Local officials are resisting Sacramento's latest initiative in its expanding battle against climate change.

Last year, the Legislature passed a landmark law that requires power plants, oil refineries and factories to slash one-quarter of carbon emissions by 2020.

This year, Sen. Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, is taking the campaign further and targeting the cars and trucks responsible for 40 percent of California's emissions of greenhouse gases, which scientists believe are warming the planet at an alarming, unnatural rate.

Steinberg, through Senate Bill 375, would ask agencies that periodically prepare regional transportation plans to build those around local strategies that place housing near jobs, shopping and public transit. The idea is to get people to drive less or ride the bus, and curb carbon emissions in the process.

The kicker is, if agencies didn't design roads in concert with such strategies, they could lose hundreds of millions in state transportation funds annually.

Local agencies have made it clear they don't like the bill. The San Diego Association of Governments voted 11-4 on July 27 to take a position against the bill. On Monday, the Western Riverside Council of Governments voted 14-0 to follow suit.

"We're not against fighting global warming," said Danielle Coats, the council's director of governmental affairs, on Thursday. "We just want to make sure that this doesn't limit local authority."

Thomas Buckley, a Lake Elsinore councilman and a board member on the regional council, said the bill would set a bad precedent.

"Land use planning is always done best at the local level," Buckley said. "Considering how good Sacramento is at running the state, I'm not sure we want them running every city and county."

Gary Gallegos, executive director for the San Diego Association of Governments, said the bill would force counties to adopt "preferred growth scenarios" that provide blueprints for placing housing and employment side by side. And he said agencies would have to design regional transportation plans around the assumption that those blueprints would be carried out - even if individual cities refused to follow them.

Such plans outline where roads and rail lines will be built.

Gallegos said his agency is trying to nudge San Diego County cities toward growing more compactly by offering financial rewards. Through the Steinberg bill, he said, "we would be shifting from the carrot to the stick."

Steinberg offered no apologies in a hearing earlier this summer.

"I'm just thrilled to have stoked a real debate on what I think is a really important issue," Steinberg said. He said it is time to view the idea of reducing vehicle travel "not as an ideology but in fact as a necessary step to address traffic and air quality."

The legislation passed the Senate in June and the Assembly Local Government and Transportation Committee in July.

Dan Jacobson, legislative director for Sacramento-based Environment California, said he hopes it becomes law. He said it is needed in sprawl-king Southern California, with its marathon commute.

"Instead of having everything so spread out, let's create communities where things are closer in," Jacobson said.

And addressing auto travel is critical if California is serious about making a dent in global warming, he said.

As for the concern about infringing on local control, he said something has to be done to spur commuters to do their part.

"Everyone would like global warming to be really easy to solve, but we're going to have to change the way that we do things," he said. "We are going to have to change the way we produce power. We are going to have to change the way that we transport ourselves."

It all sounds so good, said Dan Carrigg, legislative director for the League of California Cities which opposes the measure. But there is a devil in the details.

"Saying that we are going to hold up your transportation money until you have a perfect society is not going to work," Carrigg said.

- Contact staff writer Dave Downey at (951) 676-4315, Ext. 2623, or ddowney@californian.com.