| Member Spotlight
The Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) is a council of governments and a metropolitan
planning organization serving six Southern California counties, covering 38,000 square miles, and home to
over 17 million people. The organization was founded approximately 35 years ago and now has a staff of close to
200 planners, information specialists, and other professionals working to solve the region’s problems before they become
unmanageable. SCAG serves as a forum for cooperative discussion and interaction among local governments on a variety of
key regional policy areas:
In addition, SCAG serves as an important information clearinghouse for the region, and offers a wide array of employment, land use, growth forecast, mapping, and other regional statistics. As the officially designated transportation planning agency for the Southern California region under both federal and state law, SCAG conducts a comprehensive transportation planning process that results in a Regional Transportation Plan and a Regional Transportation Improvement Program. Together, these two documents serve as the legal basis for transportation decision making. SCAG is where city and county governments throughout the region come together to devise regional solutions to their common problems. Decision making occurs through SCAG’s Regional Council, a governing body of over 70 city and county elected officials and transportation commissioners. One of three policy committees of the Regional Council is the Energy and Environment Committee, whose members focus on such critical regional environmental issues as water supply and quality, waste management, land use, habitat preservation, and energy supply. In a critical initiative for the region, SCAG and its member jurisdictions are promoting the Growth Visioning for Sustaining a Livable Region Program to facilitate a more comprehensive, strategic regional planning process. SCAG is undertaking this process as the region’s population is projected to grow by six million people in the next 25 years. Failure to plan for this growth now could have tremendous economic, social, and quality–of–life impacts on future generations. Any member of the public can participate in this process guided by a subcommittee that meets monthly at SCAG’s headquarters. All of the issues being taken up by this group have a direct bearing on environmental sustainability and habitat preservation for all of Southern California’s unique biodiversity. For more information on SCAG’s programs, publications, and plans, please visit the website at www.scag.ca.gov. California Biodiversity News: Volume 8, Number 2 |