CALIFORNIA ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
AIR RESOURCES BOARD
Air Resources Board
Board Hearing Room, Lower Level
2020 "L" Street
Sacramento, CA
November 18, 1993
9:30 a.m.
AGENDA
Page
93-14-1 Public Meeting to Consider Appointment of the 001
Technical Review Group Pursuant to AB 1336, Gotch.
93-14-2 Public Meeting to Consider the Approval of 005
Guidelines for the Generation of Emission
Reduction Credits by the Low-Emission Retrofit
of Existing Vehicles.
93-14-3 Public Hearing to Consider Amendments to the 051
Criteria for Designating Areas of California as
Nonattainment, Attainment, or Unclassified and
to the Areas Designations for the State Ambient
Air Quality Standards.
93-14-4 Public Hearing to Consider the Adoption of 193
Amendments to Regulations Regarding the Conflict
of Interest Code of the Air Resources Board.
93-14-5 Public Meeting to Consider a Status Report ---
on the Diesel Fuel Program.
ITEM NO.: 93-14-1
Public Hearing to Consider Appointment of Technical Review Group
Members Pursuant to AB 1336 (GOTCH).
RECOMMENDATION
Approve recommended members for Technical Review Group.
DISCUSSION
AB 1336 (Gotch) requires the Air Resources Board to convene a
Technical Review Group to establish definitions of terms related
to ridesharing regulations. The group is to consist of 15
members
representing statewide commerce, manufacturing, retail, and
financial groups; regional rideshare and public utilities or
state telecommunications; labor and environmental groups; air
districts and county congestion management agencies from both
northern and southern California.
The technical review group is to submit its definitions to the
Board on or before April 1, 1994, to be considered for adoption
by the Board on or before June 30, 1994.
SUMMARY AND IMPACTS
If successful, the committee work will produce greater
consistency between employer trip reduction rules, thereby
reducing business costs.
ITEM NO.: 93-14-2
Public Hearing to Consider Adoption of Guidelines for the
Generation of Mobile Source Emission Reduction Credits Through
the Low-Emission Retrofit of Existing Vehicles.
RECOMMENDATION
The Staff recommends that the Board approve the addition of the
retrofit credit guidelines to the Mobile Source Credit guidelines
previously approved by the Board at the February 19, 1993, public
meeting. These additional guidelines provide air pollution
control and air quality management districts (districts) with two
additional options for mobile source credit rules and programs.
Further, the staff recommends that the guidelines be forwarded to
the districts for use in developing rules and regulations
governing mobile source emission reduction credit programs.
In addition, the Staff recommends that the Board delegate to the
Executive Officer the authority to make future modifications to
the guidelines by Executive Order.
DISCUSSION
Currently, some areas of the state may not allow further
increases in emissions of regulated pollutants from new or
existing stationary sources. To allow for added industrial and
business expansion, many air quality management districts have
developed programs for allowing credits that are generated by
reducing emissions from mobile sources to be applied to offset
increases in stationary source emissions. In February 1993, the
Board approved guidelines to the districts for three types of
mobile source credit programs.
As a follow-on to those guidelines, the staff have developed
similar documents for the generation of credits by retrofitting
existing vehicles to low-emission configurations. These
guidelines were developed in consultation with interested parties
and a workshop was held to invite public comment. Responses to
issues raised during the workshop and as a result of other public
contacts were incorporated into the guidelines.
Specifically, these guidelines provide direction on vehicle
eligibility, hardware certification, enforcement, credit
calculation procedures and the definition of credit life for
credits generated by retrofitting vehicles to low-emission
configurations.
Because the number of types of vehicles and their applications
are so varied, it is not possible to construct a comprehensive
set of guidelines which would anticipate all possible
circumstances. To allow the Staff to modify and maintain the
guidelines as a flexible, useable document which can be adapted
to new situations, the Staff requests that the Board delegate to
the Executive Officer the authority to modify the guidelines by
Executive Order.
SUMMARY AND IMPACTS
The retrofit credit guidelines build on the previously approved
set of mobile source credit guidelines. They explicitly address
the cases of fleets of light-, medium- or heavy-duty vehicles
retrofitted to low-emission configurations for credit-generation
purposes. The guidelines call for the certification of retrofit
hardware utilizing the procedures of the alternate fuel retrofit
regulations, adopted by the Board in May 1992.
Some of the areas of concern expressed at the workshop were
similar to issues addressed during development of the original
guidelines. They include the stringency and cost of
certification and in-use testing procedures as well as ways of
increasing the amount of credit that can be generated. Staff has
placed primary emphasis on the protection of air quality but has
made sincere efforts to minimize the amount of verification and
record-keeping that is needed to demonstrate real, quantifiable,
and surplus emission reductions. Staff believes that the
proposed guidelines represent a balanced approach that will not
hinder the success of a retrofit credits program.
ITEM NO.: 93-14-3
Public Hearing to Consider the Adoption of Amendments to the
Criteria for Designating Areas of California as Nonattainment,
Attainment, or Unclassified and to the Area Designations for the
State Ambient Air Quality Standards.
RECOMMENDATION
The staff recommends the Board adopt the proposed amendments to
the designation criteria and to the area designations for the
State ambient air quality standards (State standards).
DISCUSSION
The Health and Safety Code (HSC) section 30607(e) requires the
Board to establish and periodically review criteria for
designating areas of California as nonattainment, attainment, or
unclassified for the State standards. As a result of this
periodic review, the staff proposes two amendments to the
designation criteria, as described below:
1) Change the requirements for evaluating data completeness
when only one or two years of data are available. The new
requirements would specify that data affected by highly
irregular or infrequent events are excluded before
determining the maximum pollutant concentration used in the
evaluation.
2) Change the emission screening value for the annual emissions
of oxides of nitrogen in an air basin to reflect improved
procedures for estimating oxides of nitrogen in an air basin
to reflect improved procedures for estimating oxides of
nitrogen emissions. The screening value is used in
determining attainment status for an area which lacks
complete data.
HSC section 39608 requires the Board to use the designation
criteria to designate areas as nonattainment, attainment, or
unclassified for the State standards. These area designations
must be reviewed annually. In this year's annual review, the
staff considered air quality data collected during 1990 through
1992. Based on these air quality data and the proposed
amendments to the designation criteria, the staff recommends the
following area redesignations:
- Redesignate Del Norte, Humboldt, and Trinity Counties in the
North Coast Air Basin (NCAB) as attainment for ozone. This
proposed area redesignation is dependent on the Board's
approval of the proposed amendment to the criteria for
determining complete data.
- Redesignate the San Jose Urbanized Area in the San Francisco
Bay Area Air Basin (SFBAAB) as nonattainment-transitional
for carbon monoxide.
- Redesignate the SFBAAB portion of Solano County as
attainment for carbon monoxide.
- Redesignate the Sacramento County portion of the Census
Bureau Urbanized Area in the Sacramento Valley Air Basin as
nonattainment for carbon monoxide, and redesignate the
remainder of Sacramento County as attainment.
- Redesignate Humboldt County in the NCAB as attainment for
sulfur dioxide, sulfates, and hydrogen sulfide.
- Redesignate Santa Barbara County in the South Central Coast
Air Basin as attainment for hydrogen sulfide.
SUMMARY AND IMPACTS
The proposed amendments are consistent with the requirements of
the HSC and are not expected to result in any adverse impacts.
Furthermore, the proposed amendments to the area designations all
reflect a move toward better air quality. As such, these
amendments reflect the continued benefits of the ongoing emission
control programs.
ITEM NO.: 93-14-4
Conflict of Interest Code Amendments.
RECOMMENDATION
Staff recommends that the Board adopt the amendments as proposed.
DISCUSSION
As required by Government Code Section 87300, the Board adopted
in 1981 a Conflict of Interest Code, designating which members,
employees and consultants are subject to specified categories of
requirements. The Code must designate those who make or
participate in making decisions which could affect private
financial interests. Government Code Section 87306 requires that
the Code be amended periodically to reflect organizational
changes and the adoption or deletion of positions which are
legally required to be included.
The proposed amendments would add eight newly created or
reclassified positions to those already included in the conflict
of Interest Code and would delete members of the Modeling
Advisory Committee, which was disbanded in August 1992. The
eight positions added or reclassified are: Advisor to the Board,
Administrative Law Judge, Data Processing Manager, Information
Officer, Research Analyst, Staff Services Manager,
Telecommunications Systems Analyst, and Transportation Planner.
This action involves no economic or environmental impact.