Net zero greenhouse gas emissions goal: carbon dioxide removal: regulations.

The California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 establishes the State Air Resources Board as the state agency responsible for monitoring and regulating sources emitting 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 adopt a regulation that establishes a system of market-based declining annual aggregate emissions limits for sources or categories of sources that emit greenhouse gases, applicable from January 1, 2012, to December 31, 2030, inclusive, as specified. The act authorizes the state board to include in its regulation of those emissions the use of market-based compliance mechanisms. 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. Existing law requires the state board, as part of its scoping plan, to establish specified carbon dioxide removal targets for 2030 and beyond. The act also declares the policy of the state both to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible, but no later than 2045, and achieve and maintain net negative greenhouse gas emissions thereafter, and to ensure that by 2045, statewide anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are reduced to at least 85% below the 1990 levels. This bill would require the state board to develop and adopt regulations, or utilize existing programs and regulations, to ensure the state achieves carbon dioxide removals equivalent to at least 100% of statewide greenhouse gas emissions in calendar year 2045, and all subsequent years, in order to achieve the net zero and net negative greenhouse gas emissions goals. As part of those efforts, the bill would require the state board to establish separate interim targets for greenhouse gas emissions reductions and carbon dioxide removals, to be applicable beginning no later than calendar year 2030, and to report on progress toward achieving those targets. For purposes of those provisions, the bill would require state board to only approve carbon dioxide removal processes that meet certain requirements, as specified. Existing law requires the state board to establish a Carbon Capture, Removal, Utilization, and Storage Program to, among other things, evaluate the efficacy, safety, and viability of carbon capture, utilization, or storage technologies and carbon dioxide removal technologies and facilitate the capture and sequestration of carbon dioxide from those technologies, where appropriate. Existing law requires the state board to adopt regulations to implement that program. In furtherance of the objectives of that program, existing law authorizes the state board, by January 1, 2024, to adopt protocols to support additional methods of utilization or storage of captured carbon dioxide. This bill would require the state board to adopt the regulations to implement the program no later than July 1, 2027. The bill would indefinitely authorize the state board to adopt those protocols, and protocols to support methods of utilization or storage of removed carbon dioxide.