CARB Greenlights AB 32 Scoping Plan…Again

On Wednesday the California Air Resources Control Board (CARB) unanimously adopted a supplemental environmental analysis of its 2008 Scoping Plan and reapproved the controversial plan itself. The Scoping Plan is a blueprint for how the State will reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2020 as called for in the State’s landmark global warming law, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (AB 32). The plan includes a range of measures, including the market-based cap-and-trade program, touted by some and reviled by others.

CARB’s implementation of the Scoping Plan hit a road block earlier in the year when the San Francisco County Superior Court ordered CARB to set aside its approval of the plan as it relates to cap-and-trade and complete a more thorough review of alternatives to the plan’s proposed reduction measures. (See Association of Irritated Residents, et al. v. California Air Resources Board, et al., Case No. CPF-09-509562). CARB appealed the Superior Court’s decision and the Appellate Court granted CARB’s petition for a writ of supersedeas, staying the Superior Court’s Writ of Mandate and allowing CARB to move forward with its cap-and-trade rulemaking while the appeal proceeds.

Earlier in the summer, CARB Chairwoman Mary Nichols announced in testimony before the California State Senate Select Committee on Environment, Economy & Climate Change that CARB would defer enforcement of the future cap-and-trade program slated for 2012 until 2013.