SACRAMENTO -- California Attorney General Jerry Brown hasn't restricted his recent grandstanding over global warming to the national stage.

He has also begun suing local California authorities based on whether their growth plans sufficiently address the global-warming issue.

First-in-line San Bernardino County and Brown's office recently concluded resolution talks and will face a pre-trial hearing next month on the county's growth plan, the San Bernardino Press Enterprise reported.

Brown filed suit last month ordering the County to rewrite its 'General Plan' (blueprint for growth), Legal NewsLine reported April 16. He said the plan violated Califoria's Assembly Bill 32 (2006) that mandates state entities to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

"Cars are arriving faster than the humans" in growing California counties like San Bernardino, Brown said at a press conference Tuesday in Washington, DC.

San Bernardino County, one of the nation's fastest-growing, will increase its population from around 1.8 million presently to around 2.5 million in 2030. It forms part of the rapidly-expanding "Inland Empire" of California counties east of Los Angeles.

San Bernardino County officials declared themselves "taken aback" by Brown's lawsuit, according to a county statement last month. The Board of Supervisors last week voted to increase spending on legal fees in the case to $325,000, the Press-Enterprise stated.

"We incorporated measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the new plan," stated County Board of Supervisors Chairman Paul Biane last month.

Biane added that San Bernardino County had "managed growth and instituted innovative environmental protections while experiencing some of the fastest growth in the United States."

County officials held settlement talks May 9 with the attorney general's office and May 16 with conservation groups who have filed a similar suit against the plan. Some participants have hinted that an agreement is possible.