Late October Hearing Scheduled for Changes to MRR and Cap-and-Trade Regulations

The Air Resources Board (ARB or Board) will conduct a public hearing to consider adoption of amendments to California’s existing regulation for the Mandatory Reporting of Greenhouse Gas Emissions (MRR) and on the Cap-and-Trade (C&T).  The hearing will begin on Thursday, October 24 at 9:00 a.m.  However, it is likely that that the two regulation change items will be taken up the next day, Friday, October 25.  An agenda for both MRR and the Cap-and-Trade is expected to be released 10 days in advance of the Board meeting. 

Regarding the CARB action, the Board will consider both regulations and are expected to give either a thumbs up or thumbs down for staff to continue to move forward with the proposed changes.  However, as the two regulations (MRR and C&T) are on different tracks, no final decisions are expected at this hearing.

The MRR needs to be finalized and in effect by January 1, 2014.  A detailed description of the proposed updates appears in the Summary and Rationale section of the Initial Statement of Reasons (ISOR). The ISOR on mandatory reporting changes can be found HERE.  The proposed changes to the MRR, if approved, will not need to go back to the Board before becoming final. 

Different circumstances apply to the proposed Cap-and-Trade changes.  These changes need to be enrolled by summer 2014.  This means that the Board must give final approval to such changes no later than spring 2014 in order to have everything in place by the start of the second compliance period. However, the Board cannot take final action on any Cap-and-Trade regulation changes until it approves the environmental analysis and staff’s response to comments. The Cap-and-Trade ISOR is HERE.

As such, action on the proposed changes to the Cap-and-Trade regulation is not expected to take place at the upcoming hearing.  At the October hearing, the Board is expected to only consider the regulation changes in order to give staff direction as to how to proceed either in expanding, modifying, or eliminating the proposed changes.  Such Board-directed changes would likely be finalized subject to a 15-day change rule at a later date.  

Process wise, before any final action can take place, staffs’ response to comments on the environmental analysis must have been made public for at least 10 days as well.  As the current 45-day comment period ends at the October Board hearing, CARB must hold another hearing as they are required to respond in writing to the comments they have received and make such responses public for 10 days before any Board action.  

As the written responses are expected to take some time, expectations are that a Board meeting to take up the Cap-and-Trade changes will be set for spring of 2014.  In any event, the process either dies at the hearing (unlikely) or continues as per Board direction (more likely).

CLFP staff is currently in the process of reviewing the proposed changes and drafting written comments to be submitted to CARB in a timely manner.