What’s to come
Tuolumne County’s draft climate action plan stirs debate and conspiracy theories at meeting
Tuolumne County efforts to confront climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the midst of recent record-breaking heat waves and increasingly deadly, destructive fire seasons faced questions about the United Nations and references to “communist China” and Nazi Germany on Wednesday, as some audience members criticized a county draft climate action plan.
Backers of the plan and county staff said that regardless of anyone’s views — including the views of conspiracy theorists — there are no mandates or policy decisions in the document, and the bottom line is the county is legally obligated to create a climate action plan.
Questions and criticism came from the audience at a morning meeting of four members of the county’s natural resource committee while Quincy Yaley, the county’s community development director, talked about the county’s draft climate action plan.
Alexander Horat, 18, of Tuolumne, asked, “Will the county vote on this?” and Anaiah Kirk, the county’s elected District 3 supervisor, responded, “We’ll discuss it when we get to it.”
Kirk, the committee chairman, was in the room with three other committee members — Dick Gaiser, Jim Phelan and Jim Maddox — and people in the audience included Randy Hanvelt, former District 2 supervisor, and John Buckley, executive director of the Central Sierra Environmental Resource Center in Twain Harte.
Horat came to the meeting with his father, Joe Horat, 45, of Sonora; Maria Horat, 45, of Sonora; who used to live in Caracas, Venezuela; Gunther Hsue, of Sonora; and two others.
Joe Horat asked whether the county’s draft climate action plan had anything to do with the United Nations, to which Kirk responded, “We’re going to wait for questions.”
Yaley gave a brief summary of the draft plan, which 117 pages not including appendices, said recent public input on the draft plan showed that “fire and water” were the two most common variables people addressed.
Kirk said at one point that he could sense “frustration” in the room and explained the committee had the Board of Supervisors chambers at the County Administration Building in Sonora for a limited time, so he would be limiting questions and comments to three minutes per person.
“One of my friends said that the main reason why the county was thinking of doing this was because they’ll be getting a lot more money from our governor, Gruesome Newsom,” Alexander Horat said. “And as we know, the governor doesn’t want us to have any gasoline engines, they don’t want us to have cars. They
want us all to bike. The elderly, you’re going to have trouble biking everywhere. They did it in communist China. What I think the county should do is we need to stay strong.”
Alexander Horat began to evoke Nazi Germany, comparing the county’s legal obligations to create a climate action plan and county officials who might abide by those legal obligations as excuses to be able to later say, “We were just following orders, we were just doing what we were told,” when Kirk told him his time was up.
Gaiser asked for clarification on what types of vehicles the plan refers to as off-road vehicles, and Yaley made it clear the reference was to recreational off-road vehicles only, not construction vehicles.
Phelan said he’d like to see more in the action plan about forest health across the whole county, not just federally-managed forests, but the entire county’s wildlands, in part because so much grant funding is currently available for forest resiliency.
When Kirk opened the meeting up to questions, Alexander Horat said, “My first question is how much will this cost the county? And number two, how much will it cost the county to transition to a hundred percent clean energy, because that seems like it would probably cost a few million I’d think?”
In response to questions about costs to the county, Yaley said there’s no cost analysis associated with the proposed plan because it’s a policy document.
“The plan is a policy document, providing guidance for future development projects and for county staff, related to making policy decisions, especially related to drought and catastrophic wildfires,” she said.
Buckley spoke next and said, “It’s frustrating to hear there’s a debate about whether or not there should be a climate action plan, because it really doesn’t matter what people’s views are, the county has a requirement in its General Plan that there will be one. It’s a legal requirement.”
Buckley and CSERC sued the county over its general plan in January 2019, and a resulting settlement legally bound the county to create a climate action plan.
County officials who have worked on the draft of the plan say it’s consistent with and complementary to statewide legislation and regulatory mandates to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. They also describe the county’s climate action plan as state-mandated.
“So unless someone spoke up in the General Plan process and prevailed, it’s a legal requirement,” Buckley said. He also defended the language of the draft climate action plan, saying the plan does not make mandates, it makes suggestions, which can become policy.
“Despite all the claims made by the last speaker, and I can tell there will be additional ones, there is nothing that’s a mandate in this entire plan,” Buckley said. “There is no requirement to not use fireplaces, or anything.
There are goals and nice-sounding rhetoric to encourage, to move toward things that would reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions.”
Later, Buckley reiterated that it doesn’t make a difference what anyone — including conspiracy theorists — thinks about the United Nations or Gov. Gavin Newsom, because it’s a legal requirement for the county to identify measures to reduce greenhouse emissions.
Hanvelt said he generally agrees with Buckley, but “policy documents tend to dictate rules and decisions by government.”
“This is a bad policy document,” Hanvelt said. “You do need a cost-benefit impact analysis on every one of these suggestions, so you know what it means if you go after implementing it.”
Detailed cost analyses might come when specific policies or measures are used, Yaley said. The draft climate action plan is in the midst of a years-long process to gather ideas and policies that can be used to deal with climate vulnerability in Tuolumne County.
Seven years ago, it became a legal requirement for California counties to begin looking at climate change vulnerability. Legislation known as Senate Bill 379, passed in 2015, requires counties and cities in the state to integrate climate change vulnerability, adaptation strategies, and emergency response strategies into safety elements of their general plans.
The law requires preparation of vulnerability assessments, which must identify risks that climate change poses to local jurisdictions and geographic areas at risk from climate change impacts — using federal, state, regional and local data.
Counties are supposed to be developing adaptation policies, goals and objectives based on findings from their vulnerability assessments, and jurisdictions are required to create feasible measures that can be implemented to reduce climate change impacts on new land uses and proposed land uses.
To view the county’s draft climate action plan visit https://bit.ly/3x3oxa1 online. To comment on the draft plan, email Yaley at qyaley@co.tuolumne.ca.us. A public comment period ends June 15.