Existing law, The California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (Act) establishes the State Air Resources Board (ARB) as the state agency responsible for monitoring and regulating sources emitting greenhouse gases (GHGs). The Act requires the ARB to approve a statewide GHG limit equivalent to the statewide GHG level in 1990 to be achieved by 2020 and to ensure that statewide GHGs are reduced to at least 40% below the 1990 level by 2030. The Act authorizes the ARB to adopt a regulation that establishes a system of market-based declining annual aggregate emissions limits for sources or categories of sources that emit GHGs, applicable from January 1, 2012, to December 31, 2030. The Act authorizes the ARB to include in its regulation of those emissions the use of market-based compliance mechanisms.
The Act requires the ARB to prepare and approve a scoping plan for achieving the maximum technologically feasible and cost-effective reductions in GHGs and to update the scoping plan at least once every 5 years. Existing law requires the ARB, 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 GHGs as soon as possible, but no later than 2045, and achieve and maintain net negative GHGs thereafter, and to ensure that by 2045, statewide anthropogenic GHGs are reduced to at least 85% below the 1990 levels.
Existing law also 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.
This bill would:
- Enact the Carbon Dioxide Removal Market Development Act that would require the ARB, no later than December 31, 2027, to adopt a regulation to require certain emitting entities to purchase negative emissions credits equal to a specified amount of their GHGs, as determined by the ARB, in each calendar year beginning in the 2028 calendar year in accordance with specified requirements;
- Require the ARB, no later than December 31, 2027, to establish rules and processes for certifying carbon dioxide removal processes that may be used to create negative emissions credits and for tracking negative emissions credits in accordance with certain criteria;
- Require negative emissions resulting from the use of negative emissions credits to be included in the calculation of the state’s net GHGs.
Committee Location: (Updated 8/26/24) Held in the Assembly Appropriations Committee.
Full bill text and related information.
