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9A Page 6 Next Board Meeting The League's board of directors will next meet in long Beach in conjunction with the annual conference on Friday, Sept. 26. S8 375 Returns to Assembly Appropriations Committee: Negotiations Continue The Assembly Appropriations Committee will take up SB 375 (Steinberg) again next week when it meets on Aug. 7. Sen. Steinberg's (D-Sacramento) legis/ation addresses greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) related to cars and light trucks on a regional basis. Negotiations on SB 375 are extremely fluid at the moment but tremendous strides have been made on the bill recently. Sen. Steinberg's office expects to have a mock up of new amendments in the bill available for review on Monday, Aug. 4. Current Status There has been a great deal of positive progress on SB 375. /n fact, several of the league's major concerns have been addressed and others are being worked out. The remainder of this article provides a summary of what is generally agreed upon and what is still being negotiated. There are now three major sections of the bill: (1) The process for planning for GHG reductions from cars and light trucks on a regional basis; (2) Aligning the Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) planning process with the regional transportation planning process to create an eight year planning period for cities within metropolitan planning areas (which equates to two transportation planning cycles in non-attainment areas); and (3) The California Environmental Quality Act (CEOA) incentives for projects that are consistent with the regional plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The summary below outlines the major differences between the version of the bill that is currently in print and what is being negotiated. Regional Process for GHG Planning The regional process for GHG planning seems to have the greatest general support from the major stakeholders: . The application of the bill has been limited to federally-clesignated metropolitan planning organizations, thus eliminating some small counties (there are 17 Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPO) in the state). . A Regional Targets Advisory Committee has been created, in the spirit of the AS 32 advisory committees, to consider various technical issues and to recommend protocols for setting GHG reduction targets for the regions. The League and the California State Association of Counties (CSAC) will have authority to recommend an appointment to the committee. . The process for setting a specific regional target will include a workshop within the region and an extended period of information exchange between the California Air Resources Board (ARB) and the region. . A new provision would make consideration of local general plans explicit in the development of a sustainable communities strategy. . The planning priority provisions (proposed section 65080(b)(2)(F)), which have been criticized as creating .concentric circles," have been eliminated. The regions will "gather and consider" information about important resources and farmlands, but there is no requirement to act. 6