California ushered in a whole new way of evaluating the impacts of new projects on our transportation systems when the legislature passed SB 743 (Steinberg, 2013). The implementing guidelines are finally complete, and lead agencies will now be responsible for switching from an “auto delay” metric under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) to one that measures the impacts on overall driving miles (VMT).

To discuss the implementation process, Berkeley Law’s Center for Law, Energy and the Environment (CLEE) is co-hosting a conference with Portland State University this Friday, March 1st, in Downtown Los Angeles from 8:45 to 6pm. In-person tickets are now sold out, but you can register to view it on line or watch as a webinar afterwards. The agenda is here.

Speakers include Sacramento mayor and SB 743 author Darrell Steinberg (via video), officials from the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research, local leaders implementing innovative VMT mitigation plans, and other experts.

We’ll also discuss our recent CLEE report “Implementing SB 743” on the legal options for creating VMT mitigation “banks” or exchanges. Hope to see you there or that you can tune in live!