Transportation Solutions Defense & Education Fund v. California Air Resources Board

A California Superior Court dismissed a lawsuit challenging the California Air Resources Board’s (CARB’s) Scoping Plan Update prepared in 2014 pursuant to the Global Warming Solutions Act (AB 32) and the environmental analysis conducted for the 2014 Update pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). The court ruled that the petitioner, Transportation Solutions Defense and Education Fund (TRANSDEF), had not exhausted its administrative remedies because it had not raised certain comments related to an increase in greenhouse gas emissions that would result from changes to and delays in California’s high-speed rail project, one of the emissions reduction measures relied upon in the Scoping Plan to achieve AB 32’s goals. The court found, moreover, that TRANSDEF had not shown the existence of a significant impact associated with the delay in construction. The court said that TRANSDEF had made “very little attempt” to quantify the increase in greenhouse gas emissions associated with the delay. The court also noted that high-speed rail was only one of many measures CARB proposed in the Scoping Plan update to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The court also found that TRANSDEF had not established that CARB abused its discretion by not responding to comments. In addition, the court concluded that CARB’s approval of the Scoping Plan Update did not violate AB 32, even if the high-speed rail component of the plan would result in a short-term increase in greenhouse gas emissions during its construction while delays in construction meant that emissions reductions from the operations of high-speed rail would not offset the temporary increase by 2020.

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