Sierra Club v. County of San Diego

Environmental groups' challenge to San Diego County's Climate Action Plan.

Sierra Club and other organizations commenced challenges to a revised Climate Action Plan adopted by San Diego County in 2018. In one case, Sierra Club filed a third amended petition asserting that the County had failed to comply with earlier judicial directives requiring, among other things, that the Climate Action Plan contain enforceable measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Sierra Club and six other groups also filed this new lawsuit seeking to set aside certain portions of the revised Climate Action Plan and the supplemental environmental impact report on which it was based, and also to set aside a threshold of significance established by the County that the petitioners alleged would allow development not contemplated by a 2011 General Plan Update, so long as developers obtained offsets, which could be obtained out of state or even outside of the country. In the new lawsuit, the petitioners asserted that this “offshoring of GHG emissions offsets” had been done without proper review under the California Environmental Quality Act.