One of CAP’s members, Regional Asthma Management and Prevention (RAMP), brings the experience of a broad range of policy approaches that primarily focus on the regulation of outdoor air pollution and indoor air quality in housing, as well as reducing greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) from the transportation sector.
In 2006, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed Assembly Bill (AB) 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act, which set statewide GHG emission targets for 2020 into law. AB32 is the first legislative act in the country to utilize market mechanisms, mitigation, and adaptation strategies which attempts to reduce the adverse effects of climate change.
In 2008, Darrell Steinberg, the Senate President pro Tempore, authored the first anti-urban sprawl and anti-long commute bill. Senate Bill (SB) 375, combines transportation planning and housing development and restricts GHG emissions while simultaneously directing new growth and in-fill development in California over the next 25 years.
RAMP currently works in conjunction with partners such as The Climate Plan, Bay Area Regional Health Inequities Initiative, American Lung Association, Transform, West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project, and others to strengthen climate change policy by emphasizing the tenets of public health. Recently, RAMP and its partners successfully advocated for stronger regional GHG reduction targets related to the implementation of SB 375. The San Francisco Bay Area Metropolitan Transportation Commission’s (MTC) board of directors initially considered adopting the minimum targets of 2 - 5% GHG reductions in 2020 and 10% in 2035 as proposed by the California Air Resources Board (CARB). Based on serious analysis of the transportation model used by CARB, RAMP and partners successfully convinced the MTC to adopt stronger and achievable targets of 7% GHG reductions in 2020 and 15% in 2035.
These targets are important because MTC’s regional transportation plan and the state’s Strategic Growth plan are, in part; being built based on and is informed by the GHG emission targets. It will effect how communities are designed and serviced by public transit and where housing, jobs, roads and pedestrian and bike friendly pathways are created. The higher the targets are set in the beginning the wider the range of healthier outcomes such as reducing asthma.
Azibuike Akaba is a Policy Associate at RAMP