Report:
Interagency AQMP Implementation Committee
Synopsis:
The IAIC met January 25, 1996, to discuss the following items: the activities of its Technical Advisory Committee; the activities of the REACH Task Force; alternative fuels/Zero-Emission Vehicle Mandate; its 1996 meeting schedule; local government outreach activities; the AB 2766 Discretionary Fund process; and Public Advisor Office activities. An attendance record of the January 1996 meeting is attached, and a summary of that meeting is below. The next IAIC meeting is tentatively March 28, 1996, with the meeting time to be determined.
Recommended Action:
Receive and file this report.
Jon D. Mikels
Chair, Interagency AQMP
Implementation Committee
JDM:LRB:OA:DAR
Attachment
_____________________________________________________________________
Approval of October 26, 1995, Minutes
Board Member Jon Mikels called for a motion on the October 26, 1995, IAIC meeting minutes.
On motion by Council Member Eunice Ulloa, and seconded by Council Member Judy Wright, the October 1995 minutes were approved, as submitted.
Report by TAC Chairman on Technical Advisory Committee Meeting
In the absence of TAC Chair Jim Stahl, Greg Adams of the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts, reported that the TAC focused four key issues.
First, staff reviewed Rule 2202 (On-Road Motor Vehicle Mitigation Options). The TAC focused on the flexibilities of Rule 2202 and the federal requirement on employers to reduce emissions associated with employee trips which was not affected as a result of the new mandates initiated by Senators Hurtt and Manzullo. The TAC also discussed the various emissions-based programs available if an employer does not choose to buyout its employees in the Air Quality Investment Program or maintain an existing ridesharing program.
Second, the TAC discussed New Source Review in light of the AQMD Board's action on December 7, 1995. The TAC focused on the issues which were carried over by the Board, including visibility, whether privately owned and operated landfills should be excluded from the Priority Reserve Offset Bank, the 4-tons per year exemption level for small business facilities, and portable equipment definitions and requirements. The visibility issue is being resolved through meetings with industry, and the sentiment is that the burden for performing visibility analysis will move from facilities currently triggered by the Community Bank level (approximately 30 lbs per day) to the Prevention of Significant Deterioration level (100 tons per year for specific facilities, such as power plants, and 250 tons per year for other facilities). Furthermore, the AQMD is considering performing a regional haze analysis with urban airshed models and some screening modeling. The public/private landfill issue centers around the expansion of those facilities which will not be able to access the Priority Reserve to obtain free ERCs, such as hospitals, water purveyors and perhaps transit authorities. The portable equipment issue is also being further analyzed. The TAC believes it will be able to report on the final resolution of these issues at the IAIC's next meeting, and the revisions are to be considered by the AQMD Board in May 1996.
Third, because the VOC RECLAIM Program has been temporarily suspended, industry-specific rules will now move forward; six rules which have significant emissions reductions associated with them will be the priority focus. In addition, these rules will be tied into intercredit trading, which was the last topic discussed by the TAC. Mr. Adams believes that intercredit trading is the most significant issue in the air pollution arena at this time. He believes that staff's policy paper released in October was the result of Assembly Bill 1777 which essentially required the state to put together a program to allow fluid transmission of credits between stationary, mobile, area and indirect sources. Staff has currently received 12 responses to its proposal and intends to have a combined Planning & Stationary Source Committee meeting on January 30 to address this issue. A staff presentation to the Board on February 9, 1996, and a public hearing in March 1996 have tentatively been scheduled. The issues in debate are 1) whether there should be interseasonal or multi-year banking, the latter of which is favored by industry; and 2) whether there should be a discount factor, and if it will be at a flat rate and what its purpose will be.
Update on REACH Task Force
As co-chair of the REACH Task Force, along with Chairman Mikels, Council Member Wright briefly reported on the January 24 meeting at which the Task Force reached consensus on the assumptions for modeling. Since some of the ridesharing rules are in question, this effort may be the only way to reduce emissions from mobile sources. However, although no policy decisions have been made on what will be used for modeling, the Task Force will ensure that it is consistent with that performed for the 1997 AQMP. For instance, the Task Force is considering not only VMTs at certain corridors, but also road charges and congestion pricing or a hybrid of the two. The Task Force is also considering whether the program should be revenue neutral, which the AQMD prefers, but first a definition of revenue neutral must be agreed to and the question of whether the loss of the current gas tax can be compensated must be addressed. She commented that the Task Force needs a replacement from Riverside County with the departure of Dick McGregor and added that the Task Force meets monthly and alternates its meetings between the AQMD and SCAG locations.
Greg Adams commented that the TAC was wondering if an employer can take credit for picking up the tab for its employees for the 91 toll-way. Barbara Baird, AQMD District Counsel, replied that she believes this would be double-counting since she understands that emissions reduction credits for the 91 toll-way have been included in the AQMP. Chairman Mikels added that in examining the pricing elasticities, in terms of costs, there is one cost for congestion relief and another for equivalent emissions reductions.
Update on Alternative Fuels/ZEV Mandate
Council Member John Cox stated that besides congestion pricing, the next alternative is technology. Laboratories throughout the area are trying to quantify emissions from the Intelligent Transportation System technology. In fact, the ITS Priority Corridor Program, which is funded by the Federal Government, was developed to determine how to deploy the ITS technology. Mr. Cox recently attended an ITS Priority Corridor Conference at which he learned that a variety of tests are being performed including test beds on freeways using road sensors and cameras which track automobiles on every lane. Roadways and traffic can be viewed at the Caltrans Teletraffic Management Center, and by linking up to telecommunications fiberoptics, Caltrans can communicate with the Anaheim Traffic Center. In addition, UCI, through a research grant, has replicated a similar system but it has also designed a simulator to develop a nexus between the benefits associated with ITS. Council Member Wright commented that the REACH Task Force is considering whether there is technology available to measure emissions benefits at the gas pump rather than through ITS since many consider ITS invasive.
Council Member Cox commented that although there has been significant attitude changes in recent years toward Regulation XV and the ZEV Mandates, the Clean Air Act obligations must still be met. There has been so much negative publicity about electric vehicles and the ZEV Mandate over the last year, especially since it appeared that the ARB was moving away from them, that many thought this meant that nothing had to be done anymore. In fact, the auto industry has agreed to make at least 5,000 clean vehicles available over the next two years, which was not in the prior ZEV Mandate. In 1998 the Auto Industry will provide a manufacturing capacity of 14,000 vehicles, and in 2003 the 10% mandate is effective. Immediately after those behind-the-scenes agreements, General Motors introduced the EV-1 or the Impact, and GM is prepared to produce 5,000 EVs over the next two years. Following that commitment, Edison announced the formation of a subsidiary company which will handle EV infrastructure on the customer end. In particular, it is very important for the cities to assist in the marketing of these vehicles. If the vehicles do not sell, it will not be because they are unavailable, but because infrastructure and support systems are unavailable.
Saturn will be the initial dealerships which will sell the EVs this year, and there are rumors that Saturn will also have a four-door EV sedan next year. Chevrolet will sell S10 EV pickup trucks in 1997, and Toyota, who was ignoring the mandates, suddenly announced that it has an EV demonstration in the U.S. Council Member Cox believes the blitz of negative publicity is about to reverse. There is tremendous opportunity for cities to participate in the process, both for infrastructure and procurement. For procurement of vehicles, the AB 2766 Discretionary Program has established a $5,000 rebate on EVs, and is establishing a Corridor Communities Program to provide for some initial infrastructure, not to mention that cities can use their own AB 2766 funds towards vehicles and infrastructure, so they can save money from their General Funds. In the future, this Basin will be considering similar things for ITS, telecommunications, and smart shuttle transit which are starting to develop. Council Member Cox encouraged cities to start partnering with each other.
Council Member Judy Wright wondered if the foreign markets will undo the domestic market because it will produce something cheaper or if the U.S. is ahead of the curve. Council Member Cox stated that GM is ahead with its products, but the European market is not far behind; for instance, some of their battery technology is better. In response to a comment by Chairman Mikels, Council Member Cox clarified that GM's opposing position to the ZEV Mandates was because they had the only game in town at that time, and the mandates would produce competition. By removing the ZEV Mandates, GM would remove its competition. Now the EV market is fully open to GM. The IAIC also briefly discussed natural gas fleet vehicles, and the Basin's need to establish more maintenance training programs for such vehicles and the need for cities to send their fleet managers to such training programs.
Chairman Mikels concluded the discussion by noting that initially the public sector will have to lead the way to kick-start the market, and to the extent that it does, the infrastructure issues will respond to the public sector and then become available to the private sector.
Adopt 1996 Meeting Schedule
The consensus was that the meeting dates were convenient for the Committee, but that the 10 a.m. meeting time was not. The Committee expressed a desire to move to either a 1 p.m. or 3 p.m. meeting start time.
On motion by Council Member John Cox, and seconded by Council Member Judy Wright, the IAIC approved the meeting dates, but postponed a decision about the meeting start times.
ACTION: Chairman Mikels reported that he would work with the IAIC secretary to identify a workable start time and contact the Committee sufficiently in advance of the next meeting.
Report on Local Government Outreach Activities
Oscar Abarca, AQMD Intergovernmental Affairs Director, reminded the IAIC that in July 1995, the Intergovernmental Affairs staff expanded its outreach efforts to better acquaint local elected officials with the AQMD. Since the expanded outreach effort was initiated, he and Larry Rhinehart have made presentations to over 100 city councils, established contact with the local office of many state legislators in the Basin, and held over 400 meetings with city staff and officials. Presentations have focused on the AQMD's Clean Air Partnership, the Amnesty Program, Rule 2202, small business assistance, and business retention and development programs. In addition, the AB 2766 Program, both the discretionary and city subvention portions, have been successfully carried out, including numerous meetings, workshops and open houses.
Update on AB 2766 Discretionary Fund Process
In the absence of MSRC Chair John Longville, Drue Ramirez reported that a listing of the projects approved for funding in the FY 1995-97 AB 2766 Discretionary Work Program and a report on other ongoing activities were included in the agenda package. In addition, the MSRC recently convened its Lessons Learned Subcommittee which looks back at its efforts in developing the most recent Work Program and will define additional focused Requests for Proposals for release in FY 1996-97. In March 1996 the AQMD Board will be considering release of a $600,000 RFP for a Corridor Communities Program which will assist communities in preparing for EVs by testing the consumer market and demonstrating the infrastructure, permitting process, and coordination necessary for the smooth introduction of larger quantities of EVs.
Monthly Progress Report on Public Advisor Office Activities
The agenda package included the Public Advisor's Monthly Activity Report for December 1995. In addition, La Ronda Bowen, AQMD Public Advisor, commented that the Public Advisor's office has undergone some recent organizational changes. Specifically, Economic Development and Business Retention and the Office of Small Business Assistance were moved under the purview of the Public Advisor. Ms. Bowen briefly reviewed the issues these units address.
There being no public comment or further business, the IAIC meeting adjourned at 11:00 a.m.
(c:2-96BDLT)
INTERAGENCY AQMP IMPLEMENTATION COMMITTEE
ATTENDANCE RECORD
Thursday, January 25, 1996
MEMBERS:
(Chair) Board Member Jon Mikels, South Coast AQMD
Greg Adams (Alternate), Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts
Councilmember John Cox, Orange County Sanitation District
Councilmember Pat McGuigan, Orange County League of Cities
Councilmember Ronald Roberts, Western Riverside Council of Governments
Al Lopez, Southern California Rideshare
Mayor Eunice Ulloa, Inland Empire League of Cities
Councilmember Judy Wright, Los Angeles League of Cities
AQMD STAFF:
Oscar Abarca, Intergovernmental Affairs Director
Barbara Baird, Assistant District Counsel
La Ronda Bowen, Public Advisor
Tom Eichhorn, Director of Communications
Drue Ramirez, IAIC Administrative Liaison
PUBLIC:
Frank Caponi, Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts
Frank Dryden, SCAP
Daniela Fernandez, AQMD Board Assistant (Mikels)
Julie Fitch, Southern California Association of Governments
Vladimir Kogan, Orange County Sanitation Districts
Richard King, City of Commerce
Daniel McGivney, Eastern Municipal Water District
Polin Modanlou, Orange County EMA
Anne Marie Wallace, Orange County Transportation Authority