Owner/Client: California Air Resources Board
The Advanced Clean Cars Program is the California Air Resources Board’s (ARB) package of regulatory standards for GHG and criteria air pollutant emissions in passenger cars and light duty trucks for model years 2015 – 2025. The Program consists of amendments to the Low-Emission Vehicle regulations (LEV III), which consists of fleet-average emissions standards for light-duty vehicles; the Zero-Emission Vehicle regulation, which requires manufacturers to produce and sell Zero-Emission Vehicle’s; the Clean Fuels Outlet regulation, which requires the construction of alternative fueling stations; and changes to Environmental Performance Labels, which display GHG and criteria air pollutant emissions information on new vehicles. The Advanced Clean Cars Program establishes uniform standards to control criteria air pollutant and GHG emissions and reduce California’s dependence on petroleum energy. Ascent assisted ARB with an Environmental Analysis for the adoption of the Advanced Clean Cars Regulatory Program. As the functional equivalent to an EIR under ARB’s CEQA certified regulatory program, the Environmental Analysis identified the environmental impacts associated with reasonably foreseeable compliance responses occurring to implement the proposed regulatory changes. Ascent helped prepare the program description in lay-reader terms, develop a list of compliance responses by the automotive industry and fuel providers, and identify a reasonable range of CEQA alternatives. Key issues in the impact analysis included those associated with the increased production and distribution of hydrogen fuels and the management of used electric vehicle batteries.