveland National Forest Association, among others) and the state allege that the EIR failed to adequately consider climate change and regional air pollution. The plaintiffs focused their attacks on failure to consider mitigation alternatives and greenhouse gas emissions; the state separately argued that the plan failed to address particulate matter emissions. In 2014, a California Court of Appeals held that the EIR was inadequate in the ways the parties alleged and required SANDAG to redraft the EIR to comply with the California Environmental Quality Act. The case is currently pending on appeal to the California Supreme Court (Cleveland National Forest Foundation v. San Diego Association of Governments, 343 P.3d 903 (Cal. 2015)).
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