| California Air Resources Board | |
|---|---|
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| Logo of the Air Resources Board | |
| Agency overview | |
| Formed | 1967 |
| Preceding agencies | Bureau of Air Sanitation Motor Vehicle Pollution Control Board |
| Headquarters | 1001 I Street Sacramento, California |
| Annual budget | $759 million |
| Agency executive | Mary D. Nichols, Chairman |
| Parent agency | California Environmental Protection Agency |
| Website | |
| http://www.arb.ca.gov | |
The California Air Resources Board, also known as (CARB) is the "clean air agency" in the government of California. Established in 1967 in the Mulford-Carrell Act, combining the Bureau of Air Sanitation and the Motor Vehicle Pollution Control Board, the ARB is a department within the cabinet-level California Environmental Protection Agency. California is the only state that is permitted to have such a regulatory agency, since it is the only state that had one before the passage of the federal Clean Air Act. Other states are permitted to follow the ARB standards, or use the federal ones, but not set their own.
The stated goals of ARB include attaining and maintaining healthy air quality; protecting the public from exposure to toxic air contaminants; and providing innovative approaches for complying with air pollution rules and regulations.
The governing board is made up of eleven members appointed by the state's governor. Half of the appointees are experts in professional and science fields such as medicine, chemistry, physics, meteorology, engineering, business, and law. Others represent the pollution control agencies of regional districts within California - Los Angeles region, San Francisco Bay area, San Diego, the San Joaquin Valley, and other districts.
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ARB has nine major divisions:[1]
The Planning and Technical Support Division assesses the extent of California's air quality problems and the progress being made to abate them, coordinates statewide development of clean air plans and maintains databases pertinent to air quality and emissions. The Division's technical support work provides a basis for clean air plans and ARB's regulatory programs. This support includes management and interpretation of emission inventories, air quality data, meteorological data and of air quality modeling.[2]
The Planning and Technical Support Division has five branches:
The Atmospheric Modeling & Support Section is one of three sections within the Modeling & Meteorology Branch. The other two sections are the Regional Air Quality Modeling Section and the Meteorology Section.[2]
The air quality and atmospheric pollution dispersion models[3][4] routinely used by this Section include a number of the models recommended by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The Section also uses models which were either developed by ARB or whose development was funded by ARB, such as:
Alternative Fuel Vehicle Incentive Program (also known as Fueling Alternatives) is funded by the California Air Resources Board (ARB), offered throughout the State of California and administered by the California Center for Sustainable Energy (CCSE).
The ZEV Program was enacted by ARB to promote the use of zero emission vehicles in California.[7] The first ruling was the 1990 Low-Emission Vehicle (LEV I) Program.[8][9] The ZEV regulation has evolved and been modifed several times since 1990, and several new partial or low-emission categories were created such as:[9][10][11] LEV (Low Emission Vehicle), ULEV (Ultra Low Emission Vehicle), SULEV (Super Ultra Low Emission Vehicle), PZEV (Partial Zero Emission Vehicle), and AT PZEV (Advanced Technology PZEV).
The Low-Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) requires oil refineries and distributors to ensure that the mix of fuel they sell in the Californian market meets the established declining targets for greenhouse gas emissions measured in CO2-equivalent grams per unit of fuel energy sold for transport purposes. The 2007 Governor's LCFS directive calls for a reduction of at least 10% in the carbon intensity of California's transportation fuels by 2020. These reductions include not only tailpipe emissions but also all other associated emissions from production, distribution and use of transport fuels within the state. Therefore, California LCFS considers the fuel's full life cycle, also known as the "well to wheels" or "seed to wheels" efficiency of transport fuels.[8][12] The standard is also aimed to reduce the state’s dependence on petroleum, create a market for clean transportation technology, and stimulate the production and use of alternative, low-carbon fuels in California.[13]
On April 23, 2009, ARB approved the specific rules for the LCFS that will go into effect in January 2011.[14][15] The rule proposal prepared by its technical staff was approved by a 9-1 vote, to set the 2020 maximum carbon intensity reference value to 86 grams of carbon dioxide released per megajoule of energy produced.[13][16]
The PHEV Research Center was launched with fundings from the California Air Resources Board.
| Look up carb in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. |
Carb may refer to:
| This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. |
| Look up carb in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. |
Carb may refer to:
| This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. |
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