Clean Transportation Program: hydrogen-fueling stations.

Existing law establishes the Clean Transportation Program, administered by the State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission, to provide funding to certain entities to develop and deploy innovative technologies that transform California's fuel and vehicle types to help attain the state's climate change policies. Existing law requires the commission to give preferences to those projects that maximize the goals of the program based on specified criteria and to fund specified eligible projects, including, among others, alternative and renewable fuel projects to develop and improve alternative and renewable low-carbon fuels. Existing law creates the Alternative and Renewable Fuel and Vehicle Technology Fund, to be administered by the commission, and requires the moneys in the fund, upon appropriation by the Legislature, to be expended by the commission to implement the program. Existing law requires the commission, until January 1, 2024, to allocate $20,000,000 annually to fund a specified number of publicly available hydrogen-fueling stations identified by the State Air Resources Board, not to exceed 20% of the moneys appropriated by the Legislature from the Alternative and Renewable Fuel and Vehicle Technology Fund, until there are at least 100 publicly available hydrogen-fueling stations in operation in the state. Under existing law, these allocations are subject to all of the requirements applicable to allocations from the Clean Transportation Program. This bill would require the commission, if it awards funding to hydrogen-fueling station projects under the program, to provide preference to those projects that are located at a port and are publicly accessible, are colocated at a fueling station for medium- and heavy-duty trucks, or are located along a specified corridor or on the state's portion of the National Highway Freight Network.