County works out strategy on global warming

Attorney general drops lawsuit after supervisors approve plan to reduce emissions as San Bernardino County grows


CATHERINE GARCIA Staff Writer
Redlands Daily Facts [Redlands, CA]

Before even having to enter a courtroom, San Bernardino County has settled a lawsuit that alleges the county is not doing enough to curb greenhouse gas emissions, which are a cause of global warming.

According to Attorney General Jerry Brown, who brought the case against the county in April, the county's General Plan didn't properly address greenhouse gas reductions. The plan is an estimate of where houses, businesses and open space will be over the next 25 years.

The agreement, which states that officials will measure how much the county contributes to global warming and sets goals to begin cutting pollution, was reached by four county supervisors during a meeting held Tuesday morning.

"I thought it was irresponsible of the attorney general to sue the county" said 3rd District Supervisor Dennis Hansberger, who represents Redlands. "But because we've done so much to address the issue already, it was fairly easy to reach a settlement."

Supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt voted against working out an agreement. In a statement, he said he found the attorney general's lawsuit to be "contrary to California's separation of powers, where laws are adopted by the legislature."

Sen. Bob Dutton, R-Rancho Cucamonga, was also none too pleased with the settlement.

"I'm glad the county and attorney general were able to reach a compromise without having to go to court," he said in a statement. "However, I can't think of a more ridiculous waste of taxpayer dollars when the state files a lawsuit against a county, especially when the issues could have been solved with a telephone call."

Brown announced the deal during a news conference in Los Angeles Tuesday afternoon, and said that the county will have 30 months to amend its General Plan to include a greenhouse gas-reduction policy. It will also have to compile an inventory of emission levels from 1990 and project estimated emissions in 2020.

"This landmark agreement establishes one of the first greenhouse gas reduction plans in California," said Brown. "It is a model that I encourage other cities and countries to adopt."

San Bernardino County is not alone in disappointing Brown; he also wrote letters to San Diego and Orange counties, urging them to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

State drops its lawsuit

County to work out global warming plan

Matt Wrye, Staff Writer
San Bernardino Sun

The state Attorney General's Office isn't suing San Bernardino County over global warming issues after all.

Members of the county Board of Supervisors announced on Tuesday the end of litigation by Attorney General Edmund "Jerry" Brown, who filed suit against the county in April, alleging that its general plan didn't include direction on how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

At a news conference, Brown said an agreement has been worked out, which four county supervisors approved during their morning meeting.

The county will work with the state in decreasing emissions through conforming county land-use decisions and operational policies to a reduction target goal - all at an estimated price tag of $500,000.

"This is a landmark agreement," Brown said. "This (emissions) problem is so large that no one county can solve it by itself. This plan is extremely innovative."

However, Supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt voted against working out an agreement with the attorney general. The attorney general's lawsuit is "contrary to California's separation of powers, where laws are adopted by the legislature," he said in a statement.

Moreover, the county isn't entirely responsible for greenhouse emissions stemming from development and transportation growth, seeing as how it has authority over a mere 15 percent of the land within its borders, Mitzelfelt said.

Faced with questions about how the forces of economic development can be reconciled with a plan to decrease greenhouse gas emissions, Supervisor Gary Ovitt conceded that the agreement will be challenging to carry out.

"There are more problems than there are answers right now," Ovitt said. "There's a lot of things to do. (Land-use) planning only goes so far."

It will take "people at many levels" within local and state government, the private sector, and nonprofit organizations to accomplish the county's new goal, Ovitt said.

That agreement gives the county 30 months to add a policy to its general plan for reducing greenhouse emissions.

It also gives the same amount of time for adopting an inventory plan for compiling emissions data from 1990, current emissions data, sources of current emissions, projected emissions through 2020, a reduction goal and mitigation measures to meet that goal.

The agreement also calls for mitigation policies related to county-owned diesel vehicles.

As far as the attorney general's duties, that office will be responsible for assisting the county in recouping the estimated costs of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the agreement states. It will give advice on projects and assist the county with any legal challenges to its effort.

Ovitt and Supervisor Josie Gonzales said the agreement is a testament to the county's commitment in reducing greenhouse gasses, which are thought by some scientists to cause global warming.

The issue arose four months ago when the Attorney General's office said it was suing the county for not having a global warming element in its general plan. The plan is a general vision of where houses, businesses and open space will be over the next 25 years.

The lawsuit in April came after the state's global warming law, Assembly Bill 32, was signed in September. It was a time when the county was busy completing its general plan, a hefty undertaking.

According to the bill, the California Air Resources board of directors must develop state guidelines on global warming by 2011.

"What we're doing right now is taking an educated guess in what AB32 will result in," said David Wert, county spokesman.

There are no official state guidelines on how counties should approach the issue of global warming, but the agreement helps chart a new path within the issue, Wert said.

"It sounds like (the attorney general) sued San Bernardino County to put all of the other counties and cities on notice that local governments should address global warming," Wert said.

He agreed with Mitzelfelt's comment about the county having authority over only 15 percent of the land within its borders.

Given that fact, the county has a limited role in shaping greenhouse emissions, Mitzelfelt said.

The supervisor believes the county would've won the attorney general's lawsuit.

He said he's worried the agreement will give the false perception that the county has authority over a greater amount of land than it actually owns.

Supervisors settle global warming suit

by RYAN ORR
Victorville Daily Press

SAN BERNARDINO — The San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors in closed session Tuesday voted to settle a lawsuit filed by state Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr., who sued the county for not properly addressing global warming in the recent general plan update.

The vote to settle was 3-1, with 1st District Supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt voting in against. Board Chairman Paul Biane was on vacation.

In a page and a half statement, Mitzelfelt said he voted against the settlement because he believes the general plan already includes comprehensive measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

"These measures are designed to conserve energy, encourage mass transit and reduce vehicle commutes by creating more jobs closer to home," he said.

"Only a handful of California counties and cities have formally addressed climate change issues, and San Bernardino County will lead the way in the implementation of strategies and steps to enhance our future and serve as a model for others," said Supervisor Gary Ovitt.

Ovitt said that county's general plan, which took more than five years to update, would remain in affect and the county won't have to spend taxpayer money on further litigation.

Brown said county can now set the pace for how local governments can combat oil dependency and climate disruption.

"The landmark agreement establishes one of the first greenhouse has reduction plans in California," Brown said. "It is a model that I encourage other cities and counties to adopt."

The county will amend its general plan within 30 months to add a policy outlining the county's goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Deal cools Inland global-warming fight

By JIM MILLER
Sacramento Bureau
Riverside Press Enterprise

SACRAMENTO - San Bernardino County will begin tracking greenhouse gas emissions under an agreement with Attorney General Jerry Brown expected to be approved today by county supervisors.

Brown sued the county in April, charging that its recently approved general plan would worsen global warming. The settlement would uphold the growth plan's legality and ends a fight that became part of state budget negotiations.

In Sacramento, Brown's suit came to embody Senate Republicans' fears that the attorney general was increasingly using the courts to pursue greenhouse gas reductions prematurely. The issue was a major sticking point in the almost eight-week budget standoff. The Legislature adjourned late Monday without reaching a deal.

Neither Brown nor San Bernardino County officials would comment Monday.

Brown has scheduled a news conference to discuss the case this morning in Los Angeles. Later, Brown is scheduled to appear with San Bernardino County supervisors in San Bernardino.

Both sides have been in talks for weeks. Board of Supervisors Chairman Paul Biane and Vice Chairman Gary Ovitt met with Brown for more than an hour in Whittier one Sunday last month.

The county will agree to track heat-trapping emissions and create a greenhouse gas reduction plan, according to the settlement summary. As part of the plan, the county will measure 1990 greenhouse gas emissions, current emissions and their sources, as well as project how the county's land-use decisions will affect emissions in 2020 within 2-½ years.

Brown will help the county recoup the estimated $500,000 in testing and other costs required to live up to the agreement.

Brown's office also will work with the county to achieve its greenhouse gas reduction targets and to help it avoid any future legal challenges over global warming issues, according to the draft summary.

The county's general plan, a blueprint for growth through 2030, projects more homes and increased traffic as the county's population continues to increase. It was the first time the state has sued a public agency for not taking into account global warming.

GOP senators and allies such as the California Manufacturing and Technology Association complained that Brown's actions were unfairly premature because regulations to implement last year's greenhouse gas law will not be complete until 2012.

But environmental groups and others accused Republican lawmakers of trying to undermine last year's law as well as the state rules requiring environmental reviews of major projects.

The $145 billion state budget agreement limits environmental lawsuits against projects funded by $19.9 billion in transportation borrowing approved by voters last November. The provision reflected concerns arising from the San Bernardino County case and others.

Tensions high in the preserve

Gun incident highlights residents' animosity toward the National Park Service

By KELLY DONOVAN & IAN MORRISON / Staff Writers
Victorville Daily Press

Last month, a local resident was arrested on suspicion of pointing a rifle at two National Park Service rangers in the Mojave National Preserve.

The incident underscores some of the tensions in the preserve, a place where residents steeped in the traditions of the Old West are grappling with the transition to a culture more similar to that of a national park.

According to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles, Leo H. Spatziani and another man were approached by the rangers as the men allegedly operated a dredging machine on public land near an area rich in sensitive archeological and cultural resources.

Bobby Parker, the other man with Spatziani, said this week that he and Spatziani were on Parker's 160-acre homestead, working to install a water line, when the rangers came up and asked them to stop.

Parker said he isn't sure why Spatziani reacted the way he did, but he guessed that Spatziani is among the preserve residents who are fed up with the National Park Service after more than 10 years of the agency's presence there.

The Mojave National Preserve's chief ranger, Denny Ziemann, said he thinks residents like Parker — who contends that the Park Service has a vendetta against him — are the vocal minority. Most of the people in the preserve are able to co-exist with the park service peacefully, Ziemann said.

While some residents report having good relations with the park service, there are also some who have complaints.

The birth of a preserve

The Mojave National Preserve, which is east of Barstow, sandwiched between interstates 15 and 40, was born after President Bill Clinton signed the California Desert Protection Act in 1994.

Unlike most national parks, a national preserve allows uses like hunting, grazing and mining within its territory.

And within the Mojave National Preserve, private land holdings are interspersed with federal property. The preserve is sparsely populated with an estimated 200 or less residents who've gotten used to life in the wilderness — many of whom lived in the area for years before the preserve was created.

Some of those people opposed the creation of the preserve.

"It was unwelcome," said Gerald Freeman, who operates a hotel, RV park, store and restaurant in Nipton, on the northern boundary of the preserve. "For the most part the locals were hostile. But a lot of them were squatters on government land ... they were just sort of anti-establishment, like the militias in some of the other states."

Ranching and land ownership

Critics like Parker and Dennis Casebler, a historian who runs the Goffs Schoolhouse, use the harshest possible language to describe how the park service has dealt with the people who live in the 1.6-million-acre preserve. Casebler goes as far as likening the park service to the Gestapo.

Casebler started to take action and wrote a letter Feb. 24 to U.S. Rep. Jerry Lewis,R-Redlands, that contains a litany of complaints about the park service.

Among other things, Casebler and Parker accuse the Mojave National Preserve of trying to eradicate the ranching and mining industries there — a charge the agency denies.

Ziemann said he doesn't think the park service has ever rejected a mining application in the preserve. He also said the Park Service doesn't pressure ranchers to leave, although the retirement of all the grazing allotments in the preserve is part of its General Management Plan, a blueprint for its future.

"We're not going to force these ranchers out," he said. "Nobody will ever be forced to sell their land."

Three major ranching families sold their properties to the National Park Foundation in recent years and moved out of the area, retiring their grazing allotments. Because the government cannot directly acquire land, the foundation buys it and then donates it to the park service.

Rob Blair, who is a fourth-generation member of the last remaining large ranch in the preserve, said he knows the park service wants the Blair Ranch grazing allotments to be retired. However, he said the park service and the National Park Foundation haven't tried to force him, because any sales need to be with willing sellers.

However, Blair said he knows some people feel intimidated.

"People say, 'They're going to take our land if we don't sell to them,' " Blair said. "People are scared for their homes, some of them."

One longtime resident of the area, Mike Daughtery of Baker, blames the park service for driving out the ranchers with grazing regulations.

However, he also said the ranchers might not have had other opportunities to sell their holdings for cash had the National Park Service and National Park Foundation not been interested in the land.

"There's no simple answers to this stuff," Daughtery said.

The federal government can forcibly acquire land through eminent domain proceedings, arguing that it is in the public's best interest, but Ziemann said the Mojave National Preserve would not do that.

"The claim that we're harassing these people or running them out is not true," Ziemann said.

One recent land dispute that has sparked public interest and continues to infuriate Parker and Casebler is a dispute involving longtime preserve resident Connie Connelly, who Casebler calls "a genuine desert character."

Parker and Casebler said they are upset that the park service has forced Connelly to leave the simple home she's lived in for years in a remote part of the preserve.

Ziemann said that Connelly was living on park service property without a valid lease — essentially squatting. Also, he said the park service had to spend about $60,000 several years ago to clean up waste generated at the site.

To help Connelly, Ziemann said the park service offered to buy her a new home anywhere she wanted. In the end, she agreed to move to Wyoming, and is scheduled to move this month, he said.