AB 52

Bill Subjects

Abstract

The California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (act) designates the State Air Resources Board as the state agency charged with monitoring and regulating sources of emissions of greenhouse gases. The state board is required to approve a statewide greenhouse gas emissions limit equivalent to the statewide greenhouse gas emissions level in 1990 to be achieved by 2020 and to ensure that statewide greenhouse gas emissions are reduced to at least 40% below the 1990 level by 2030. The act requires the state board to prepare and approve a scoping plan for achieving the maximum technologically feasible and cost-effective reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and to update the scoping plan at least once every 5 years. The act also authorizes the state board to include in its regulation of emissions of greenhouse gases the use of market-based compliance mechanisms. Existing law requires all moneys, except for fines and penalties, collected by the state board from a market-based compliance mechanism to be deposited in the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (fund) and to be available upon appropriation by the Legislature. Existing law continuously appropriates 35% of the annual proceeds of the fund for transit, affordable housing, and sustainable communities programs and 25% of the annual proceeds of the fund for certain components of a specified high-speed rail project. This bill would require the state board, in each scoping plan update prepared by the state board after January 1, 2022, to include, consistent with the act, recommendations for achieving the maximum technologically feasible and cost-effective reductions of emissions of greenhouse gases and black carbon from wildfires. The bill would also express the intent of the Legislature to appropriate an amount from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund for wildfire mitigation and prevention.