SACRAMENTO – The California Air Resources Board (ARB) today announced the allocation of $78 million in Carl Moyer Program funds for local air quality management districts and air pollution control districts to disburse as incentive grants for advanced emission control technologies projects that affect local air quality.

Dr. Robert Sawyer, ARB Chairman, said "the Carl Moyer Program has been a public health success in its first eight years providing over five dollars worth of health benefits for every dollar spent. With the demand for grants routinely outstripping availability, increased funding assured by Governor Schwarzenegger will allow California to more rapidly improve air quality." 

In 2004 and 2005, the California Legislature passed legislation signed by Governor Schwarzenegger's expanding the program to increase and continue funding for the Carl Moyer Program and other incentive programs up to $141 million annually through 2015. Also, legislative changes to the program added project categories to reduce reactive organic gases (ROG) and particulate matter (PM) emissions opening funding opportunities for gasoline engine projects, as well. One promising example of a new Carl Moyer Program source category is the voluntary car scrap program, which will allow owners to get cash to take their high polluting vehicles off the road. 

The Carl Moyer Memorial Air Quality Standards Program was established in 1998 as a grant program to offset the incremental cost of cleaner-than-required heavy-duty engines. In its first six years, the Carl Moyer Program provided over $140 million in funding to clean up more than 6,300 heavy-duty engines. These projects have reduced smog-forming oxides of nitrogen (NOx) emissions by over 18 tons per day (a yearly total of 6,500 tons of NOx) and toxic PM emissions by almost one ton per day, with a favorable cost-effectiveness of about $2,600 per ton of NOx reduced.

The Carl Moyer Program plays a critical role in the state's strategy to attain clean, healthful air for all Californians by achieving cost-effective emission reductions from in-use engines while complementing regulations and advancing clean air technology. Grants provide early or extra emission reductions and they can also accelerate the turnover rate of old engines to newer and cleaner ones and help reduce costs to the regulated community. With an average grant amount of $19,000 per engine, the majority of on-road projects include transit buses and trash trucks, while off-road projects are mostly construction and agricultural repowers.

In the first six years of existence, emission reductions achieved by Carl Moyer Program projects realized significant health and welfare benefits, helping reduce lost work days by about 17,000 and prevent about 2,800 asthma attacks and 100 premature deaths. These and other avoided health and welfare impacts have an estimated mean economic value of $790 million through 2005.

ARB has allocated the statewide funding for the ninth year of the Carl Moyer Program as follows:

AQMD: Air Quality Management District
APCD: Air Pollution Control District