The San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) is the metropolitan planning organization for the 18 cities in San Diego County and the county government. SANDAG makes strategic plans and provides information on a broad range of topics pertinent to the region's quality of life.

SANDAG has developed a number of plans and strategies that relate to Climate Change, including the 2009 Regional Energy Strategy, the 2010 Climate Action Strategy and the 2050 Regional Transportation Plan.

SANDAG became the first of California’s 18 metropolitan planning organizations to complete a Sustainable Communities Strategy in its Regional Transportation Plan in accordance with the requirements of SB375. SANDAG adopted the Regional Transportation Plan and Sustainable Communities Strategy, despite the warning from California Attorney General Kamala Harris that the Regional Transportation Plan “does not deliver GHG (green house gas) reductions that are sustainable in the long term… and may …preclude any realistic possibility of meeting the Executive Order’s goal of an 80% reduction in GHG emissions.”

Environmental Health Coalition Opposes the SANDAG Plan

The plan will worsen health risks in communities that already suffer from disproportionate levels of pollution.

• The plan contains no public health analysis of increased pollution in low-income communities of color.
• The plan prioritizes highway expansions and defers investment in transit projects for 20 years.
• The strategy promotes urban sprawl, will increase greenhouse gas emissions and worsen traffic congestion.
• The plan will allow particulate air pollution - the type of pollution most linked to respiratory ailments - to increase, causing serious health consequences.

You can read UT San Diego's editorial in favor of the plan and our response.

The Cleveland National Forest Foundation and the Center for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit challenging the flawed 2050 Regional Transportation Plan, and the California Attorney General joined.