California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006: Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund: sustainable communities strategies.

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 act authorizes the state board to include use of market-based compliance mechanisms. Existing law requires all moneys, except for fines and penalties, collected by the state board from the auction or sale of allowances as part of a market-based compliance mechanism to be deposited in the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund and to be available upon appropriation by the Legislature. Existing law requires the Department of Finance, in consultation with the state board and any other relevant state agency, to develop, as specified, a 3-year investment plan for the moneys deposited in the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. Existing law requires designated regional transportation planning agencies to perform certain transportation planning activities, including the development of a regional transportation plan. Certain of these agencies are designated by federal law as metropolitan planning organizations. Existing law requires a metropolitan planning organization to adopt a sustainable communities strategy, subject to specified requirements, as part of a regional transportation plan, which is to be designed to achieve certain targets established by the state board for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles and light trucks in the region. This bill would require the state board, in consultation with the California Transportation Commission and the Strategic Growth Council, to establish standards for the use of moneys allocated from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund for sustainable communities projects, as specified. The bill would require the state board, in consultation with the California Transportation Commission and the Strategic Growth Council, to establish the criteria for the development and implementation of regional grant programs, as specified. The bill would require the California Transportation Commission, in consultation with the state board, to designate the regional granting authority within each region of the state to administer the allocated moneys for regional grant programs, as specified.