In 2006, the California Legislature passed the landmark Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (“AB 32”) directing the California Air Resources Board (“CARB”) to prepare a Scoping Plan to identify how best to achieve its greenhouse gas emission (“GHG”) reductions.

The state’s ground-breaking climate change legislation has been the subject of intense scrutiny and public comment since its inception. Now, the immediate future of AB 32’s mandate may be in jeopardy, due to a tentative California superior court decision holding that CARB violated the California Environmental Quality Act (“CEQA”) in implementing AB 32 because it failed to consider alternatives to a cap-and-trade market and approved its Scoping Plan without adequate environmental review.