Sierra Club v. Merced County Association of Governments

Sierra Club and the Center for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit challenging the approval by the Merced County Association of Governments and its Governing Board of the 2014-2040 Regional Transportation Plan/Sustainable Communities Strategy and the environmental impact report (EIR) prepared for this project. The organizations alleged that the environmental review did not comply with the California Environmental Quality Act. Among the alleged inadequacies were failure to disclose the project’s greenhouse gas emissions in light of California’s long-term targets for emissions reductions and inclusion in the EIR of greenhouse gas mitigation that was “unlawfully deferred, unenforceable, vague, and not certain to occur.”