BILL NUMBER: AB 1212 INTRODUCED
BILL TEXT
INTRODUCED BY Assembly Member Ruskin
FEBRUARY 27, 2009
An act to add Article 3 (commencing with Section 43300) to Chapter
2 of Part 5 of Division 26 of the Health and Safety Code, relating
to vehicle emissions.
LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST
AB 1212, as introduced, Ruskin. Air resources: clean vehicle
incentive program.
Existing law designates the State Air Resources Board as the state
agency with the primary responsibility for the control of vehicular
air pollution and as the state agency charged with monitoring and
regulating sources of emissions of greenhouse gases that cause global
warming in order to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. Existing
law establishes the Air Pollution Control Fund. Moneys in the fund
are available, upon appropriation by the Legislature, to the state
board to carry out its duties and functions.
Existing law requires the state board, no later than January 1,
2005, to develop and adopt regulations that achieve the maximum
feasible and cost-effective reduction of greenhouse gas emissions
from motor vehicles. Existing law provides that if regulations
adopted pursuant to these provisions do not remain in effect, the
state board is required to implement alternative regulations to
control mobile sources of greenhouse gas emissions to achieve
equivalent or greater reductions.
Under existing law, the California Global Warming Solutions Act of
2006, the state board is also required to adopt a statewide
greenhouse gas emissions limit equivalent to the statewide greenhouse
gas emissions level in 1990 to be achieved by 2020.
This bill would authorize the state board to adopt and implement a
clean vehicle incentive, or feebate, program consisting of one-time
rebates and one-time surcharges on the sale of new passenger motor
vehicles. The bill would require the state board to establish the
program only if the state board determines that it would be
beneficial to achieving the greenhouse gas emission goals of the
California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006.
The bill would require the state board to adopt and implement a
clean vehicle incentive program to achieve equivalent or greater
emission reductions of greenhouse gases from mobile sources if the
state board determines that the above provisions of existing law
requiring the state board to develop and adopt regulations to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles by January 1, 2005, do
not remain in effect or are substantially delayed.
This bill would also require any revenues collected under the
program to be deposited into the Air Pollution Control Fund and, upon
appropriation by the Legislature, to only be expended by the state
board to implement these provisions.
Vote: majority. Appropriation: no. Fiscal committee: yes.
State-mandated local program: no.
THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS:
SECTION 1. Article 3 (commencing with Section 43300) is added to
Chapter 2 of Part 5 of Division 26 of the Health and Safety Code, to
read:
Article 3. Clean Vehicle Incentive Program
43300. The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:
(a) According to the state board and the State Energy Resources
Conservation and Development Commission, the transportation sector is
the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in California.
(b) Multiple independent economic studies indicate that
undertaking action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will likely
create long-term economic benefits to the state's economy.
(c) Market-based incentives can augment existing state vehicle
emissions standards by encouraging automobile buyers to purchase
cleaner vehicles and by encouraging manufacturers to offer more
low-emitting vehicle choices to California consumers.
(d) One-time rebates for the purchase of new motor vehicles that
emit low amounts of greenhouse gases are a reasonable and appropriate
method to provide incentives for the purchase of these vehicles.
(e) One-time surcharges on new motor vehicles sold in California
that emit high amounts of greenhouse gases are a reasonable and
appropriate method to provide disincentives to the purchase of these
vehicles and to shift the environmental costs normally borne by the
public to the purchasers of these vehicles.
(f) The creation of a clean vehicle incentive, or feebate, program
to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles is a
market-based mechanism that does not create any new regulatory
standard under the law.
(g) The state board, in adopting its Climate Change Scoping Plan,
indicated that it plans to pursue a "feebate" program as a backstop
to the state's greenhouse gas vehicle emission regulations if those
regulations cannot be implemented.
43301. (a) The state board may adopt and implement a clean
vehicle incentive, or feebate, program consisting of one-time rebates
and one-time surcharges on the sale of new passenger motor vehicles,
to mitigate against emissions of greenhouse gases from motor
vehicles. The state board shall establish this program only if it
finds that the implementation of the program would be beneficial to
achieving the greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals of the
California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (Division 25.5
(commencing with Section 38500)).
(b) The state board, pursuant to Section 38590, shall adopt and
implement a clean vehicle incentive program in order to achieve
equivalent or greater emission reductions of greenhouse gases from
mobile sources if the state board determines that the regulations
adopted pursuant to Section 43018.5 do not remain in effect or are
substantially delayed.
(c) Any program established pursuant to subdivision (a) or (b)
shall, to the extent possible, be self-financing.
(d) Revenues collected pursuant to this section shall be deposited
into the Air Pollution Control Fund, established pursuant to Section
43015, and, upon appropriation by the Legislature, may only be
expended by the state board to implement this article.
(e) The state board shall implement this section in a manner that
does not result in the levying of a tax within the meaning of Article
XIII A of the California Constitution in that the nature of the fee
has a fair and reasonable relationship to the environmental, public
health, and societal burdens imposed by the motor vehicles subjected
to the fee, and there is a sufficient nexus between the fees imposed
and the use of those fees to support the clean vehicle incentive
program that helps to redress the impacts caused by higher-emitting
vehicles as determined by the state board.