Community Air Protection Incentives: New and Ongoing Funding Opportunities
New opportunities are here for air districts to address a wider array of community concerns through incentives. The California Air Resources Board (CARB) recently shared a proposed addition to the Community Air Protection Incentives 2019 Guidelines with the public: a new chapter allowing air districts to design new kinds of incentives to clean up stationary sources of air pollution and to address concerns identified in the emissions reduction programs in the communities selected for participation in Assembly Bill 617.
An air district may submit for consideration new types of projects to address stationary sources of pollution. These sources typically consist of small industrial and manufacturing facilities, but any source of pollution at a fixed location may be considered stationary. Additionally, air districts with communities selected for emissions reduction programs may work with members of those communities to submit new kinds of projects to address their specific concerns. In essence, if a selected community has identified an area of concern in their neighborhoods, air districts can now work with community members to design new incentive programs custom-made for that community.
The proposed language for the new chapter is available on CARB’s Community Air Protection Incentives webpage, and a short and easily digestible summary of the new chapter is available as well. Final language will be available soon, but air districts and their communities can begin work now on developing new kinds of incentives, using the proposed language above. Find and contact your local air districtfor more information on how to get involved in the process. To find out if you are in a selected community and to get involved more broadly, visit the Community Air Protection Program webpage.
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Background The Community Air Protection Program consists of many components with the overall goal of addressing environmental injustices in communities that continue to suffer from disproportionate levels of air pollution. A major component of the program is incentives, initially used to secure immediate air quality benefits in the most heavily impacted communities while other aspects of the program took shape.
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Published 8/13/2020
More Info: arb.ca.gov/our-work/programs/community-air-protection-program
