Could your project be denied because of its greenhouse gas emissions? The idea is spreading like wildfire here
It sure is amazing how one government decision can issue a string of changes (even if they are in Washington and take forever to come to fruition). Such is the decision of King County Executive Ron Sims last June to consider climate change under SEPA.
SEPA is Washington’s State Environmental Policy Act. The decision means that any project that fills out SEPA paperwork in unincorporated King County, or where King County is the lead, has to measure its greenhouse gas emissions on a spreadsheet and hand them in to the country as part of its SEPA paperwork. Doesn’t sound like much, but if it leads to mitigation (which is the direction King County is heading here) it could mean time, money, and a lot more than just a piece of paperwork.
Already, King County is creating an ordinance that would let it deny or change projects that have too high of a greenhouse gas emission impact (deadline for commenting on that is May 19).
Read the timeline below to see how it’s spreading like wildfire in this state (and California). If you work on projects in Washington, you’ll probably have to consider this in the near future. If you’re not in Washington…. well, you might still have to consider this in time.
So how does it make you feel? Is this an unfair use of government power or is a realistic way to deal with project emissions? Let me know!
Here’s the timeline of what happened since the executive order:
August: San Bernardino County settles its lawsuit with the state on not including greenhouse gas emissions and climate change in its general plan. (more here).
October: King County’s regulation was supposed to go into effect but it was pushed back to October.
December: Seattle jumps on board and says same goes in Seattle as of March.
January: Jay Manning speaks at a Law Seminars International Conference with Jim Lopez of King County and says all projects in Washington should be considering greenhouse gas impacts under SEPA. He also says Ecology will issue a handbook for applicants to figure out how to comply. That handbook never surfaced and has been put on the back-burner according to Curt Hart of Ecology.
Wondering exactly what Manning said? “Anybody out there who’s got a project that has any sort of greenhouse emissions associated with it, they would be well advised to talk about that in their SEPA documents,” Manning said. “The (legal) risks exist today and frankly, I’m surprised that the litigation hasn’t surfaced.”
January: California’s Air Pollution Control Officers Association begins considering climate change under California’s version of SEPA - the California Environmental Quality Act.
March: Seattle’s SEPA inclusion of climate change goes into effect. Seattle uses King County’s spreadsheet.
May:Ecology announces that Manning mailed a letter April 30 to state and local jurisdictions that officially announces Ecology’s position on the matter. It says Ecolgy will look at the issue further, will convene a working group to look at the issue and could start amending SEPA, based on working group recommendations, in early 2009. To see the letter, go here.
Sometime over the last few months: According to Hart of Ecology there have been three new suits on the issue in California brought by private parties. One against a 1,500-unit project in Desert Hot Springs, one against a 2,700-unit residential and commercial project in Banning, and one against a commercial composting complex in Hinkley.
Of course, you have to give credit where credit is due and Washington can’t claim all of it. Massachusetts was actually the first state to jump on this bandwagon, though what year I’m not sure. Does anybody out there know?
Tags: California, Code issues, King County, Massachusetts, Projects, Seattle, SEPA, Washington State Department of Ecology
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October 13th, 2008 at 11:00 pm
Here is the summary of the background information for Massachusetts v. EPA. Hope this helps.
It was argued in front of the Supreme Court on November 29, 2006. The decision wa published April 2, 2007. However the case began its journey in 2005.
Essentially environmental organizations and state and local governments, brought an action challenging the determination of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) not to regulate motor vehicle emissions that may have contributed to global warming.
There was an interesting (surprising even) decision on standing, but the nuts and bolts of the GHG stuff is that are clearly within the Clean Air Act’s broad definition of an air pollutant and thatthe EPA had the statutory authority to regulate the emission of such gases from new motor vehicles. Without a showing of any congressional intent to bar the EPA from addressing global warming.
Also and importantly, the Court indicated that that global warming threatened serious harms, and policy considerations were irrelevant to the EPA’s statutory mandate to determine whether the green-house gases contributed to global warming and whether motor vehicle emissions of such gases could endangered public health or welfare.