Comment Log Display

Dear Chairwoman Nichols,

On behalf of the Los Angeles Business Council (LABC), we would like
to thank the California Air Resources Board for allowing us to
provide feedback on the 2017 Climate Change Scoping Plan Update. 
The Scoping Plan is of upmost importance to our membership as the
key driver of how we will achieve our ambitious and necessary
climate change targets in a manner that will best address
environment, economy and equity.

The Los Angeles Business Council is a vital advocacy and
educational organization, representing over 150 members that
support economic competitiveness and sustainability in the areas of
energy, transportation, and housing. The LABC was an early business
supporter of AB 32, which targeted a drop of GHG emission in
California to 1990 levels, and shortly thereafter, SB 32, that set
the target even lower to reduce GHG emissions by 40 percent below
1990 levels. Our membership believes that these crucial policies
help us achieve a cleaner environment, while making California
economically competitive by driving innovation and creating a new
clean-tech economy. 

We believe the Scoping Plan Update lays out an ambitious win-win
scenario of fostering substantial economic development while
reducing dependency on fossil fuels. Specifically, we support the
Proposed Scoping Plan Scenario including the extension of the
Cap-and-Trade Program post-2020 and strategies to for emissions
reductions at refineries. 

Cap-and-Trade:
As a business organization, the market-driven mechanism of
cap-and-trade has made the program attractive for our members as a
tool to reduce GHG emissions. Cap-and-Trade has also allowed for
investments to be made in areas of upmost concern to Los Angeles,
including affordable housing, transportation and equity. Several of
our members have been direct recipients of cap-and-trade funding
under the Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities program.
This includes the LA County Metropolitan Transportation Authority
who has received hundreds of millions of dollars to complete
projects crucial to the expansion of Los Angeles’ public transit
system that will reduce the number of cars on the road and help
connect Angelenos from their homes to their jobs. As California and
Los Angeles’ aim to address our affordability and homelessness
crises, the funding from the AHSC program has gone directly to help
building affordable and mixed-income housing to help alleviate
rent-burden facing so many Californians. We encourage including
more of a discussion on how cap-and-trade in California will set an
example for the rest of the nation to follow. As the program
continues to reduce emissions, while creating good-paying,
clean-tech jobs it will attract the attention of other state’s and
nations who will look to follow in California’s footsteps.

Transportation:
We applaud the Update’s inclusion of transportation as a key driver
of reducing GHG emission. We believe the development of the High
Speed Rail is a major development in California’s transportation
infrastructure that would supplant many privately used automobiles
and thereby decrease emissions, while creating jobs and economic
growth. We would recommend the addition of mentioning the growing
electronic rail system in Southern California and its impact on the
region. 

A Shift at the Federal Level: 
One other notion not addressed in the Scoping Plan Update has been
recent events occurring at the federal level. Although California
has made efforts to work in concert with the global community to
reduce GHG emissions, the new administration in Washington D.C. may
challenge our State’s efforts to be a leader in fighting climate
change. In the face of this face, we request that there is more
discussion in the Update on how California will maintain its
leadership role in preserving the natural environment, increasing
renewable energy/energy efficiency and potential avenues of
partnership and commitment to international treaties in the chance
that the federal government pulls its support.

We hope that our feedback informs the California Air Resource
Board’s Scoping Plan Update in a meaningful way. We believe that
significant strides have been made to lay out a substantive
blueprint to reaching SB 32 benchmarks. If you have any questions
regarding the remark made here, please contact us at your earliest
convenience. 

Best,

	          	      			
Mary Leslie	    Nadine Watt        Brad Cox, LEED AP
LABC President	    LABC Chair	       LABC Institute Chairman