Comment Log Display

September 24, 2007


Ms. Mary Nichols, Chairperson
Board Members
A.B. 32 Staff Members
California Air Resources Board
1001 I Street
P.O. Box 2815
Sacramento, CA  95812

VIA ONLINE POST - HARD COPY TO FOLLOW

	Re:	Additional Proposed Early Action Measures Under A.B. 32

Dear Chairperson Nichols, Board Members, and Air Resources Board
Staff:

	The City of Commerce respectfully submits this letter in favor of
an additional ARB “early action,” to be implemented immediately,
barring the construction and development of new criteria-pollutant
and greenhouse-gas emitting power plants in environmental justice
areas.  In making this proposal, we echo the prior early action
comments of the California Air Pollution Control Officers’
Association (CAPCOA), the Environmental Justice Advisory
Committee, and Communities for a Better Environment.  

	Interests of the City of Commerce in this Proceeding.  The City
of Commerce is located in the region of Southeast Los Angeles.  It
is part of the South Coast Air Quality Management District
(“SCAQMD”), which has some of the worst air quality in the nation
– specifically, according to SCAQMD figures, 51.7% of the total
average annual PM 2.5 exceedances of the National Ambient Air
Quality Standards for the entire nation, and almost 25 % of the
exceedances of the 8-hour ozone standard nationwide.  See SCAQMD,
2007 Air Quality Management Plan Presentation, available at
http://www.aqmd.gov/aqmp/AQMPintro.htm (“staff presentation” link,
slides 1 and 2).  Commerce is, in fact, in one of the most impacted
regions of the District that will not meet federal ambient air
quality standards under present air quality plans.  Id., slide 19.
 According to draft Health Risk Assessments recently released for
by the Board for the Commerce Union Pacific and BNSF Railroads,
Commerce is also has some of the State’s highest diesel
particulate emissions in the State, considered by ARB to be
responsible for 70% of the state’s ambient air toxic cancer risks.
 Commerce is also located adjacent to a proposed new 934-megawatt
combined cycle natural gas electric generation facility whose
application is pending before the California Energy Commission for
which the SCAQMD has now amended its rules to allow new access to
the Priority Reserve under the federal Clean Air Act New Source
Review Program.  


 
I.  	Background

A.  Air Resources Board’s June 21 Direction to Staff.  

At the June 21 meeting in which the Air Resources Board (“ARB”)
adopted several “early action” measures under last year’s Assembly
Bill 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act (“AB 32”), the Board
faced criticisms that its proposed list of early actions did not
do enough to reduce emissions of Greenhouse Gases (GHGs), and did
not adequately address environmental justice concerns, as AB 32
requires.  The Board directed staff to further evaluate the early
actions adopted, and not adopted, so that it could revise or add
to the list adopted at that meeting.  Specifically, the Board
directed staff to look at the comments provided by the
Environmental Justice Advisory Committee (“EJAC”), CAPCOA, and
SCAQMD.  Staff issued a report (on Sept. 7) and presentation (on
Sept. 17) responding to the specific proposals in the EJAC,
CAPCOA, and SCAQMD letters.  

B.  Background on AB 32 and Early Action Requirements.  

As you know, in general, AB 32 requires ARB to adopt rules so that
the overall emissions of GHGs by the State fall to the levels they
were at in 1990 by 2020.  This overall reduction was to be
achieved despite the near doubling in the State’s population
anticipated between 2006 and 2020 (from approximately 30 million
to 50 million inhabitants).  The Legislature made clear that ARB
was to consider and require the achievement of emissions
reductions from all sectors within the State, specifically
including the generation and sale of electricity and the use of
natural gas.   The statute mandates that the agency undertake to
achieve those emissions reductions in two main steps:  first, a
list of “early actions,” to be initially published by June 30,
2007, and adopted by enforceable rules on or before January 1,
2010, see Health & Safety Code §§ 38560.5(a), (b), and second, the
use of a rule or rules imposing direct emissions reductions
measures or market mechanisms after the development of a scoping
plan in 2009, resulting in a regulation published January 1, 2011,
and enforceable on or before January 1, 2012.  Health & Safety Code
§§ 38561, 38562.  

As the Board was aware when it ordered the consideration of
additional early action measures, AB 32 provides that the Board
“can adopt emissions limits or emissions reductions prior to”
January 1, 2011 and enforceable before January 1, 2012.  Health &
Safety Code §38563.  In other words, the Board has authority to
adopt additional early action measures beyond those identified in
the list before June 30, 2007, and it can impose regulations
identified in the scoping plan before January 1, 2011.  

Early Actions and Environmental Justice. AB 32 makes clear that,
as between early actions and the longer-term regulations, it must
design the regulations in a manner that “encourages early
actions.” Health & Safety Code § 38562(b)(1).  Additionally, and
of primary importance to Commerce and its residents, the
Legislature ordered that environmental justice concerns were of
primary concern in the regulatory scheme ARB was to implement. 
The Legislature required that ARB 

Ensure that activities undertaken to comply with the regulations
do not disproportionately impact low-income communities.  

Health & Safety Code § 38562(b)(2) (emphasis added), and in
particular ARB was required to 

Ensure that activities undertaken pursuant to the regulations
complement, and do not interfere with, efforts to achieve and
maintain federal and state ambient air quality standards and to
reduce toxic air contaminant emissions.  

Health & Safety Code § 38562(b)(4) (emphasis added).  Finally,
with regard to the long-term regulations issued after the scoping
plan, the Legislature made clear that before ARB could include any
market-based compliance mechanism, it was required to:

(1)	Consider the potential for direct, indirect, and cumulative
emission impacts from these mechanisms, including localized
impacts in communities that are already adversely impacted by air
pollution, [and]
(2)	Design any market-based compliance mechanism to prevent any
increase in the emissions of toxic air contaminants or criteria
air pollutants.  

Health & Safety Code § 38570(b) (emphasis added).  

	Put simply, ARB 

•	must not achieve GHG reductions at the expense of communities
like Commerce that face already disproportionately impacted air
quality, and 

•	it must consider early actions to protect those communities if
its cap and trade or other long-term market mechanism regulations
would result in such impacts.  

C.  Additional Rules Relevant to Electricity Generation and the
Diversification of Energy Sources

	As you are also no doubt aware, last year the Legislature also
mandated that the PUC develop a “greenhouse gas emissions
performance standard” under S.B. 1386.  The Public Utilities
Commission has adopted as a standard that no new power plants may
be built emitting GHGs at a rate greater than that of a
combined-cycle natural gas power plant.  However, as noted above,
the Legislature anticipated that the GHG emissions performance
standard would act as a floor, not a ceiling, because it adopted
AB 32, requiring further GHG reductions, including from power
plants, at the same time.  Additionally, interpreting S.B. 1386 to
authorize any and all construction of combined-cycle natural gas
power plants would also violate the Renewable Portfolio Standard
as enacted by the Legislature in SB 1078 and SB 107, which
mandates that 20% of the State’s energy must come from renewable
sources by 2010 – a target we have not yet reached.  

II.	Why ARB Should Adopt CAPCOA’s Proposal Number 3, and the
Environmental Justice Advisory Committee’s Proposal Number 27, to
Mandate an Early Action Prohibiting the Construction of Additional
Greenhouse-Gas and Criteria-Pollutant Emitting Power Plants in
Environmental Justice Areas
  
As discussed above, AB 32 mandates that ARB’s actions to reduce
GHGs must ultimately include limitations on the use of
greenhouse-gas emitting natural gas power plants; and the
environmental justice provision of AB 32 require that they be
considered now if they are going to result in localized impacts on
already adversely affected communities or if interim regulatory
efforts interfere with other efforts to achieve and maintain state
and federal ambient air quality requirements relating to criteria
pollutants or toxic air contaminants.  Health & Safety Code §§
38562, 38570.  Thus, natural gas power plants – of whatever sort –
should not be allowed to be located in environmental justice
communities.  

The comments of CAPCOA and the Environmental Justice Advisory
Committee, which prompted the Board to consider additional early
action measures in this proceeding, also support this result.  The
Environmental Justice Advisory Committee recommended as measure 27
that the ARB require local air districts to phase out existing
coal power plants in favor of clean technologies – we presume,
contrary to staff, that the EJAC meant clean power, not natural
gas power, which still generates GHGs and other emissions.  And
CAPCOA recommended the incorporation of GHG concerns in present
local new source review programs – noting that local air districts
should probably be concerned with GHG emissions anyway under CEQA. 


We must respectfully note that the SCAQMD has just adopted
amendments to its rules 1309.1 and 1315 which would allow the
construction of the Vernon power plant – and about 11 other
natural gas power plants in and around the District – and
contravene all of the above principles.  The plants now permitted
to go forward would increase the State’s GHG emissions by 35.4
billion pounds of carbon dioxide, or roughly 5% of California’s
current inventory.  We believe AB 32 mandates that ARB preempt
such unwise, and unjust, rule changes pursuant to its Early Action
mandate under AB 32.  

Please feel free to contact us should you have any questions
regarding the above.  


					Sincerely,  
                                        Tina Baca del Rio, Mayor
Pro Tem
                                        City of Commerce