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To: Members of the Assembly Committee on Appropriations SUBJECT: SB 375 (STEINBERG) TRANSPORTATION PLANNING - OPPOSE I oppose SB 375 (Steinberg). Under the guise of reducing carbon emissions, SB 375 looks to impede new suburban residential, commercial and retail development, and the jobs and transportation improvements that go with it, by withholding from many newly developing areas the benefits of future critical transportation project funding – including funding authorized by voters in the recently approved Proposition 1-A – if those projects are not located in areas identified by a COG as a preferred area for growth. SB 375 requires the new regional land use plan prepared by the COG to immediately and permanently take vast areas of both private and public land off the table for future development. What are left over are areas within the region that are identified as possible for future new growth. Nothing in SB 375 requires every city and county, as is currently the law, to plan for and accommodate its housing need. Nothing in SB 375, as is currently the law, requires a local government to meet its regional housing allocation need based upon the well-established regional housing needs assessment (RHNA) process. Nothing in SB 375 requires the local jurisdiction neither to designate a site within a preferred area for housing nor to actually provide the critical zoning. The supporters of SB 375 describe the new COG land use plan as building upon the nascent “blueprint” process underway in some regions. Where the blueprints have been adopted (6-county SACOG region and San Diego County) they are crafted as non-regulatory, best management expressions without fiscal penalties. SB 375 attempts, after-the-fact, to alter that by signaling to cities and counties within a region that either they amend their general plans to be consistent with the regional land use growth scenario or risk not being able to qualify transportation projects for state funding. Forcing local governments to adhere to regional land use plans and creating fiscal winners and losers within a region is not a good prescription to achieve future regional cooperation. SB 375 could seriously compromise the existing long-term funding rules for a broad spectrum of state and local transportation programs and projects including critical long-term funding through the State Transportation Improvement Program (STIP). SB 375 changes the well-established criteria for funding transportation projects through the STIP by imposing new, limiting criteria to determine if a project qualifies for funding. That new criteria focuses primarily on the location of a project. If a project is located within a preferred growth are it will likely qualify for funding. If the project is outside of a preferred growth area it doesn’t even qualify to be considered for funding. The most recent amendments to SB 375 acknowledge the impact on STIP funding by modestly exempting projects programmed to be funded in the 2006 and 2008 STIP. Beyond this narrow band of exempted projects, projects included in the 2010 STIP (and beyond) must comply with the requirements of SB 375.