California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006: cap-and-trade program.

(1) The California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 designates the State Air Resources Board as the state agency charged with monitoring and regulating sources of emissions of greenhouse gases. The state board is required to adopt a statewide greenhouse gas emissions limit equivalent to the statewide greenhouse gas emissions level in 1990 to be achieved by 2020, and to adopt rules and regulations in an open public process to achieve the maximum technologically feasible and cost-effective greenhouse gas emission reductions. The act authorizes the state board, in furtherance of achieving the statewide greenhouse gas emissions limit by January 1, 2011, to adopt a regulation that establishes a system of market-based declining annual aggregate emission limits for sources or categories of sources that emit greenhouse gas emissions, applicable from January 1, 2012, to December 31, 2020, inclusive, that the state board determines will achieve the maximum technologically feasible and cost-effective reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, in the aggregate, from those sources or categories of sources. The act also authorizes the state board to include in its regulations the use of market-based compliance mechanisms to comply with the regulations, subject to prescribed requirements. This bill would require the state board to make findings and submit a status report to the Legislature no later than July 31, 2011, on the readiness of a proposed cap-and-trade program to begin January 1, 2012. The bill would authorize the board, if it makes a specified finding in the status report, to commence the cap-and-trade program after January 1, 2012, but no later than January 1, 2013. The bill would require the board to provide an annual cap-and-trade status report to the Legislature. (2) This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.