BILL ANALYSIS �
SB 724
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Date of Hearing: July 6, 2011
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Felipe Fuentes, Chair
SB 724 (Dutton) - As Amended: June 22, 2011
Policy Committee:
TransportationVote:14-0
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
No Reimbursable: No
SUMMARY
This bill requires the Air Resources Board (ARB), within 30
working days following receipt of an application for
certification of a regulated product, such as engines and
vehicles, to inform the applicant, in writing, that the
application is complete and accepted for filing or that it is
deficient, specifying the missing information.
FISCAL EFFECT
Minor special fund costs of no more than tens of thousands of
dollars to ARB.
ARB reports it is moving towards a practice similar to that
described by this bill and therefore assumes the bill will
result in little or no new costs beyond existing practice.
Should the bill become law, however, ARB will have no discretion
over whether to incur costs associated with issuance of letters
indicating a letter's level of completeness. Those costs are
unknown. Actual costs, however, will depend upon the number of
applications for certification, the complexity of those
applications, and the difficulty in expressing how an
application is incomplete.
COMMENTS
1)Rationale. Bill proponents contend businesses that depend on
ARB's certification process should be promptly notified when
their applications to ARB are incomplete. Timely notification
of incomplete certification applications provides applicants
an opportunity to complete their applications and thereby
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avoid costly delays.
2)Background. Prior to offering a regulated product for sale in
California, the manufacturer must have its product certified
by ARB to ensure that the product meets ARB's emission
standards. Upon receipt of an application for certification,
ARB has 30 days to make a determination of completeness and
sufficiency. For products meeting the standards, ARB issues
an executive order indicating the product has been certified
and allowing it to be sold in California. A manufacturer must
obtain such an executive order for each model year of each
vehicle, engine, or equipment it wishes to sell.
According to correspondence provided to the author by ARB in
December 2010, the board received around 9,000 certification
applications during the years 2008-10. ARB's correspondence
reports that the board issued an executive order within 90
days of receipt of a complete application for an average of
96% of those 9,000 applications. ARB does not provide an
explanation for why its takes more than 90 days to issue an
executive order for some completed applications, though the
board notes that, in nearly every case, the complete
application was for certification of a small engine or
motorcycle engine.
The board also claims that, at the time it prepared its
correspondence, 139 certification applications had been
pending action before ARB for more than 90 days. In nearly
every instance, according to ARB, the applications were
incomplete.
3)Support. The bill is supported by Californians for
Enforcement Reform and Transparency (sponsor) and a long list
of industrial and commercial interests.
4)Opposition. Though earlier versions of this bill were opposed
by some environmental and public health organizations, there
is no opposition registered to the current version of this
bill.
Analysis Prepared by : Jay Dickenson / APPR. / (916) 319-2081
SB 724
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