TO: Napa County Climate Action Committee
FROM: Brian D. Bordona, Director of Napa County Planning, Building & Environmental Services
REPORT BY: Jesse Gutiérrez, Principal Planner, Sustainability
SUBJECT: Updates on the Napa Regional Climate Action and Adaptation Plan (RCAAP)
RECOMMENDATION
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Receive a presentation from Ascent Environmental on the status of the RCAAP and Initial Study/Proposed Mitigated Negative Declaration (IS/MND)
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BACKGROUND AND DISCUSSION
The RCAAP serves as a roadmap that identifies strategies, measures, and actions that guide the region to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to climate change. Shaped by input from residents, businesses, community organizations, and staff across all six jurisdictions, it supports a more sustainable and resilient Napa County and requires bold and coordinated action across jurisdictional boundaries.
The RCAAP presents regionally-tailored solutions that are representative of the unique environmental, economic, and social characteristics of the county, its cities and town. Additionally, the RCAAP builds upon existing planning efforts and climate change and sustainability initiatives throughout the county (some of which are detailed in Section 1.3 of the RCAAP), and seeks to coordinate and amplify these and future efforts through a unified regional framework.
In May 2023, the Climate Action Committee (CAC) made the preparation of the RCAAP a top priority. Leveraging a California State Appropriations Grant for $500,000, thanks to the office of former California Senator Bill Dodd, Ascent Environmental joined the project team as lead consultant to begin development of the RCAAP. The RCAAP development process was launched in January 2024, and community engagement efforts began that summer. Project outreach began with a community survey and five focused group conversations exploring community needs, gathering perspectives on the impacts of climate change, and experiences in community resiliency. The focus group discussions were organized around specific categories including youth, families, community-based organizations, public health, multi-language populations, and agriculture and grape growers.
The RCAAP was developed with input and guidance from the CAC, agency staff, municipal leadership, partner stakeholders, and public comment. The All Jurisdiction Staff Working Group (Working Group) was formed to ensure staff from each jurisdiction had a role in reviewing all drafts of the RCAAP documents and in determining the best path for its environmental review. The Working Group continues to communicate on behalf of each jurisdiction, ensuring their feedback, goals, priorities, and concerns are part of the project process.
A draft RCAAP was released on August 1, 2025, for a 60-day public comment period. During the comment period over 300 comments were received via email and formal letters. Many of the letters and emails contained up to 30 or more comments that were subsequently disaggregated and individually considered by staff and the consultant team. The project team completed several rounds of discussions to decide the appropriate level of response and action for each comment. When several commenters raised similar points, those comments were grouped together to give one thorough response rather than several partial ones.
The project team also considered the common themes and concerns expressed during the four open house events held throughout the region during the public comment period. Event attendees submitted close to 450 individual comments on interactive boards that summarized the RCAAPs central themes, strategies, and goals. Project staff and the consultant team presented the draft RCAAP at each of the jurisdictional elected hearing bodies and to the CAC, providing additional opportunities for public comment and discussion.
Throughout the comments review process, staff's guiding question was simple: does this comment help build a plan that's clearer, more equitable, and effective at reducing emissions and preparing the Napa community for a changing climate?
The comment review process produced real changes to the plan. Concerns about affordability and mandates that could raise the cost of living or doing business led to the revision of several measures to prioritize education and incentives over rigid mandates, giving the plan a more flexible, long-range path to its emissions targets. Specific actions were also refined to clarify who is responsible for implementation and how actions will be completed.
Additional questions and concerns highlighted overall costs, emissions and carbon sequestration data, wildfire and burn events, and sector-specific topics such as waste hauling, active transportation, low-carbon building materials, and vehicle idling.
All comments were addressed in a response to comments document, available on the project websites - Connect Napa County and climateactionnapa.konveio.com - and through text revisions to the RCAAP document when the project team determined they were necessary and justified.
The result is an RCAAP shaped by residents, agency partners, and staff, built around common goals: net-zero greenhouse gas emissions in Napa County and a more climate resilient community by 2045.
A Storymap has been prepared for the RCAAP and is available on the project websites. The Storymap, in English and Spanish, offers a user friendly and interactive way to engage and get familiar with the RCAAP and learn how climate change affects the Napa region, where we’re headed, the many benefits of implementing the plan, how the plan will move forward, and information and resources so that the community can put climate action into practice in our own daily lives.
The Storymap is meant to be an actively updated space that will be customized and take specific forms that communicate different phases of RCAAP implementation and monitoring. The Storymap offers flexibility and opportunities to expand and share content quickly which will be useful when sharing data and implementation progress from the six Napa County jurisdictions.
Initial Study/Proposed Mitigated Negative Declaration
The Initial Study/Proposed Mitigated Negative Declaration (IS/Proposed MND) was prepared by Napa County to evaluate potential environmental effects resulting from the proposed Napa County Regional Climate Action and Adaptation Plan (RCAAP). The IS/Proposed MND is available for public review from July 30, 2026, to August 31, 2026.
Comments should be addressed to Jesse Gutierrez and emailed to rcaap@countyofnapa.org <mailto:rcaap@countyofnapa.org>.
Following Napa County’s consideration and adoption of the RCAAP and approval of the IS/Proposed MND as Lead Agency, the other member jurisdictions, as Responsible Agencies, will also consider adoption of the RCAAP and approval of the IS/MND. Once adopted, the cities/town, County, and regional agencies will coordinate to implement the measures each has committed to in their respective RCAAP adoption processes.
Napa County jurisdictions may also use the RCAAP to streamline GHG analysis and mitigation for future discretionary projects undergoing environmental review. This streamlining benefit is enabled because the RCAAP meets the criteria for a qualified “plan for the reduction of greenhouse gases” under the CEQA Guidelines.
Next Steps
Staff requests that the CAC receive a presentation on the Final Napa County RCAAP and its accompanying Initial Study/Proposed Mitigated Negative Declaration (IS/MND). Both documents are now available on the project website www.climateactionnapa.konveio.com and on Connect Napa County, with a 32-day comment period for the IS/MND running July 30 through August 31, 2026.
After the comment period ends, and during the CAC regular meeting on September 25, 2026, the CAC will consider recommending that all Napa County jurisdictions adopt the RCAAP. If the CAC moves to make that recommendation, the Final RCAAP, the IS/proposed MND, and the CAC recommendation will be forwarded first to the Napa County Board of Supervisors and then to each of the Napa County jurisdictions for adoption consideration.
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT
ENVIRONMENTAL DETERMINATION: The proposed action is not a project as defined by 14 California Code of Regulations 15378 (State CEQA Guidelines) and therefore CEQA is not applicable.