The Santa Barbara County Air Pollution Control District, which governs the parts of our air too small to see but big enough to worry about, recently decided to strengthen the threshold for greenhouse gases.
In a special meeting on April 30, the APCD’s board voted to adopt a bright line of 10,000 metric tons of greenhouse gases per year for stationary sources—future stationary sources (say the hospital or an oil operation) with emissions over that limit would be subject to mitigation or penalties. That mitigation will take the form of requiring a 15.3 percent reduction below business as usual for projects above the limit.
The regulation only applies to projects that the APCD would be the lead agency on. For example, the county would be the lead agency for something like an oil drilling project in one of county’s unincorporated areas.
In May, the county Board of Supervisors will consider imposing a similar proposal—a greenhouse gas emissions limit of 10,000 metric tons per year—with stricter mitigation parameters.
This article appears in May 7-14, 2015.