Booked on Planning
Booked on Planning
The Climate Change Policy Guide Decoded
How can city planners join in the fight against climate change? Join us as we discuss the American Planning Association's Climate Change Policy Guide. We'll dissect the significance of federal funding under the Biden administration, explore the pressing need for ongoing advocacy in transitioning to clean energy, and ponder the future of regulatory rulemaking following the Supreme Court's landmark decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v Raimondo. Shifting gears to state and local initiatives, we'll spotlight the climate policy efforts in Nebraska and Lincoln, emphasizing the critical importance of coordination between governments, accountability measures, and best practice frameworks for success. Tune in for a comprehensive discussion on building resilient and sustainable communities through forward-thinking climate policies.
Show Notes:
- Check out the APA Climate Change Policy Guide at https://planning-org-uploaded-media.s3.amazonaws.com/publication/download_pdf/Climate-Change-Policy-Guide.pdf.
- To view the show transcripts, click on the episode at https://bookedonplanning.buzzsprout.com/
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Stephanie Rouse:You're listening to the Booked On Planning Podcast, a project of the Nebraska chapter of the American Planning Association. In each episode, we dive into how cities function by talking with authors on housing, transportation and everything in between. Join us as we get Booked on Planning. Welcome back, bookworms, to another episode of Booked on Planning. We're continuing the conversation on climate resilience that was started with the book Climate Resilience for an Aging Nation and moving to a deeper dive into the American Planning Association's Climate Change Policy Guide, which was adopted in 2020. The document begins boldly by stating the issue plainly that climate change is the most consequential worldwide environmental event that human civilization has to confront. With this in mind, the policy document is intended to help formulate position statements, legislative recommendations and other policy-based actions, and to recommend program funding at the federal and state government levels.
Jennifer Hiatt:As we already know, the document states that planners need to take the lead in helping to mitigate the impacts of climate change and ensure that our communities are able to adapt to a changing climate. This is especially true of transportation and land use planning, since historically, climate change has been exasperated by extensive transportation projects required because of sprawling land use development.
Stephanie Rouse:The overall goal is for planners to work with other private and public organizations to achieve a net zero greenhouse gas emission by 2050, as well as plan for the negative effects of climate change going forward, since we already know that an adverse impact to the planet has already occurred. Sustainable places, livable built environment, harmony with nature, resilient economy, interwoven equity, health communities and responsible regionalism and these policy areas were actually discussed in a podcast episode from last year when we interviewed some of the former APA staff that wrote the book, so we'll link that in the show notes. Like the housing supply accelerator playbook that we covered a few months back, readers don't need to read this guide from start to finish, and instead you can focus on areas that really impact your work the most. They also break the document into policies for federal and state action and local action, so if you're a local planner, you can skip to the section that you have most control over.
Jennifer Hiatt:Planners should also be sure to read through APA's hazard mitigation policy guide that was adopted in April of 2020, the Housing Equity and Surface Transportation Policy Guides each their own individual document also offer related policies and guidance to complement this guide. As always, climate response is a multifaceted problem and should be considered through every lens possible to make sure we aren't missing any elements.
Stephanie Rouse:The plan leads off with three federal policies and one state policy, each with their own subsets of action items. To achieve them, the Fed's role is as the national leader and advocate from climate change action. When this document was drafted and then adopted in 2020, the action items like advocate for federal funding for climate change planning and resilience measures was needed, but with the Biden administration, they took these items to heart and two years ago, signed the landmark $391 billion climate solutions investment bill, also known as the Inflation Reduction Act, which honestly, is just such an amazing bill.
Jennifer Hiatt:Yeah, historic legislation Historic. Although it is fantastic that we already have funding for climate solution investments, that isn't where federal advocacy ends, though, of course. The guide points out that we still need to be advocating for the development of clear and usefully scaled climate information. Strong US international leadership on climate change, close cooperation among federal, state and local governments, requiring climate analysis as part of any regulatory decision makingmaking, and common focused goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Stephanie Rouse:Transitioning to a clean energy economy hasn't moved as much as federal funding has, with many action items facing more of an uphill battle, like advocating for carbon pricing strategies, stringent regulations of carbon fuel products and carbon offset programs. Instead, policies like expanding and improving the brownfield program and supporting changes to agricultural policy and practice are seeing some movement.
Jennifer Hiatt:It is understandable that transitioning away from fossil fuels is difficult I've personally never yet met a human who just absolutely loves change but it is possible to keep pushing forward on a clean energy economy. Unfortunately, a lot of these recommendations include creating some kind of regulatory scheme, so it will actually be really interesting to see how the federal government moves forward with regulatory rulemaking in light of the US Supreme Court's ruling in Loper Bright Enterprises v Raimondo. I haven't actually heard of that. The Raimondo case overruled what was formerly called the Chevron Doctrine, which gave regulatory agencies quite a bit of power in rulemaking. Basically, the Chevron Doctrine was quite deferential to the agencies making rules, and in the Raimondo case the Supreme Court basically stated that that scheme was unconstitutional.
Stephanie Rouse:So it'll make it easier to make some of these rules.
Jennifer Hiatt:No, it probably will make it harder. Okay, yeah, so the idea behind Raimondo is that actually the courts would be the best body to interpret vague laws. So you know, in the rulemaking situation, congress passes a bill and they think it's a really great bill, but then when you start really trying to apply it, it kind of can be vague or might need a little more nuanced understanding. Apply it it kind of can be vague or might need a little more nuanced understanding. So often agencies are the people who do the promulgation and rulemaking and under the Raimondo scheme, of course, we haven't seen it move forward yet, so we're not really sure what it'll look like, but some analysts think that it'll be mostly courts interpreting vague law without the expertise that is often behind agencies Interesting.
Stephanie Rouse:So as a former transportation planner, but still very much an advocate at heart, I would love to see the federal action item to develop a sustainable federal transportation agenda realized. Funding mass transit, low-cost sustainability mobility solutions and moving performance measures away from favoring capacity enhancements would really go a long way. This administration has really pushed for the clean energy of transportation systems with lots of EV bills, but more support for EVs is not the only way forward in this environment.
Jennifer Hiatt:Once a transportation planner, always a transportation planner, even if you've crossed the dark side. I'd really love to see the support for adopting a national building energy performance rating system. We here in Lincoln have a net zero ready building coming online and then that utilized the tax increment financing to support the elevated energy performance systems, but even then it really wasn't economically feasible for the developer to get to full net zero. It would be nice to see some more national support, both regulatory and financial, for net zero buildings.
Stephanie Rouse:Yes, that would go a long way and we actually have an episode coming up on how to get buildings closer to net zero, so stay tuned for that next month. Last up on the federal policy, docket is advocating for state climate change plans, policies, programs and projects. It referenced only California and New York as state leaders for climate action.
Jennifer Hiatt:However, now we have 45 states DC, puerto Rico that have all released climate action plans and we are proud to say that Nebraska is one of those 45 states, and Lincoln has adopted its own climate action plan. The first step in making sure these plans are effective is advocating for close coordination between state and local governments. Accountability mechanisms as well as framework for best practices should be developed.
Stephanie Rouse:So section two is all about livable built environment policies, which is the heart of what we, as the planning profession, work on day to day. It includes multimodal transportation, transit-oriented development, coordinating regional transit investments with job clusters, creating green and complete streets serving multiple functions, mixed land use patterns that create walkable communities, promoting infill development, green building design and energy conservation, reusing historic resources and not developing in hazardous areas, requiring resilient development and infrastructure, investing in smart infrastructure and providing accessible public facilities and spaces. So that was a lot, and there is a ton to dive into here, which in our short episode we're only going to hit the highlights Really.
Jennifer Hiatt:basically, they cover the classics, but they're classics for a reason. Even though we know this is what makes for good planning and design, we often do not succeed in implementing these requirements for a variety of reasons. As a profession, we need to continue advocating for these principles.
Stephanie Rouse:One of the more unique action items was adoption of equity-based urban design guidelines. The goal is to enhance mixed-use and accessible spaces, wrapping a few other goals into this one, without displacing existing residents. This includes focusing on items like the appropriate building scale and massing of open space, good streetscape and safety enhancements to encourage walking and biking. A lot of the items, though, were already underway in most communities, or seem to be more standard city planning elements in recent years. With dozens of ideas, though, not all are being done in every community, leaving room for some improvement in the planning department.
Jennifer Hiatt:It really fits in with the gentrification conversations we've been having in our last set of episodes, and one of the recommendations that I've really been digging into in Lincoln recently is parking revisions. Of course, any Shubhanista knows that reducing parking requirements has been around for a while, but the guide also mentions parking and pricing, and I was surprised it left out. Curb management, though. We are finding as I'm sure many other communities are right now that are digging into it that reconsidering how we prioritize curb space is having almost as big of an impact on how people move through our downtown as reducing parking requirements.
Stephanie Rouse:So harmony with nature is the second theme, one that's becoming more and more apparent as a needed approach. I've heard so many examples of communities returning to natural ways to handle coastal flooding, rather than building levees that have failed time and again. As the article states, the Earth's natural ecosystems not only sequester carbon, they support the hydraulical cycle and reduce flooding, regulate temperature and support every living thing, including plants, bacteria, animals and humans, collectively referred to as biodiversity.
Jennifer Hiatt:And we've talked about before on the podcast how important it is to design with nature it's like literally our second episode and protect and restore natural capital. I thought the recommendation to protect important natural assets as carbon sinks was really interesting. We know that part of our current carbon problem is that we are releasing ancient carbon back into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuel and destroying old growth forests, and that we need to reduce or eliminate our penchant for doing so. But I was also intrigued by the concept of preserving productive agricultural soils and supporting soil conservation practices as part of that effort to maintain a carbon sink. We are farm people in Nebraska. You normally think about farming as one of the larger carbon footprint industries, so it's really neat to think about the ways that we can reduce or eliminate farming's impacts on the climate.
Stephanie Rouse:Yeah, here in Nebraska there's a really strong regenerative ag movement. That I think is really interesting. That can help support some of these policy goals. Actions under the Harmony with Nature policy include policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, restore and protect environmentally sensitive areas, provide and protect a green infrastructure network, protect green stormwater management, advocate for policies to improve and protect air quality, advocate for climate change adaptation, promote soil waste reduction, encourage water conservation and plan for a lasting water supply, protect and manage streams, watersheds and floodplains.
Stephanie Rouse:Some states do this better than others, but I feel like most have some of these items in their focus area. Minnesota, I think, is a great example of a state where so many communities and their watershed districts are making a positive change in this area. When I lived there, I was part of a master water stewards program that taught individuals just people in the community that were interested in the subject about stormwater management treatments and how to support many of the concepts in the section, and then you did a little project at the end of it like a rain garden that you would maintain over the years. I would love to see this model replicated in other states to expand the volunteer efforts to promote these policies.
Jennifer Hiatt:That would be really awesome. It would be great if those policies and that kind of program could be brought here. Nebraska has such amazing natural resources and we really aren't protecting them very well. I also appreciated the reconnecting natural system strategy. I have actually personally been thinking a lot about this ever since our accidental ecosystem episode, especially every time I go home and drive on Interstate 80. There's just so many opportunities to like reconnect some of our natural systems, our streams and our wildlife in that area. I know we've talked a lot about this, but reducing impervious surface and using nature-based design principles at the very least our new buildings would also be great.
Stephanie Rouse:A resilient economy incorporates the idea of return, making it circular rather than linear, incorporating the total economic cost of production that factors in social and environmental costs. Under this policy, communities should ensure economic development is attuned to climate strategies, while maximizing economic benefit to all through items like promoting a circular economy, more density, brownfield redevelopment, also promoting green collar jobs and regional clean energy strategies something that's a major battle, depending on where you're doing this, as Nebraska knows all too well requiring resource efficient economic development. Advocating for community based economic development, providing climate ready infrastructure capacity planning for post disaster economic recovery something that's no longer an option that everyone should be doing and linking regional food systems and conservation to economic resiliency plans.
Jennifer Hiatt:The guide acknowledges that we need to account for the full costs of the economy, which isn't something that I think most of us are currently excelling at. We can do better by using the lifecycle analysis tools when analyzing economic development prospects. I was thinking about how we could potentially use this tool to analyze some of our redevelopment projects. Make sure we're better leveraging our incentive-based tools for our climate futures. That's, yeah, a really interesting idea. Really was making me think about it was capturing some of our negative externalities from some of our larger buildings that we're doing downtown and trying to package that all and make sure we're capturing it and making sure the developer is dealing with those externalities, as opposed to the community.
Stephanie Rouse:Yeah, One of the action items is to promote partnerships, which here in Lincoln we do really well. Our city and our electric power provider are working together on a heat pump program, with grants and loans to incentivize their installation. In our community we also have a Climate Smart Collaborative that includes the city, the county, the school district, the University of Nebraska and our electric company, who meet regularly to coordinate on making positive strides towards climate action using shared resources and knowledge. One example is when we were all trying to convert our fleets to electric vehicles also during the after effects of COVID, and trying to get any sort of vehicles. Each group kind of shared their own tips on how they were able to source different vehicles or find funding for them.
Jennifer Hiatt:One action item I would like to see Lincoln implement more of is decentralizing our energy distribution. After our storms last month, our linemen did an amazing job of responding to the power lines that were down, but we still had power outages in some areas for days. So this would include a diversity of power options, primarily implementing more renewables into the system with shorter transmission lines and smaller distribution areas. With shorter transmission lines and smaller distribution areas, a community that can decentralize their power source has less of a chance for long-term adverse effects from a power outage. I know everyone in my inner circle was talking about investing in solar after our power went out for hours last time.
Stephanie Rouse:Interwoven equity is founded on the basis that we should dedicate ourselves to the fair treatment of all members of the communities that we serve. It's especially important in the realm of climate change policy, as climate change impacts are disproportionately impacting low-income and minority populations, exacerbating current issues. The idea of interwoven equity is that equity consideration should be baked into all actions and decisions to create a fabric of climate change policy with equity woven in the policy. Items in this section are almost repeats of earlier ones, with a focus on underserved communities. For example, we already mentioned creating multimodal communities, but the policy in this section focuses on connecting underserved communities to these types of networks. The same goes for affordable housing, green infrastructure and utility systems. The last two policies are more specific to the section, which are create policies and programs that support an section, which are create policies and programs that support an equitable, resilient economy and mitigate climate change health and safety risks to vulnerable population groups.
Jennifer Hiatt:This was actually my favorite section. We know that disadvantaged communities will be the first to feel the adverse impacts of climate change, so focusing on equity just makes sense. I'm particularly passionate about one of the action items under creating policies and programs that support equitable, resilient economy, which was folding vocational, educational and other local training programs into climate readiness initiatives to foster employment opportunities in the growing greenhouse, green housing and renewable energy not greenhouse industries. I'm from a more rural part of the state and so many of my high school classmates really weren't interested in the traditional program that most universities are geared toward. They were more vocational, but at the time that wasn't as highly valued as a university degree. So I think it's really important to promote vocational programs as an excellent way to make a living, and coupling that with climate focus is just I don't know probably a good idea.
Stephanie Rouse:Yeah, a lot of the action items under the climate ready, affordable housing section are focused on supporting the development of it, but one that Lincoln is dipping its toes in is to assure that affordable housing is built or renovated to be energy efficient. We're working with our energy provider to try to install solar panels on the roof of our new permanent supportive housing project, breaking ground this fall.
Jennifer Hiatt:Another action item listed here that you will hear more about in an upcoming episode is promoting local building insulation and weatherization programs to reduce heating and cooling costs and, of course, lower the carbon footprint of the building.
Stephanie Rouse:So the shortest section of the document is healthy communities, which is impacted by air quality, temperature extremes, precipitation extremes, vector-borne diseases, temperature extremes, precipitation extremes, vector-borne diseases, food security and mental health. Ways to address these negative outcomes is through planning for the social determinants of health, planning for all stages of natural disasters and creating a health equity and climate lens for planning processes. I feel like this section is shorter because a lot of the action items in other sections will naturally lead to these healthy outcomes, like a safer multimodal transportation system will get residents out using other modes of travel, increasing their physical health and helping to reduce pollution from more vehicles on the road.
Jennifer Hiatt:I agree. That's probably why it was a little shorter, but there were still some great action items for planners listed, such as building closer relationships with public health professionals, like Danielle talked about in our Climate Resilience for an Aging Nation episode. Making sure components of the planning process and implementation focus on healthy communities and supporting policies and linking public health and planning at the federal, state and local level.
Stephanie Rouse:Yeah, we had more of a focus in the profession a few years ago with the Planners for Health movement and trying to do more partnerships with the health profession. So I think that's something that we could kind of strengthen again and revive a little bit.
Jennifer Hiatt:Yeah, even shout out to our alma mater who added a sub degree in public health through our planning program.
Stephanie Rouse:Yes, yeah, that'll be exciting. I think we have one student already enrolled. Responsible Regionalism rounds out the document, which takes planning at a regional scale for transportation, housing, economic development, natural environments, equity and social cultural frameworks and applies a more coordinated interdependence between communities and the region as a whole. This is often done through metropolitan planning organizations, and the Met Council in the Twin Cities metro area does a really great job of this. All communities in their jurisdiction have to engage their neighbors as they're preparing their comprehensive plans and, similar to other sections, this one expands on earlier policies like regional transportation options, regional green infrastructure and connecting local and regional housing initiatives.
Jennifer Hiatt:I do think that sometimes we can focus a little too much on what we are doing in our cities and we forget that we are also creating regional impacts, so it was a really good reminder to round out the document. We hope that you enjoyed this conversation on the American Planning Association Climate Change Policy Guide. Remember to subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts and please rate, review and share the show. Thank you for listening and we'll talk to you next time on Booked on Planning you.
