ACTION ALERT: Tell the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors to Adopt a Robust Regional Climate Action Plan

It’s finally here! No, not Christmas – the final County-level approval for the Humboldt County Regional Climate Action Plan (RCAP). The document, which the County has been working on since 2018, will guide Humboldt’s climate mitigation efforts for the next several years. While climate change is a global problem, the solutions are local and every nation, state, and county – including Humboldt – needs to do its part to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions in order to avert a climate catastrophe. Years of work, public engagement, and technical analysis have gone into developing the RCAP, and it is set to be voted on by the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors at their December 16th meeting.

That’s why we need you to SHOW UP on December 16th and advocate for the Board of Supervisors to adopt the RCAP. Seven years of planning is already too long. We can’t afford to delay action any longer. At the same time, there is one last “fix” that is necessary to ensure that the RCAP is as effective as possible.

If you’ll allow me to get a bit wonky for a moment – I am a lawyer after all – the RCAP is considered a “project” under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and therefore certain legal requirements attach to it. One of those requirements is that the County adopt thresholds of significance. What’s a threshold of significance? Under CEQA, a “threshold of significance” is a yardstick for measuring environmental impacts: If a project’s impact goes over that threshold number, it’s usually considered significant, and the project has to do more analysis and mitigation. If it stays under, the impact is usually considered less than significant. Under CEQA, thresholds of significance must be supported by substantial evidence and adopted through a transparent public process (CEQA Guidelines sections 15064.4 & 15064.7).

The County hired consultants to draft the RCAP, and those consultants proposed thresholds of significance for GHG emissions. The consultants reviewed other existing CAPs and considered the commercial availability of existing technologies when recommending their threshold. They also published that finding in a report, which is publicly available. In CEQA speak, that means they “relied on substantial evidence” and did so in a “transparent public process.”

But at a County Planning Commission meeting on October 16th, the Planning Commission decided to increase the CEQA GHG thresholds by 50% (allowing projects to generate 50% more emissions before it would be considered a significant environmental impact under CEQA). Why did they do this? Did they disagree with the consultant’s methodology or have access to studies indicating that the consultants were incorrect about what constituted a significant amount of GHGs? No. Their comments during the meeting indicated that the majority of the Planning Commission increased the GHG thresholds because they were worried that too low a threshold could stymie economic development.

That is not a relevant factor to consider when setting thresholds of significance under CEQA! Think about it. If the question we are asking is “at what level will this action have a significant environmental impact?” Answering that question by saying “we have to choose a level that allows for additional economic development” completely misunderstands the purpose of a threshold of significance. And the Planning Commission wasn’t even correct in assuming that setting a lower (more strict) threshold of significance would stymie economic development, because projects that have a significant impact on the environment can still be approved via a statement of overriding considerations. Moreover, by changing the threshold of significance without considering the environmental impacts of doing so and without any substantial evidence, the Planning Commission actually violated CEQA. ​​When an agency proposes changes that would result in new significant impacts or a substantial increase in the severity of previously identified impacts, recirculation or subsequent environmental review is required. Increasing the GHG threshold by 50% – allowing more GHG emissions – would lead to a substantial impact that has not been evaluated.

Please submit a written comment by emailing cob@co.humboldt.ca.us (written comments are due December 11th), email your County Supervisor (you can find out who your Supervisor is here and find their email here), and attend the Board of Supervisors meeting on December 16th, starting at 9:00 in the Board of Supervisors Chamber, Humboldt County Courthouse, 825 Fifth Street, Eureka.

Here is what I recommend you ask for:

• Please adopt the Regional Climate Action Plan without delay and without weakening it

• Please revert the CEQA GHG thresholds of significance to the original level analyzed and recommended by the RCAP consultants