Thursday, August 12, 2010

arbcombo -- Public Meeting to Discuss Analysis to Identify Potentially Significant Environmental Effects of the Proposed Cap-and-Trade Regulation

Public Meeting on Cap-and-Trade Program Environmental Analysis:

ARB is preparing a Functional Equivalent Document (FED) pursuant
to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) to identify
potentially significant environmental impacts of the proposed
Cap-and-Trade regulation and feasible mitigation measures for
such impacts. The cap-and-trade regulation and protocols for
offsets will be considered by the Board in late 2010. The
meeting will serve as the scoping meeting for the environmental
document. Public and agency comments will be recorded to assist
ARB in determining the scope and content of the FED.

Meeting Time and Location:

As a convenience to the public, this meeting will have a call-in
option. If attending in person, we encourage you to take public
transportation or drive low emission/high efficiency vehicles
whenever possible. This meeting will be held at the following
location:

Date: Monday, August 23rd, 2010
Time: 1:00 – 3:00 p.m
Location: Training Room 2 2nd Floor
Cal/EPA Headquarters
1001 "I" Street
Sacramento, CA 95812
Directions: http://www.calepa.ca.gov/EPABldg/location.htm

Call-in instructions: Dial (888) 989-0728
Enter participant passcode: 7474518

Background:

The AB 32 Scoping Plan, California's framework for reducing
greenhouse gas emissions, incorporates a range of measures
including the creation of a cap-and-trade program. On November
24, 2009 ARB released a Preliminary Draft Regulation (PDR) for
the cap-and-trade system.

The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and California
Air Resources Board (ARB) policy require an analysis to determine
any potentially significant adverse environmental impacts of
ARB's regulations and projects. The Natural Resources Agency
Secretary determined that ARB meets the criteria for a Certified
State Regulatory Program (Title 14, California Code of
Regulations, Section 15251(d)). This certification allows ARB to
adopt rules, regulations, standards and plans, and exempts ARB
from the requirement to prepare Initial Studies, Notices of
Preparation, Negative Declarations or Environmental Impact
Reports. As a certified agency, however, ARB is required to
prepare a functional equivalent document (FED) that is subject to
other provisions of CEQA, such as avoiding significant adverse
effects on the environment where feasible.

The analysis shall include reasonably foreseeable environmental
impacts, alternatives, and mitigation measures that would avoid
or eliminate significant impacts. The analysis is not required
to engage in speculation. A detailed project-level analysis is
also not required.

Meeting Materials:

The meeting materials will be posted prior to the meeting at
http://www.arb.ca.gov/cc/capandtrade/meetings/meetings.htm#publicmeetings.
At this website, you may join our electronic mailing list to
receive notices of ARB activities and public meetings.

Written comments should be submitted at
http://www.arb.ca.gov/cc/capandtrade/comments.htm by August 31st
2010 at 6:00 pm.

Special Accommodations or Language Assistance:

If you require a special accommodation or need this document in
an alternate format or language, please contact the Office of
Climate Change at 916-322-2037 as soon as possible.
TTY/TDD/Speech to Speech users may dial 711 for the California
Relay Service.

Sincerely,
/s/

Kevin M. Kennedy, Ph.D.
Assistant Executive Officer
Office of Climate Change
California Air Resources Board

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subscriber to or have made a public comment to one or more of the
following lists: capandtrade, cc.

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The energy challenge facing California is real. Every Californian
needs to take immediate action to reduce energy consumption. For
a list of simple ways you can reduce demand and cut your energy
costs, visit the Flex Your Power website at www.fypower.org .
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