Civic Leaders Explore Climate Change Legislation at Metro’s Second Annual Sustainability Summit
The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) today hosted its second annual Sustainability Summit for local city officials, government agencies and other key stakeholders to discuss climate change along with two important legislative bills AB32 – (Pavley) Global Warming Solutions Act and SB 375 – (Steinberg) Redesigning Communities to Reduce Greenhouse Gases.
Sustainability practices are designed to preserve scarce resources today for the benefit of future generations and encompass a wide variety of efforts from construction techniques that reduce energy consumption to recycling to water conservation to rideshare programs that also improve air quality and fight global warming.
AB 32 requires California to reduce statewide greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. This is 13 percent below today’s emissions and 28 percent below 2020 projected emissions. By 2050, emissions must be reduced 50 percent below 1990 levels. SB 375, also known as the Smart Growth Bill, focuses on reducing greenhouse gas emissions through reducing the number of miles that residential vehicles are driven from a given geographical point to another, and also through land use planning. An example of this is transit oriented development projects at Metro Rail stations.
"Metro’s Sustainability Summit focuses on engaging the policy and decision makers of our region to facilitate conversation and action in combating the effects of climate change and initiating regional collaboration for sustainability," said Metro CEO Arthur T. Leahy.
The morning session gave participants an overview of AB 32 and SB 375 requirements and protocol development. Panel members were composed of representatives from the State office of Senator Fran Pavley, the City of Los Angeles, the Southern California Council of Governments (SCAG) and the California Air Resources Board, (CARB).
The afternoon session featured concurrent breakout sessions on the practical approaches and regional implementations of AB 32 and SB 375. An update in regional sustainability efforts in Los Angeles County was presented by Patrick Stoner, director, Resource Conversation Programs, Local Government Commission.
Metro’s vision is to become a leader in maximizing sustainability efforts and its benefits to the region’s population, economy and environment. Metro is responsible for transit, carpool lanes, ridesharing programs, bikeways, pedestrian linkages and leveraging transit-oriented development at its transit stations. All efforts that help reduce greenhouse gases. Metro operates the largest compressed natural gas bus (CNG) in North America, with more than 2,500 CNG buses.
On the regional level Metro is partnering sustainability efforts with a number of agencies including the Metropolitan Water District, (MWD), the Air Resources Board, the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG), the City of Santa Monica, the Los Angeles Community College District and along with local agencies and Councils of Government to provide information about climate change and regulatory guides.
In this effort, MWD will follow today’s event with a Spring Green Fair, on Thursday, May 7 at its Los Angeles Headquarters Courtyard, next to Union Station, 700 N. Alameda Street, Los Angeles, 90012. The event will run from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and is free and open to the public.