Feb 19 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Steve Geissinger San Jose Mercury News, Calif.

Attorney General Jerry Brown is taking the global warming enlightenment skills he honed in the Bay Area across the rest of California today -- a move that even supporters such as San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed said will meet resistance.

Monday, Brown's aides told MediaNews he will announce he is convening voluntary regional schools for California's more than 500 county supervisors and mayors to advocate tough actions such new transportation impact fees and costly energy-efficiency.

"These workshops launch the first statewide movement to reduce the negative impact of local planning decisions on global climate," Brown said in a letter.

Although attendance is not required, Brown has, however, legally leaned on 23 individual local entities in search of reduced greenhouse gases. In the East Bay, he negotiated an agreement with ConocoPhillips on specific greenhouse gas reduction strategies.

"California must adopt the necessary changes that will encourage economic growth while reducing greenhouse gases," he said. "This difficult transition from our current escalating dependence on fossil fuel demands that cities and counties encourage maximum building efficiency and innovative land-use."

Brown is sending more than 500 letters to leaders in 58 counties and nearly 200 cities with populations of 50,000 or more.

As charter members of the fledgling national "cool" cities and counties campaign, San Jose and its Bay Area neighbors are on the vanguard of making land-use decisions with greenhouse emissions in mind, Reed said in an interview.

"We're ahead of the power curve," Reed said. "We're hoping the rest of the state will catch up with us.

"But I'm sure there's a lot of people, who haven't given it much thought, that are going to have to focus on the issues," he said. "There will be plenty of resistance."

Brown's classes will center on complying with the state Environmental Quality Act -- a highly controversial law that requires cities and developers to study various effects of proposed projects. Factors studied include traffic and pollution.

The state's Global Warming Solutions Act, AB 32, requires California to cut greenhouse gas emission to 1990 levels by 2020. As part of that rule, local agencies are required to analyze and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from projects with significant impacts, including regional transportation and development plans.

Meanwhile, local government will make hundreds, even thousands, of planning decisions that will have decades-long implications.

Reed said cities are looking for low-cost means of meeting goals and banding together regionally to find answers.

Among all Bay Area counties, Brown's home county of Alameda was the first county to join the official national "cool" cities registry.

"We see the Cool Counties partnership as a key step toward local government leading the nation on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and preparing for climate change," Alameda County Board of Supervisors Chairman Scott Haggerty said in a release.

"We're working with our cities through the Alameda County Climate Protection project to address climate change within our own county."