SB 513: Carl Moyer Memorial Air Quality Standards Attainment Program: fees.

(1)Existing law authorizes the Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District to adopt a $6 surcharge on motor vehicle registration fees applicable to motor vehicles registered within the district. Existing law requires the collected fees to be used for specified purposes, including, among others, awarding grants eligible for funding under the Carl Moyer Memorial Air Quality Standards Attainment Program.

This bill would additionally authorize those fees to be used for projects that involve alternative fuel and electric infrastructure, as specified.

(2)Existing law authorizes an air pollution control or air quality management district, except the Sacramento district, that has been designated by the State Air Resources Board as a state nonattainment area for any pollutant emitted by motor vehicles to levy a fee of up to $6 on motor vehicles registered within the air district, subject to specified conditions.

This bill instead would authorize any air district, except the Sacramento district, regardless of its state attainment designation to levy a fee of up to $6 on motor vehicles registered within the air district. The bill also would authorize those fees to be used for the attainment or maintenance of state or federal ambient air quality standards or the reduction of toxic air contaminant emissions from motor vehicles and for alternative fuel and electric infrastructure projects, as specified.

(3)Existing law establishes the Carl Moyer Memorial Air Quality Standards Attainment Program, which is administered by the state board, to provide grants to offset the incremental cost of eligible projects that reduce emissions of air pollutants from vehicular sources in the state and for the funding of a fueling infrastructure demonstration program and technology development efforts.

This bill would revise and recast provisions of the program, including, among others, changing the definition of covered source to include any marine vessel and any other category necessary for the state and air districts to meet air quality goals; authorizing the state board to adjust, rather than just reduce, the values of the maximum grant award criteria to improve the ability of the program to achieve its goals; authorizing the state board to reserve up to 10% of the program moneys available each year to directly fund any project that is a covered source, as defined, or a specified eligible project; removing the prohibition on using specified motor vehicle registration fees as matching funds; requiring the state board, instead of the State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission, to publish procedures to monitor and audit infrastructure projects; increasing the authorization for support and outreach costs from not more than 2% to not more than 2.5% of the moneys for use by the program in the Air Pollution Control Fund; removing the repeal date of January 1, 2024, from the provisions on how moneys in the Air Pollution Control Fund are allocated and segregated; removing the repeal date of January 1, 2024, from the provisions regarding the terms and conditions for an allocation of moneys to an air district; and requiring an air district to liquidate, as defined, the moneys by June 30 of the fourth year following the year of allocation and to return, as defined, those moneys that have not been liquidated to the state board within 90 days.

(4)The California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 establishes the state board as the state agency responsible for monitoring and regulating sources emitting greenhouse gases. The act authorizes the state board to include the use of market-based compliance mechanisms. Existing law requires all moneys, except for fines and penalties, collected by the state board from the auction or sale of allowances as part of a market-based compliance mechanism to be deposited in the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund and to be available upon appropriation by the Legislature.

This bill would authorize the state board to allocate moneys from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund and other specified sources for the Carl Moyer Memorial Air Quality Standards Attainment Program without those other moneys being required to be factored into the criteria emission reduction cost-effectiveness calculations.