American Oil and Gas Reporter - October 2016 - 30

State Legislative Report

California Rejects Air Board Changes
By Dan Holder
SACRAMENTO, CA.-The California
Independent Petroleum Association
achieved its chief legislative goal this session by helping to turn away a proposal to
change the makeup of the South Coast Air
Quality Management District (SCAQMD)
board, assesses P. Anthony Thomas,
CIPA's director of government affairs.
The major news in the California press
was that legislators approved SB 32, authored by Senator Fran Pavley, D-Agoura
Hill. The bill is another piece of the
state's climate change framework and
further tightens controls over greenhouse
gas emissions. Thomas says Governor Jerry Brown set most of SB 32's targets
through an executive order issued in
2015, but sought the legislation to protect
his actions by placing them in statute.
Despite the media focus, Thomas says
CIPA's legislative priority throughout
the session was defeating SB 1387, authored by Senate Pro Tem Kevin de
León, D-Los Angeles. It failed on a 3317 vote in the Assembly. The bill proposed

30 THE AMERICAN OIL & GAS REPORTER

to add three seats to the SCAQMD board,
which is the air pollution control agency
for Orange County, Ca., and the urban portions of Los Angeles, Riverside and San
Bernardino counties. Thomas says the
bill's effect would have been to allow state
authorities to appoint 20 percent of a local governing body.
"The association helped to prevent
stacking the board with three additional appointees from who knows what areas of the
state," Thomas says. "The bill was opposed
by more than 14 organizations, and oil and
gas was a significant part of that coalition."
Thomas says de León is likely to introduce a similar bill in 2017, but he predicts
the measure will suffer the same fate. "He
certainly can run the bill again. However,
come January, de León will have a progressive majority, given the likely election results," Thomas reasons. "If all goes as anticipated, SCAQMD probably will be a
more left-leaning regional board. CIPA's
position was pretty clear: If that is going
to happen, then allow the local process to
go forth. The state should not overstep its
boundaries."

Climate Change
Governor Brown signed SB 32 on
Sept. 8, his office says. The measure requires the state to reduce GHG emissions
by at least 40 percent below 1990 levels
by 2030. According to the governor's office, SB 32 will help California reach its
long-term goal of reducing GHG gases to
80 percent of 1990 levels by 2050.
"I think the big push for SB 32 is to
support what Governor Brown is trying to
do now, which is to indicate that California still is leading on climate change and
on greenhouse gas reduction," Thomas
poses. "Frankly, I do not know how many
people have followed the state's lead, or
whether the legislation is just something
the anti-fossil-fuel community is pounding its chest over."
SB 32 comes a decade after AB 32, the
California Global Warming Solutions
Act, which requires the state to reduce
statewide GHG emissions to 1990 levels
by 2020, Thomas says.
He notes that SB 32 does not discuss the
cap-and-trade auction system established
by AB 32, which requires companies to buy

American Oil and Gas Reporter - October 2016

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Oil and Gas Reporter - October 2016