In This Issue:

• CALIFORNIAN TAKES OVER ENERGY COMMITTEE

• STATE BUDGET IN CRISIS

• SOCAL UPDATE: INDIRECT SOURCE RULE

• SOCAL UPDATE: THRESHOLDS OF SIGNIFICANCE

• AB 32 SCOPING PLAN HEARD

• 26 GLOBAL LEADERS SIGN AGREEMENT TO PARTNER ON CLIMATE ACTION

• CA JOINS OTHER STATES TO REDUCE DEFORESTATION

• GHG POLICY CONSUMES ALL

• CORPORATE WATER FOOTPRINTING CONFERENCE

• CBPA 2009 CALENDAR

CALIFORNIAN TAKES OVER ENERGY COMMITTEE

For those of you that think you are immune from California’s policies coming to your state, meet Congressman Henry Waxman (D-Los Angeles), new chair of the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee. Waxman has taken a leading role in advocating for national greenhouse gas regulations, and his committee oversees such issues in the House.

STATE BUDGET IN CRISIS

The Big Five met Thursday and announced that the houses would tentatively gather during Thanksgiving week for a first and final attempt to fix the state's now projected $27.8 billion deficit over the next 19 months. Turkeys shouldn’t be the only thing scared.

One plan that is being floated will allow GOP lawmakers -- most of whom have signed anti-tax pledges – to support a triple in the vehicle license fee that owners pay when they register their cars every year in exchange for a ballot measure that would impose rigid limits on future state spending. Motorists' annual license fees would rise from 0.65% of the value of their vehicles to 2%. For a car or truck valued at $25,000, the increase would be $336.

Prospects for the plan, however, immediately began to dim after details were published on the Los Angeles Times website. Angry phone calls from constituents, advocacy groups and talk radio hosts prompted lawmakers to publicly distance themselves from the proposal.

The governor's deficit-reducing proposal is about a 50-50 split between spending cuts and new taxes, including a $1.8 billion permanent cut in base funding of K-12 schools – in essence, the same $1.8 billion that Davis gave them in 2000.

The new Speaker of the Assembly, Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles) thinks all these ideas are too complicated and is simply advocating that California get some of the “Bailout” money approved by Congress.

So, we remain, with an unfathomable budget gap and leaders who are unable to make the tough political choices needed to staunch the bleeding. At this point, even a plan we don’t agree with, might be preferred to this paralysis.
 

SOCAL UPDATE: INDIRECT SOURCE RULE

CBPA continues to lead the efforts to oppose the South Coast Air Quality Management District’s (District) attempt to supersede local governments (lead agencies) on land-use decisions. Along with our coalition partners, we have presented the District with a proposal that will meet the emission reduction goals that are outlined in their approved Air Quality Management Plan. Our proposal would protect local land-use authority by requiring that emission reductions be processed through the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), as opposed to establishing a new process whereby the District would be required to approve projects before they could be approved by either a city or county. District staff will formally introduce their proposal in early December. Industry meetings are currently being held with AQMD Governing Board Members.
 

SOCAL UPDATE: THRESHOLDS OF SIGNIFICANCE

The District has proposed establishing Greenhouse Gases “Thresholds of Significance” standards in an effort to comply with AB 32. The California Air Resources Board (CARB) is currently in the process of establishing statewide threshold standards. CBPA is advocating that the District allow CARB to establish statewide standards so that a patchwork of regulations is not established around the state. The District guidelines could be sent to the Government Board as early as December 5. CARB is expected to have proposed guidelines established by July 2009.
 

AB 32 SCOPING PLAN HEARD

And, as if there is no connection between the huge budget deficit and the morass of overlapping and conflicting environmental laws passed in the last few years, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) gathered for a workshop on the AB 32 Scoping plan. More than two hundred people showed up to provide testimony, including environmental, public interest, environmental justice(EJ), and business groups. The EJ groups took up a majority of the time by swarming the meeting with “grassroots” supporters, all of whom took a turn at the microphone. Wearing buttons with slogans like “No Cap-and-Charade,” the groups put heavy pressure on CARB members to raise taxes on businesses, mandate strict reductions of carbon emissions, and provide no flexibility in implementation.

CBPA provided testimony on behalf of ICSC, NAIOP, BOMA California, IREM, CDA, RILA, and individual member companies that focused on the need to help businesses with existing buildings reduce energy usage through financial incentives, market mechanisms, or new programs to provide capital infusions up front. Noting that too strict “green building” standards or artificial land use barriers to development could have the opposite impact from intent, testimony also focused on the need to allow new highly energy efficient buildings be part of the solution. Our industry builds buildings that are twice as energy efficient and emit half the greenhouse gasses as the national average.
 

26 GLOBAL LEADERS SIGN AGREEMENT TO PARTNER ON CLIMATE ACTION

In more exciting global warming news… CBPA was represented at the Global Climate Summit held in Los Angeles where Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger joined 26 global leaders from six countries including China, India, Mexico and Great Britain to sign a declaration acknowledging the threats of global warming on natural resources and economic prosperity, and calling on states and provinces to build and strengthen cooperative efforts to implement strategies that can immediately reduce greenhouse gas emissions in advance of the next global agreement on climate change.

The declaration focuses efforts on the largest emitting sectors including forestry, agriculture, cement, iron, aluminum, energy and transportation. Leaders at the Governors’ Summit committed to establishing workgroups by sector to develop individual sector-specific position papers within the next six months on possible policy options to inform and advance United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) international negotiations toward the next global climate agreement.
 

CA JOINS OTHER STATES TO REDUCE DEFORESTATION

If you use wood in any of your projects, this will impact you…

In another effort to minimize climate change impacts, the Governor joined with Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle, Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, Florida Governor Charlie Crist, Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius and six governors from Brazil and Indonesia in signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to reduce forestry-related greenhouse gas emissions at the same summit.

The agreement commits signatories to help slow and stop tropical deforestation, the cutting and burning of trees to convert land to grow crops and raise livestock, and land degradation through joint projects and incentive programs. Look for similar agreements to be pushed by advocates on U.S. forests making the availability of wood, a renewable resource, more scarce and expensive.
 

GHG POLICY CONSUMES ALL

The title says it all. If we as an industry don’t get more involved in shaping these policies we will be consumed by them. Thank you for your continued membership which provides the resources to battle these issues on your behalf.
 

CORPORATE WATER FOOTPRINTING CONFERENCE

How can water management help companies and your properties save energy and costs? How does water reduction drive sustainability? These are two of the central questions being answered at the Corporate Water Footprinting event which is taking place December 2-3 at the Hyatt Regency in San Francisco.

Confirmed speakers include sustainability experts from Pepsi, Coke, ConAgra Foods, Nestle Waters, IBM, Cisco, Adobe, Intel, GE, Dean Foods, Steelcase, JP Morgan and more. Water management experts from The Global Water Challenge, Business for Social Responsibility, The Pacific Institute, and the World Resources Institute are also speaking.

CBPA is supporting this event which entitles any member a discount of 20% to attend this event. Simply type “csrw20” into the discount code box when booking online or quote “csrw20” when booking by phone or fax. For more information, click here to visit the website.
 

CBPA 2009 CALENDAR

February 26, 2009
CBPA Board Meeting and New Legislator Luncheon
Sacramento, CA (Hyatt)

March TBD (late March), 2009
CBPA Legislative Committee Meeting
Place TBD (Southern California)

June 9-10, 2009
CBPA Board Meeting and
California Commercial Real Estate Summit (CCRES)
Sacramento, CA

November 5-6, 2009
CBPA Board Meeting and
Real Estate Industry Strategic Issues Conference
Napa, CA (Meritage)