Not later than December 31, 1998, the state board shall adopt, by regulation, a statewide program to commence in 1999 that does all of the following:
(a) Provides for the creation, exchange, use, and retirement of light-duty vehicle mobile source emission reduction credits. The credits shall be fungible and exchangeable in the marketplace, and shall reflect the actual emissions of the vehicles that are retired or otherwise disposed of, by measurement, appropriate sampling, or correlations developed from appropriate sampling. The numerical value of credits may be constant over a defined lifetime, or may decline with age measured from the time of origination of the credits. In all cases, the numerical value of the credits shall reflect the useful life expectancies and the projected in-use emissions of the retired vehicles in a manner consistent with the assumptions used in determining the emissions inventory. The credits shall be fully recognized by the United States Environmental Protection Agency, the state board, and the districts.
(b) Sets out the criteria for retiring or otherwise disposing of high-emitting vehicles purchased for this program.
(c) Authorizes the issuance of those credits to private entities that purchase and properly retire high-emitting vehicles.
(d) Authorizes the resale of those credits to public or private entities to be used to achieve the emission reduction requirements of the 1994 state implementation plan, meet the requirements of the inspection and maintenance program, satisfy compliance with other emission reduction mandates, as determined by the district or the state board, create local growth allowances, or satisfy new or modified source emission offset requirements. Nothing in this article limits a district’s authority to apply emission discount factors pursuant to district rules that regulate emissions banks, trades, or offsets.
(e) Provides for the retirement of those credits when used.
(f) Includes accounting procedures to credit emissions reductions achieved through vehicle scrappage to the M-1 strategy of the 1994 SIP and the inspection and maintenance program.
(g) Contains a program plan pursuant to Section 44104.5.
(h) Satisfies the attributes described in subdivision (e) of Section 44100.
(Amended by Stats. 1997, Ch. 802, Sec. 10. Effective January 1, 1998.)