San Joaquin Valley Unified Air Pollution Control District to Consider Adoption of Policies and Guidance Regarding Evaluation of Greenhouse Gas Emissions Under CEQA

The San Joaquin Valley Unified Air Pollution Control District (District) has announced that it will hold a public hearing on November 5, 2009 in Fresno, California, at which it will consider adoption of a District policy to address GHG emission impacts for Stationary Source Projects permitted by the District, as well as the adoption of guidance for land-use agencies within the District to consider when evaluating GHG emissions impacts for new projects under CEQA.

The District is proposing a Stationary Source standard of significance that will require all stationary source projects with increased GHG emissions to implement performance based standards or otherwise demonstrate that project-specific GHG emissions have been mitigated by at least 29%, as compared to Business As Usual (BAU). The District defines BAU as the emission for a type of equipment or operation within an identified class and category projected for the year 2020 by the California Air Resources Board’s emissions inventory.

Similarly, the District’s proposed guidance to lead agencies proposes that lead agencies require all new projects with increased GHG emissions to implement performance based standards, or otherwise demonstrate, that project-specific GHG emissions have been mitigated by at least 29%, as compared to BAU. The District proposes to create a list of all approved Best Performance Standards to help in the determination as to whether a proposed project has reduced its GHG emissions by 29%.

The proposed Policy and Guidance can be found at: www.valleyair.org/Workshops/public_workshops_idx.htm