Orange County Supervisors signed off on the county\u2019s first climate action plan after an hour of debating how much they could water it down and still receive state grant funding.\u00a0<\/p>\n
While the plan encourages electrification and offers ideas on how local residents and businesses can lower their greenhouse gas emissions, supervisors were very clear that none of it would be binding on businesses and that it would not be included in their new general plan.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s nothing that mandates anything on any private developer,\u201d said Supervisor Katrina Foley, who helped draw up the plan over the past two years. \u201cWe are not mandating what is contained in the section.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Orange County is one of the last counties in California to sign off on a climate action plan, and it\u2019s a step they\u2019re taking to guarantee they can compete for state grants related to environmental justice.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Supervisor Don Wagner said the entire plan is a \u201cgame the state forces us to play\u201d for grant funding, calling it a \u201cgrotesque waste of money\u201d before he voted in support of a bulk of the plan.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe wasted an enormous amount of time on this,\u201d Wagner said. \u201cI recognize we need to have a climate action plan in order to get the funding that is absolutely critical to this government doing the basic function it needs to do.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Supervisors unanimously supported the recommendations to improve their own infrastructure by adding things like more EV charging stations at county buildings and installing solar panels.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But the biggest debates came over a portion of the plan dubbed Chapter Four, which mapped out the community climate action plan, including recommendations for how residents could electrify their appliances and developers could make more environmentally friendly homes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Supervisors Janet Nguyen and Wagner brought up concerns that those recommendations could confuse developers about what the county was or wasn\u2019t requiring for new housing projects to get approved.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI know it says voluntary and nonbinding, however the section establishes countywide goals without clear implementation parameters,\u201d Nguyen said. \u201cIt makes everybody nervous when you\u2019re not sure what is mandated, what isn\u2019t.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Supervisors Doug Chaffee, Foley and Vicente Sarmiento voted against their colleagues to approve almost all of Chapter Four, highlighting that businesses could use or disregard the recommendations.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reason for Chapter 4 is if we don\u2019t have Chapter 4, we will not be able to be as competitive for state grants,\u201d Foley said. \u201cThe concern is understood, and that\u2019s why I\u2019ve said every single meeting over the past year and a half these are not mandates.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The only recommendation county supervisors didn\u2019t make a decision on was a recommendation on building de-carbonization, which they are set to discuss again in the future.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The plan itself also specifies that none of its recommendations are binding.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThis CAP (Climate Action Plan) outlines potential voluntary and planning-level measures for reducing GHG emissions within the County\u2019s jurisdiction,\u201d staff wrote. \u201cThe voluntary nature of this CAP enables flexible decision-making as the County progresses.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Nicole Walsh, senior assistant county counsel, also made it clear at the meeting there would be no binding laws passed as a result of the county\u2019s climate action plan.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOur comprehensive general plan update has to have an environmental justice chapter. It does.\u201d Walsh said. \u201cBecause the climate action plan is not part of the general plan, and we are not making it part of the general plan, any environmental justice conversation in the CAP will not qualify us for anything.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Noah Biesiada is a Voice of OC reporter. Contact him at nbiesiada@voiceofoc.org. <\/p>\n
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