Greenhouse gases: market-based compliance mechanism.

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 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 in regulating greenhouse gas emissions. The act requires the state board to prepare and approve a scoping plan for achieving the maximum technologically feasible and cost-effective reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and to update the scoping plan at least once every 5 years. This bill would require the state board, in consultation with the Independent Emissions Market Advisory Committee, on a triennial basis, to conduct an evaluation of the market-based compliance mechanism to determine its effectiveness in meeting the goals of the act. This bill would require the state board to adopt public banking metrics that track the number of unused compliance instruments in public and private accounts on an annual basis. The bill would require the chairperson of the state board to appear before the Joint Legislative Committee on Climate Change Policies to present the results of the evaluation and specified proposed revisions to the regulations implementing the market-based compliance mechanism. The bill would authorize, following the chairperson's appearance before the Joint Legislative Committee on Climate Change Policies, the state board to revise the regulations implementing the market-based compliance mechanism so that the mechanism can more effectively meet the goals of the act and objectives specified in the most recent scoping plan.