Late yesterday, the California Air Resources Board scheduled a new virtual public workshop. The workshop will be held on Thursday, August 21 at 9:30 a.m. Pacific Time. More information on what will be covered at the workshop and the registration link are in this post.
According to the announcement, the workshop agenda will include the following:
- CARB will present a draft framework for a fee regulation.
Both Section 38532 and Section 38533 of the California Health and Safety Code – greenhouse gas emissions (SB 253) and climate risk disclosure (SB 261), respectively – contemplate payment of a filing fee. The fee is to cover CARB’s costs of administering and implementing these mandates.
- Draft definitions for determining covered entities, such as “revenue,” “doing business in California” and “parent-subsidiary” relationships, will be discussed and/or presented.
At its May 29 virtual public workshop, CARB floated initial staff concepts for these definitions. The definitions of “revenue” and “doing business in California” published by CARB were based on California Revenue and Tax Code definitions. For parent-subsidiary relationships, the initial staff concept was to leverage the California cap-and-trade approach defining corporate relationships. See this Ropes & Gray post for a further discussion of the initial staff concepts.
- CARB staff will provide updates on the regulatory development timeline, considerations for assurance requirements under Section 38532, take input on proposed minimum reporting requirements related to 38533 and discuss phase-in details for Scope 3 emissions relating to the largest sectors of emissions.
At the May 29 workshop, CARB indicated that it is working to develop draft regulations under Section 38532 by the end of the year. Section 38533 does not by its terms require implementing regulations.
In its July 9 FAQs, CARB answered how an organization should determine what needs to be included in its climate-related financial risk report. See this Ropes & Gray post for take-aways from the FAQs.
- CARB staff will take verbal feedback during the workshop.
CARB also will open a public docket for written comments. The public docket will be open for three weeks following the workshop.
The registration page for the August 21 workshop is here.
CARB plans to post the workshop materials by the day before the workshop.
