Sierra Club Stonewalling Lake Tahoe Environmental Accord

We’re from the Sierra Club and we’re here to help. For more than four decades, California and Nevada have worked to control development around Lake Tahoe though the TRPA (Tahoe Regional Planning Agency).

But all that came perilously close to falling apart after legislators on the Nevada side chafed at the way environmental concerns always dominated CA's discussions, especially after the financial downturn battered Nevada’s economy. (Stating-the-obvious-statement:  The TRPA  - controlled primarily by non-rational types and a few wing nuts - has a history of being heavy-handed. No duh.)
 
Fact is, Nevada has decided to withdraw from the TRPA, and likely would have had not practical and prudent minds prevailed… which, sadly, did not include the Sierra Club: “They can’t legally cede that power and leave it to the local governments that failed to protect Tahoe in the past.  There is no reason to believe that cash-strapped local governments would adopt and enforce adequate environmental protection measures in the face of lucrative development proposals,” the Sierra Club said in a written statement.

So, EVEN AFTER 12 YEARS OF NEGOTIATIONS finally resulted in a new development plan last year for the region that satisfied leaders from both states… yep, some critics see the new agreement as California capitulating to common sense (never a good or anticipated thing with the Golden State).

The new plan deeply angered a few malcontents, who contend the new arrangement, among other things, gives too much authority to locals and detracts from TRPA’s ‘traditional role.’ (What are they thinking; giving authority to local government to control local land use?! No, no, no – far too lucid.)

So the TRPA faces another threat. Three guesses and the first two don’t count... Yep, a federal lawsuit from the Sierra Club that seeks to invalidate environmental regulations. (Read that last part again – very slowly.) Yes, those bastions of elitism from the Sierra Club believe the plan will open the door to much more development than proponents claim. (Why, I've never heard anything like that before from the Sierra Club and yes, it was difficult to type that with a straight face.)

Enter Governor Brown. He signed into law Senate Bill 630 by Fran Pavley (D-Calabasas), a compromise with Nevada that will preserve the Tahoe plan and set the stage for greater cooperation for working on shared issues at Lake Tahoe. Amazing since Pavley is one of the more enviro-leaning folk in the State Senate.  The early signs are that the bill has indeed created a better working relationship between Granolaville and the Silver State.

Two of the main provisions of SB 630 include: 1) A requirement for the TRPA to consider economic implications of the regional plan. When was the last time the impact on private property, job growth and (considering it’s Tahoe), tourism ever entered the TRPA’s thinking. Answer: Always - just never in a positive manner.

Numero Dos: A provision that places the burden of proof on the plaintiff in any lawsuit against TRPA. The provision of the bill that pushes the burden of proof to plaintiffs against the agency would appear to be timely, given the Sierra Club’s lawsuit. This is going to get interesting – environmentalists fighting other environmentalists over environmental regulations for 5he sake of more or less environmental regulation.