Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund: healthy forest programs, organic waste projects, and recycling projects.

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 requires the state board to approve a statewide greenhouse gas emissions limit equivalent to the statewide greenhouse gas emissions level in 1990 to be achieved by 2020 and to ensure that statewide greenhouse gas emissions are reduced to at least 40% below the 1990 level by 2030. The act authorizes the state board to include the use of market-based compliance mechanisms. Existing law requires all moneys, except for fines and penalties, collected by the state board as part of a market-based compliance mechanism to be deposited in the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund and to be available upon appropriation. Existing law continuously appropriates 35% of the annual proceeds of the fund for transit, affordable housing, and sustainable communities programs and 25% of the annual proceeds of the fund for certain components of a specified high-speed rail project. This bill would make moneys from the fund, upon appropriation, available to the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection for healthy forest programs that reduce greenhouse gas emissions caused by uncontrolled wildfires, as specified; to the Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery for instate organic waste recycling projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as specified; and to the Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery for instate recycling projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and help achieve the state's policy goal that not less than 75% of solid waste generated be source reduced, recycled, or composted by the year 2020.