I noticed in your draft plan that one of the items was to increase parking fees and extend parking meeters to streets that are currently free. While the objective of this is to reduce vehicle travel, it might have the oposite effect. It might actually send people to shop out at the mall rather than taking the family "Down Town" to do their shopping. You may consider having an exemption for alternative fuel vehicles such as electric of those converted to bio-diesel.

The draft report talks about the city providing one Electric vehicle charging station at the Central Garage. This charging station is currently the only working charger that is available in Berkley but, according to reports I get from EV drivers, it is often ICED (that is blocked by regular car drivers. If the charging station is going to be workable it needs to be available which means proper signage and enforcement to ticket and/or two offending vehicles. Also, there is no 110V charging which means that the vast majority of EVs and PHEVs cannot charge an this location. For planning future charging you should consider including 110V 20amp GFI outlets.

Will Berkeley join its neighbors in banning the use of plastic bags at stores of at least a certain size? I work in downtown Oakland, and the Longs in my work neighborhood is now using only paper or cloth bags. The Longs in my Berkeley neighborhood still only has plastic. Seems like a disconnect.

I do know that paper has its own problems. But at least there is no Texas-sized ball of paper whirling around in the middle of the Pacific ocean.

In 2004, AC Transit released a report "Designing with Transit - Making Transit Integral to East Bay Communities, A Handbook for Elected Officials and Local Staff." http://www.actransit.org/pdf/designing_with_transit.pdf

I would encourage you to integrate their guidelines into city policies. Of all the bus improvements suggested in the Berkeley Climate Action plan, I feel that real time signage is one of the more important service improvements for riding the bus. But implementation of this infrastructure requires a commitment to existing bus stops, and identification of key bus stops which are unlikely to change.

AC Transit has installed some real-time transit information in downtown Oakland, which has been invaluable to my commute. The worst thing is to wait around and have no idea if a bus is coming in 2 minutes or 20 minutes.

Overall I think this is a good plan and I hope the City of Berkeley supports efforts to combat GHG emissions and climate change. The section on Building Energy Use and Energy Efficiency measures is particularly good. However, I think a mistake was made to try to incorporate renewable energy into that section. Renewable energy really deserves its very own Chapter. For instance, the section analysing Community Choice Aggregation (p. 30) is woefully short. On page 33, wind energy is discussed. The Plan mentions the single 1.8 KW wind turbine Berkeley has installed at Shorebird Park Nature Center. This is great, but it's clearly not enough. A major wind energy project, for instance along the Berkeley Marina, would make a far greater impact on the the mix of renewable energy in the overall electricity grid (and it would be much cheaper than distributed PV solar - a fact that is not even mentioned). Many in Berkeley will protest loudly against wind turbines, I suspect, but I still believe the majority of residents would support a major high-visibility public renewable energy project along the shoreline, that makes a statement to the Bay Area and the State that Berkeley is indeed serious about climate change.

I would like to suggest that a good way to get people out of cars and onto bikes and public transportation is to have a monthly car free day. It could encompass some or all of the business districts in Berkeley, as well as the Satuday Farmer's Market, which could also help bring focus to local bussinesses. Both buying local and getting around on bikes or public transportation are a great way to reduce our carbon footprint. I think that a monthly car free day could be a wonderful celebration of an alternative to cars.

The Climate Action Plan makes no mention of street trees or urban forests. I suggest the CAP be revised to include a strong statement that the city should have a proactive, aggressive program for increasing the number of street trees in Berkeley. The budget of the Urban Forestry program should be increased to cut the waiting time for free street tree planting (currently it's one year!). Every time a property is sold or a building/business permit is issued, the city should send information about tree planting to the new owners. The city should insist that any new buildings or developments (residential, commercial or industrial) be accompanied by full street tree coverage.

-- Robert Collier

Thank you for including a section on peak oil in the draft Climate Action Plan. While I agree that many of the strategies in the plan reduce dependence on oil, I believe you will find that explicit consideration of oil price volatility and oil supply disruptions will require additional yet largely complementary strategies. My hope is that at some point, the climate change and peak oil strategy development will be brought together to exploit potential synergies and reduce the overall cost of implementation.

Berkeley needs to address peak oil similarly to how the CAP report deals with Adapting to a Changing Climate - that is, from a Preparedness perspective.

Among other strategies, a Preparedness perspective would suggest that a) Berkeley perform scenario analyses and develop contingency plans for volatile oil prices and supply disruption as well as rising sea levels, b) adopt the Oil Depletion Protocol thereby requiring Berkeley to reduce oil consumption and carbon emissions from oil by 3% per year, and c) strengthen Berkeley's land use planning and public transportation to reconfigure the city for less private transportation and parking. All of these were included in the recently completed Oil Independent Oakland by 2020 report http://www.oaklandnet.com/Oil/pdfs/OIO-ActionPlan-020608.pdf.

As Berkeley develops its proposal to address the implications of peak oil, please consider the Mitigate-Commit-Reengineer framework presented in the white paper "Energy Preparedness: A Municipal Perspective" http://www.energypreparedness.net/resources/whitepaper/1.

I'm writing as a Berkeley native, an architect, and as vice-chair of the city of Berkeley Landmarks Preservation Commission. As I read the Climate Action Plan I was surprised to see no real discussion of the merits of careful stewardship of our existing built environment. The destruction of existing structures and their replacement by new (even very green) buildings usually represents a huge net energy loss. While making new buildings as green as possible is to be greatly encouraged, the destruction and replacement of existing buildings should be carefully considered; the loss of the embodied energy of the existing building, together with the energy required to build the new building makes the prospect of a net-zero endeavor quite remote. Often the destruction of existing buildings and the loss of their embodied energy isn't considered in the calculus of the new building's efficiency.

The citizens of Berkeley clearly care greatly about the built environment and also care greatly about our existing resources, whether they are of historic merit or not. It is important to remember that almost any existing building can be greatly improved in terms of its energy use and carbon footprint (even designated landmarks!) without losing their sense of place and time. The Climate Action Plan should have a section or sub-section devoted to these points.

Gary Earl Parsons AIA

Vice-Chair Berkeley Landmarks Preservation Commission

The Climate Action Plan seems to focus mainly on the green building aspects of new buildings or retrofit of older buildings with green attributes. However, virtually no mention seems to be made of the huge amounts of carbon embodied in existing structures (for example about 80 billion BTUs of energy in a typical 50,000 square foot commercial building.) Demolishing buildings uses huge amounts of energy and creates huge amounts of waste. You have only to look right now at the site of the Warren Hall demolition at UC to see shocking evidence of this. Even if UC plans to recycle most of these mountains of debris, the energy involved in transporting and recycling is enormous. The building was not really worn out--just not fashionable for what UC wants to do any more.

Moreover, new building construction also uses very large amounts of energy and creates a great deal of waste. Thus, in a city such as Berkeley with a very large stock of pre-war buildings (when buildings were generally built better to last a long time than most current construction)it behooves us to preserve and maintain this valuable stock with its embodied energy as long as possible. Unnecessary demolition should thus be avoided.

I strongly recommend that you see the January/February issue of Preservation magazine with its well-researched articles on the green value of historic preservation. We should include this recognition of the green value of building preservation and re-use as one of our main goals in the Climate Action Report.

Robert E. Johnson

commissioner and former chair of Landmarks Preservation Commission; Greenbelt Alliance boardmember

This is a great report. One thing I think worth mentioning but not necessarily making a main focus of the report is that Measure G has been interpreted to mean the direct carbon emissions, yet there is a whole life cycle of indirect carbon emissions embedded in the materials acquisition, production, transport and distribution, and end-of-use of the products we use on a daily basis. While it certainly makes sense to focus on the direct emissions from the use stage of the life cycle (e.g., from the gasoline in our cars, the natural gas heating our homes), ultimately we collectively will need to reduce both direct and indirect carbon emissions.

Localization or relocalization, also known as bioregionalism is one of the best ways to reduce indirect emissions since it greatly diminishes the carbon emissions due to transport of goods. It also gives us the possibility of reducing carbon emissions in other stages of the product life cycle, especially materials acquisition to the extent it is done locally, in production, and end-of-use. The report from the Oakland Oil Independent by 2020 (Available as a PDF here: http://www.oaklandnet.com/Oil/default.html)task force has a chapter on economic localization (Chapter 3) which gives an overview and recommends that Oakland develop of a comprehensive localization strategy that includes targets for food, energy, and vital goods. Localization is also a leading strategy to prepare for oil scarcity.

The peak oil section of the draft Climate Action Plan recommends that City staff work with city commissions and community groups such as Oil Independent Berkeley and Bay Localize to institutionalize City Council's directive over the coming months. Bay Localize is happy to work with Berkeley on this. Perhaps we should set up a meeting some time in the next week or so to officially start the conversation.

Many thanks for your great work in developing this plan,

Ingrid and the Bay Localize team

We are providing you comments as the Local Clean Energy Alliance (localcleanenergy.org). The Local Clean Energy Alliance is a group of local nonprofits and businesses committed to forwarding local renewable power in the Bay Area including Bay Localize, the Ecology Center, KyotoUSA, Nomad Café, Pacific Environment, Rainforest Action Network, Sierra Club, and the Urban Alliance for Sustainability.

The primary goals of the alliance are:

* Achieve a mix of at least 50% renewable energy by 2017 and 80% by 2050

* Maximize local renewable energy production

* Offer stable and affordable rates for all

* Create local business opportunities and green-collar jobs

* Facilitate local businesses and residents' ability to sell excess energy to the grid

* Mandate energy conservation

We are coordinating efforts to mobilize East Bay residents, businesses, and organizations around a regional agenda that creates green-collar jobs, reduces pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, and brings affordable, clean energy to our communities.

Overall Comments

We found your report informative and thoughtful. While we would have liked to see a stronger recommendation of community choice aggregation, we understand the need for better information before such a recommendation would be justified. We have provided some edits below on the section that mentions CCA. In addition to the other strategies you outlined for increasing renewable, you may also consider including cooperative buying of solar whereby neighbors pool their purchasing dollars to get community discounts on the order of 10-20%. For more information, take a look at this post on cooperative solar purchasing http://www.localcleanenergy.org/node/31. Another possibility for increasing local renewable energy that could be driven by the fed, state, CPUC, or CCA would be feed-in tariffs (that is, guaranteed payment rates for renewable energy provided to the grid).

Specific Comments

p.4, last paragraph: Beyond reducing greenhouse gas emissions, making this vision a reality in Berkeley will have benefits for community social equity and quality of life, including: lower overall energy expenses for residents and businesses

change to: lower overall energy and transportation expenses for residents and businesses

p.5, last paragraph: It order to monitor progress

supposed to be: In order to monitor progress

p. 7, paragraph 2: 2. Sustainable Transportation & Land Use: Actions proposed in this section of the plan seek to increase vehicle fuel efficiency and the utilization of alternative fuels and to reduce the amount of vehicle miles traveled in our community by making alternative travel modes the mainstream:

We would encourage a greater emphasis on reducing vehicle miles traveled as a more effective in the long term than promoting alternative fuels, as at this point agrofuels are not a sustainable option.

Another thing to consider is the oil depletion protocol. Though inspired by peak oil, it would surely help ensure that Berkeley meets its GHG reduction targets. If Berkeley were to adopt the protocol, the city would be obliged to reduce oil consumption at least 3% per year which would require the transition to alternative travel modes and continuing to focus development near transit and along major corridors.

p.8, paragraph 3: While measuring GHG emissions

probably more accurate to say: While tracking GHG emissions

p. 24, paragraph 4: widow repair and replacement

I believe we are trying to replace windows rather than widows :)

p. 30, paragraph 3: In regard to changing the composition of Berkeley's energy supply, the community has three main options: 1) Develop a local, clean, decentralized, renewable energy supply, mostly in the form of residential and commercial solar installations; 2) work with PG&E and the relevant State agencies to add more renewable sources to the existing energy grid; or 3) Community Choice Aggregation, i.e., the City would be empowered to choose the community's energy provider and the source of electricity.

Options #1 and #3 are not mutually exclusive. Neither are #1 and #2. Consider framing it as Berkeley is going to do #1. And will do #2 or #3. Also, we find that people have a hard time understanding the word "Aggregation" in this context. We call the policy "Community Choice Energy." We recommend describing #3 as, "Community Choice Aggregation, more popularly called Community Choice Energy, empowers the city to choose the community's energy provider and the source of electricity, including bulk purchasing of renewable energy for city residents and businesses."

p. 30, paragraph 6: This option includes gradually increasing the portion of electricity produced by

PG&E and other utilities from renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, geothermal and biomass.

It would be more accurate to state as: "This option relies on PG&E to gradually increase the portion of electricity from renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, geothermal and biomass. The City of Berkeley currently has no jurisdiction or oversight over PG&E's power generation decisions."

p. 30, paragraph 7: A third option for "greening" Berkeley's energy supply would involve the City of

Berkeley (and other California cities) in choosing the community's electric provider and

the source of our electricity.

Consider saying:

A third option for "greening" Berkeley's energy supply would involve the City of Berkeley working with neighboring cities to form an East Bay joint power authority to purchase green electricity and build the capacity for local clean electricity generation.

p. 31, paragraph 1: Termed Community Choice Aggregation (CCA), the arrangement enables a local government or a group of local governments to supply electricity to customers within the city's border and involves the City in the purchase and sale of the energy commodity. Under CCA, Berkeley and its partner cities would be responsible for providing the energy commodity to residents but PG&E would maintain ownership of the transmission and delivery systems (i.e., the utility poles and wires).

We have found that people find the word "aggregation" very confusing and that the term Community Choice Energy is much easier for people to understand. Replace Community Choice Aggregation and CCA with Community Choice Energy throughout. Replace "be responsible for providing the energy commodity to residents but PG&E would maintain ownership of the transmission and delivery systems (i.e., the utility poles and wires)." with "enter into long term agreements to purchase electricity, including renewable energy, that PG&E would ultimately provide to residents using their transmission and delivery systems (i.e., the utility poles and wires)."

p.31, paragraph 1: CCA has many potential benefits, including the increased use of renewable energy sources for electricity generation and local control of energy policy and electricity rates.

Add additional sentences: According to a feasibility plan comissioned by the City of Berkley, an East Bay Community Choice Energy program could deliver least 50% renewable energy by 2017, considerably higher than the State goal for this date. A group of nonprofit organizations and local businesses are advocating that this program achieve a longer term goal of at least 80% renewable energy, which would be in alignment with California law that requires a 80% reduction of carbon dioxide emissions by 2050.

p. 31, paragraph 1: It also has many risks, such as potentially higher electricity rates and the potential that PG&E's electricity generation mix will actually be cleaner than what would be achieved by CCA. More analysis needs to be conducted in order to compare the projected impact that CCA and PG&E's future energy mix will have on greenhouse gas emissions and to consider the economic aspects of the program for the City.

We believe it is more accurate to provide more context in this section: "Possible risks include potentially higher electricity rates, and the potential that PG&E's electricity generation mix -- which included 24% nuclear power in 2007 as well as considerable large hydro -- could emit less greenhouse gasses than the City's mix in the short term. A feasibility study prepared by Navigant Consulting for the City of Berkeley found that City rates with a Community Choice Energy system could be comparable to PG&E and potentially less expensive in the long run.The Council is current awaiting the release of a more detailed business plan on this proposal."

p. 33, paragraph 3: In June 2007 the City of Berkeley became the first city in the nation to install a wind power for one of its buildings.

"install a wind turbine" or "install wind power"

Consider adding Cooperative Buying of Solar to the plan. Cooperative Buying is heating up and is going to be very hot. And it can potentially work in tandem with the forthcoming Berkeley FIRST solar financing plan.

Cooperative purchasing agreements are a mechanism for aggregating a community’s purchases of solar photovoltaics and thermal arrays. By pooling their purchasing dollars and buying in bulk, people can save 20% or more on their installation. In this arrangement, individuals own their solar arrays. Coupled with the federal and state rebates, this can considerably lower the out-of-pocket cost of solar arrays to such an extent that they are cheaper than purchasing electricity or gas from the utility when the time value of money is taken into account.

Solar City - a solar installation company – was the first in the U.S. to implement community purchase programs whereby homeowners get volume discounts when their neighborhoods go solar and continues to use this as primary business model. In October 2006, Solar City aggregated a Portola Valley neighborhood’s purchasing power to receive bulk purchase discounts on a total of 343kW of photovoltaics. The threshold for receiving the bulk discount was 175kW. The solar panels were installed on 78 homes within four months with an average residential installation of 4.3kW. The savings for the community aggregating their orders was 20-30% per array installed. After the bulk discounts as well as the CSI incentives and Federal tax credits, the fully amortized monthly cost of these installed systems is less than their previous utility bills. Such programs can be controversial since the “discounts” are being offered by one company in a non-competitive bid situation.

Recently, a neighborhood group - the Downtown San Jose Solar Project - banded together to purchase solar in bulk and find their own solar installer through a competitive bidding situation. They put their collective requirements for three solar systems out to bid by several solar companies to get the best price, quality, etc. As of February 20, 2008, the project includes 24 San Jose homes producing 99kW of electricity. The 24 systems in San Jose will produce 3,560,000 kWh over the systems’ lifetime and will eliminate, according to today’s current fuel mix, about 5,055,861 pounds of carbon dioxide. The community group wants to see this program spread across the Bay Area and hopes the training will inspire people interested in setting up their own community discount programs.

Eight people from San Jose’s District 3 have been working consistently outside of the regular jobs for 3-4 months. The first thing they did was contact their city council person. The District 3 council member Sam Liccardo was very supportive from the start. His staff arranged meeting logistics and a designated staffer attended all the group’s meetings. The meetings were mostly promoted through email lists including the Liccardo’s e-newsletter and several articles in local media.

The largest amount of the group’s effort - about 3 and a half months - was selecting a vendor among those that bid upon the job to install solar voltaics on the first three homes in the project. Following the lead of Marni Kamzam, who writes RFPs for living, they put together an extensive RFP with weighted attributes (e.g., cost is important and therefore rates 5 on a scale from 1-5). Kent Haliburton of REC Solar, the eventual winner of the installation work, said the community group’s RFP was as extensive and professional as any commercial job.

The individuals in the group had the choice of buying their solar system outright or signing onto residential Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) whereby a financing company purchases the equipment, monitors and maintains it, and sells the customer the electricity generated. 75% of the Downtown San Jose Solar Project customers have chosen a residential PPA model from a private solar company called Sun Run, specialists in financing and tax structuring.

Sun Run offers a residential PPA that can be used in cooperative purchasing agreements. It reduces the upfront cost of solar by half and fixes the cost of electricity produced by the panels at a cheaper rate than the customers would pay currently from PG&E for a 20 year period of time. At the end of the 20 year contract, the system can be purchased for an average of $2,000 or the contract can be renewed for a rate that is 10% less than baseline from PG&E at this time. Other companies are scrambling to build this business model (which is very complicated on the backend) and there will be competition in this arena within the next 12-18 months.

Sun Run is able to offer a lower overall price with less money upfront than the householder could get on their own because businesses receive the full 30% federal solar tax credit whereas homeowners are capped at $2000 and those that file the Alternative Minimum Tax can’t participate at all. To increase their margins, Sun Run accelerates the depreciation of the system and does additional proprietary financial wizardry.

After the group selected REC Solar as the installer with the Sun Run residential PPA as a financing option, the group started a 60 day period for District 3 residents to sign up. They deliberated on whether to allow residents from outside District 3 to participate. In the end, they did not market the program outside the District and handled requests from outside the District on a case by case basis.

Overall, it was thought provoking workshop. This effort provides a good model for organizing cooperative buying of solar photo voltaics in the neighborhood context. From what I gather from the example numbers provided by Sun Run, participants got a “community discount” on average of about $2000 or 10%. My main takeaway is that the process is relatively pain free and short (60 days or less) if you already have the installation partner selected.

http://stardustlocalizing.com/2008/02/26/cooperative-solar-purchasing/

The City of Berkeley's 'G Team' has done a superb job raising interest and excitement around the community. With this draft Plan, the Climate Action Team took essential strides toward catalyzing a climate protection movement at the local level that can inspire and inform other communities around the state, the nation, and the globe. Thank you for the opportunity to provide further input.

I am heartened to witness an impressive amount of public participation giving force and momentum to Berkeley's climate protection efforts. At the same time, as a person in her late twenties, I was perplexed to find that my peers made up a minority of those present at workshops and meetings leading up to and following the release of the Plan. Perhaps counter-intuitively, given the nature of the climate crisis, my anecdotal observations suggest that Berkeley residents of my parents' generation and thereabouts are more inclined than younger cohorts—people in their twenties and thirties—to become involved in climate protection, at least when it is led by the municipal government. Given the targets and timeline we have before us, we must appeal to community members of the generation that in the decades ahead will have to act on the guidelines laid out in this Plan. In short, we must prepare to pass the torch.

Being linked to environmental organizations with national and international reach, I am aware that a broader network of young climate activists is growing quickly, especially at schools, colleges, and universities. Their campaigns tend to push for more climate-friendly facilities and purchasing policies on campus and for corporate accountability, as well as for more rigorous national laws and international treaties. In general, young climate activists pay less heed to the crucial role of local government, despite the fact that many areas of potential emissions reductions (e.g. waste management, energy provision, transportation and land use planning) fall under the municipal domain. Concerned young people in the general workforce--those who are no longer students--are left to seek out what are now less visible avenues for participating in climate protection.

Like the larger Bay Area, Berkeley is blessed with a robust, zealous population of young visual and performance artists and activists who use their creative talents to promote social, environmental, and economic justice. Although awareness and concern about climate change is certainly rising in this sector of our community, their climate consciousness could be better coordinated with the City of Berkeley's initiatives. The climate action movement that the City's plan spearheads would benefit tremendously by reaching out to this demographic.

Below I suggest several ideas for galvanizing Berkeley residents, especially those in their twenties and thirties, beginning with people who already support just causes through art and then expanding to the broader community. Art may be trendy, but it cannot control the trends that determine carbon emissions. The City of Berkeley must reinforce its efforts in movement building by supporting pricing mechanisms that reflect the pivotal role of cost in shaping lifestyle choices that translate to bigger or smaller carbon footprints. I emphasize pricing for smarter transportation choices because of the vast potential for improvement in this area.

The City could:

• Establish a competitive grant program to fund art projects appealing to the "hip hop generation" through visual displays, musical performance, spoken word, and theater. Projects entering the competition would have to offer Berkeley residents information about the impacts of climate change (locally and/or globally) and point to opportunities for participation (political engagement and/or lifestyle change). Performances and exhibits could be housed by community arts and activism organizations that have not historically emphasized environmentalism, such as La Peña Cultural Center, or by organizations that have long supported environmental causes, such as the Ecology Center. What I lightheartedly refer to as the "hip hop generation" encompasses young people who are increasingly involved in the serious endeavor of parenting. Through the natural process of socialization, their children will assimilate the climate conscious norms that the City's efforts foster. Passing the torch of climate action may then pose a lesser challenge in the future. In particular, a 'Climate Art Fund' could help Berkeley "enhance and expand education and outreach regarding alternative modes of transportation" (p. 37).

• Plan a Carfree Carnival, in which portions of downtown Berkeley are closed to automobile traffic and opened to walkers, bikers, rollerbladers, and skateboarders and other self-propelled visitors. Besides entertainment, in the form of musical performance and art displays, the Carnival would provide information and ideas on low-carbon living. Alongside the City's own G team, community-based organizations that encourage climate protection from the local to the global levels would be invited to set up booths. Depending on turnout, the Carfree Carnival could be repeated every few months or even more frequently. For inspiration, Berkeley can look to Bogotá, Colombia's capital, which since 1974 has closed off portions of the metropolis to traffic in what has become the immensely popular Ciclovía. The Ciclovia now occurs every Sunday from 7am–2pm and regularly attracts over 1 million people (www.streetfilms.org/archives/ciclovia/). A Ciclovia-style Carnival, scaled down to Berkeley size and scaled up in terms of information-exchange, would also provide a confrontation-free alternative to the monthly Critical Mass rides, appealing to a broader spectrum of the community and thereby accelerating the process of making "alternative modes of transportation the mainstream" (p. 39).

• Reward people who choose carfree living by expanding the offerings of transit passes and carsharing/bikesharing incentives. The Plan recognizes that the lower the cost of a given form of transportation, the more likely people will choose that travel mode. The City aspires to have "riding the bus …be free for as many Berkeley residents as possible" (p. 46). Clearly, the cost incentive is especially relevant among younger people and households that are unable or unwilling to secure incomes high enough to cover the more convenient transportation forms, e.g. the personal car. Young people and families are also less likely to be able to afford fuel-efficient, electric, and other alternatively-fueled vehicles. Acknowledging these factors, the City could offer free or reduced cost bus passes to residents who participate in a community-run program to curb car use in Berkeley, which I am currently developing, following the successful campaign by the City of Seattle—the One Less Car Challenge—and building on the existing networks of the Transportation and Land Use Coalition’s TravelChoice program. The City could also work with existing carsharing services and potential bikesharing services to offer preferential promotions to residents who participate in this prospective 'One Less Car' program in Berkeley.

• Use the Climate Action Team and its network of advocates to generate support for greater funding for alternatives to single-occupancy, single-owner petroleum-powered vehicles via the new bill in the California Assembly, AB 2744. The bill would authorize the Metropolitan Transportation Commission to bring before Bay Area voters aclimate mitigation fee on gasoline starting at 2-3 cents per gallon and rising to 10 cents per gallon by 2014. Because it requires majority support, rigorous and strategic outreach is necessary. Such a massive funding source would help make initiatives like the ones I describe above financially feasible. If successful, AB 2744 and its corresponding Regional Measure promise to provide critical resources for climate-protecting transportation in the Bay Area, while also moving us toward a gasoline price that better reflects the true costs of oil. The City can play a part in educating its residents, especially younger, cost-sensitive ones, about the benefits of this proposed climate mitigation fee, so that they will be more likely to offer their backing as voters.

Thank you again for the chance to chime in on the Climate Action Plan. I look forward to taking part in building a sustainable climate protection movement, here in Berkeley and beyond.