8B Public - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

Environmental Impact Analysis Greenhouse Gas Emissions Environmental Impact Report 4.1-9 Mitigation Measures The City is unable to implement mitigation to reduce this significant impact based on a recent court case titled California Restaurant Association v. City of Berkeley. Briefly, in this case, the California Restaurant Association sued Berkeley in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, arguing among other things that the federal Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA) preempted the City’s ordinance banning natural gas in new buildings. The District Court dismissed the California Restaurant Association’s challenge. However, the Ninth Circuit reversed the District Court, holding that EPCA expressly preempts state and local regulations concerning the energy use of many natural gas appliances. The Ninth Circuit concluded that EPCA preempted Berkeley’s ban of natural gas, because it prohibited the onsite installation of natural gas infrastructure necessary to support natural gas appliances covered under the EPCA. Accordingly, based on the decision of the Ninth Circuit in California Restaurant Association v. City of Berkeley, the City of San Leandro cannot require the project applicant to eliminate natural gas from the proposed project. No other mitigation is available to eliminate the use of natural gas in the proposed project. See Section 6, Alternatives, which includes project alternatives that do not include natural gas connections. Significance After Mitigation Because there is no feasible mitigation to reduce potentially significant impacts resulting from GHG emissions of the project, impacts would remain significant and unavoidable. Threshold 2: Would the project conflict with an applicable plan, policy, or regulation adopted for the purpose of reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases? IMPACT GHG-2 THE PROPOSED PROJECT WOULD CONFLICT WITH AN APPLICABLE POLICY OR POLICIES ADOPTED FOR THE PURPOSES OF REDUCING THE EMISSIONS OF GREENHOUSE GASES. THIS IMPACT WOULD BE SIGNIFICANT AND UNAVOIDABLE. The BAAQMD 2017 Clean Air Plan contains numerous control measures designed to decrease emissions of air pollutants and GHGs in the San Francisco Bay. Some of the control measures are not applicable to the proposed project and are not evaluated further in this document. For example, Control Measure TR-17 encourages increased use of cleaner burning jet fuel in commercial jets arriving and departing the Bay Area, and the proposed project does not include commercial jet operations. Control measures that are applicable to the proposed project and also address GHG emissions include: TR1: Clean Air Teleworking Initiative; TR 2: Trip Reduction Programs; TR19: Medium and Heavy-Duty Trucks; TR 22: Construction, Freight, and Farming Equipment; BL1: Green Buildings; BL2: Decarbonize Buildings; BL4: Urban Heat Island Mitigation; and SL1: Short-Lived Climate Pollutants. Project consistency with these control measures is evaluated in Table 4.1-2, below. As shown therein, the proposed project would be consistent with most control measures of the BAAQMD 2017 Clean Air Plan. The proposed project would be inconsistent with control measure TR-1, pertaining to telecommuting policies. However, as discussed in Section 4.4, Transportation, of this EIR, the proposed project would generate VMT that is at least 15 percent below average VMT per employee in the area. Therefore, inconsistency with control measure TR-1 would not result in significant environmental impacts. As shown in Table 4.1-2, the proposed project would also be inconsistent with control measure SL-1, which pertains to reducing methane emissions from landfills. As described in Section 19, Utilities and Service Systems, of the Initial Study (Appendix A), project generated waste per day would be less than 0.02 percent of Altamont Landfill’s allowable waste limit and project generated waste annually would be less than 0.0007 percent of Altamont