California Air Resources Board

Background Information

On September 27, 2006, Assembly Bill 32 (AB 32), the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, was signed into law. AB 32 established a comprehensive program of regulatory and market mechanisms to achieve quantifiable and cost-effective reductions of statewide greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. AB 32 also authorized the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to adopt a schedule of fees to be paid by sources of GHG emissions to fund the development, administration, and implementation of AB 32 programs by state agencies.

CARB adopted the AB 32 Cost of Implementation Fee Regulation (COI Fee Regulation) following a public hearing on September 25, 2009. The COI Fee Regulation became effective on July 17, 2010 and was subsequently amended in 2011, 2012, and 2014 to improve consistency with the Mandatory Reporting Regulation and the Cap-and-Trade Regulation. Fee invoices were generated beginning with fiscal year 2010-11. 

Reporting Requirements

Businesses and facilities subject to the COI Fee Regulation are required to report the following, as applicable: gallons of transportation fuels supplied or imported, therms of natural gas delivered to end users from natural gas utilities and intrastate pipelines, therms received from interstate pipelines, megawatt hours delivered to the California transmission and distribution system, and emissions and fuels data. All entities must report billing address and contact information. All reported data must be certified by the reporter to be true, accurate, and complete for the purpose of invoicing under the COI Fee Regulation. The COI Fee Reporting FAQs document provides further guidance to Fee Payers on how to report data pursuant to the COI Fee Regulation.

All required data must be reported using the California Electronic Greenhouse Gas Reporting Tool (Cal e-GGRT). To establish a new Cal e-GGRT facility account, contact staff at ghgreport@arb.ca.gov and provide your name, the name of the facility or power entity required to report, and the type of emissions and fuels data you will be reporting. More information on using Cal e-GGRT is provided on the Mandatory GHG Reporting program's Reporting Tool page.

Fee Invoices

CARB sends invoices to Fee Payers approximately 30 days after the fiscal year’s budget has been signed by the Governor. Invoices are determined for each fiscal year based on the most recent annual emissions and fuels data reported into Cal e-GGRT for which verification has been completed.