This report outlines a framework for mobility equity, or a transportation system that increases access to high quality mobility options, reduces air pollution, and enhances economic opportunity in low-income communities of color. Decades of local, regional, and state transportation plans and investments have not adequately responded to the mobility needs of low-income communities of color, reinforcing unequal land-use patterns and contributing to disproportionate health and economic impacts. Today, technological advancements are making it easier to address community-identified mobility needs with a multitude of clean transportation options. However, we lack the planning, policy, and decision-making structures that will equitably deliver mobility benefits to low-income communities of color. To establish a transportation system that benefits all people, California must embrace an equitable deployment of investments and policy interventions to prioritize the mobility needs of low-income individuals of color and address the historical neglect they have experienced. This type of reform must center social equity and community power as primary values in all transportation planning and decision-making. To get there, this paper proposes a framework designed to elevate these values and address structural inequities through an adaptable, customizable process for community, advocates, and transportation decision-makers.

Numerous federal and state judicial decisions have established that environmental impact statements under the National Environmental Policy Act and its state equivalents should examine the impact of proposed projects on emissions of greenhouse gases. Administrative agencies and court settlements are now establishing the guidelines for the conduct of these examinations. This column surveys the emergence of these new guidelines, which is occurring against a backdrop of accelerated activity in both Congress and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, leading towards federal regulation of GHGs. The column looks at these guidelines on the federal level as well as within New York, California, Massachusetts, Washington, and Hawaii.

To evaluate initial success of California's Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund program in assisting underserved communities tackle climate change,, The Greenlining Institute examined 10 projects: nine already funded and one that is eligible for funding. These case studies provide an early snapshot of the Fund’s impact and suggest ways the program might be improved. These 10 projects alone will provide over 2,000 solar power systems for low- income families generating nearly six megawatts of clean power, plant 2,250 trees in disadvantaged communities, provide 252 homes permanently-affordable to lower income households, create over 400 jobs and replace 600 old, highly polluting cars and trucks with clean electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles.

This ordinance requires hotels in the Los Angeles International Airport corridor containing 50 rooms or more, in recognition of the benefits they receive from city investment in the corridor, to pay hotel workers a living wage of $9.39 with health benefits or $10.64 without health benefits as of July 1, 2007. Beginning January 1, 2008, these rates are to be adjusted annually based on the local consumer price index.

An ordinance requiring that planned superstores complete an economic impact analysis before seeking approval for their projects, giving community members and elected officials more control over these development projects.

This ordinance encourages the government to procure goods through local businesses with price preferences. Small businesses (those with 35 or fewer employees) receive a 5% price preference in the awarding of city contracts. For services provided through a request-for-proposal process, local small businesses receive a 10% point advantage. Local businesses of all sizes also receive a 2.5% preference, but the city defines a 'local' business as any business with a location in Santa Clara County.

This ordinance makes it unlawful for any person who owns or possesses a firearm to knowingly or negligently fail to report the theft or loss of such firearm to the Sacramento Police Department within forty-eight hours of the time he/she knew or should have known the firearm has been stolen or lost, when either the owner or possessor resides in the city, or the theft or loss of the firearm occurs in the city. As used in this section, firearm means any device, designed to be used as a weapon or modified to be used as a weapon, which expels a projectile through a barrel by the force of an explosion or other form of combustion. Any person violating this section is guilty of a misdemeanor.

This report discusses the concept, features, and implementation of municipal-level community benefits agreements (CBAs) in California. This report notes that these agreements enhance trust and cooperation between employees, businesses, communities, and governments by contractually binding them to one another following CBA negotiations. Notably, where large scale development projects are bound to a community through a CBA, this report finds that the economic growth and development is more wide spread across the community where developers and communities have a CBA in place than in cases where developers are not bound to the community through some contract. This report finds that CBAs both open lines of communication between community groups and developers and foster greater coordination between communities and developers by establishing goals of development.

This resolution specifies mandatory recycling programs for residences and businesses within city limits. It provides evidence generally linking public health outcomes to recycling programs and practices. It applies concepts and terms from those studies to recycling practices and establishes clear restrictions on what types materials must be recycled.

This ordinance establishes the Los Angeles Green Building Code by incorporating various provisions of the 2010 California Green Building Standards Code into the Municipal Code. The ordinance covers construction of all new buildings, all building alterations with a permit valuation of over $200,000, and all building additions. The ordinance, among other things, allows for enhanced construction levels by incorporating additional green building measures. The ordinance also allows relief from certain requirements where the Department finds that practical difficulties are involved in meeting applicable tier requirements.