California Air Resources Board
The California Air Resources Board (CARB, often only ARB ) is a Government Commission of the State of California, United States. The existing since 1967 advisory panel is internationally known for its particularly strict legislative proposals on air pollution.
Structure
Called The California Air Resources Board (Emission Protection Agency of California, literally " California ( s ) Air Resources Board " ), German also " Air Resources Board of California ," California's "Clean Air Agency " (literally " clean air agency " ), was founded in 1967 under the name Air Resources Board established. It is a commission of experts to draft proposals for legislation on air pollution.
The Commission shall be appointed by the Governor of the State of California and is comprised of 11 members with only the chairman is working full-time. The half is occupied by professionals in medicine, chemistry, physics, meteorology, engineering, economics and law. The other half represents the air pollution control authorities the Los Angeles area, San Francisco Bay Area, San Diego, the San Joaquin Valley and a seat for the other circuits.
The stated objectives are:
- Maintaining and improving healthy air quality
- Commissioning of research on the causes of air pollution and their remedies
- Systematic approach to problems due to the high automobile engine, the main cause of air pollution in the state
The CARB has nine departments:
- Regulatory support
- Implementing control
- Control of mobile sources
- Tests of mobile sources
- Surveillance and laboratory
- Information Office
- Plan and technical service
- Research
- Stationary sources
Clean Air Act and Zero Emission Mandates
The Commission is known to work particularly far-reaching proposals on air pollution, which are also laid down by law in large numbers by the Legislature. The Californian legislation of 1990 ( Clean Air Act and Zero Emission mandates) had provided that by 1998 at least two percent, and by 2003, ten percent of newly registered cars should be emission-free.
This law forced the world's automotive manufacturers to develop pollution-free vehicles like the EV1 by General Motors in the U.S., Honda EV Plus, Toyota RAV4 electric, Nissan Hyper Mini, BMW E1 or up to 1996 for serial development of the A-Class electric Daimler- Benz AG, or the micro-car Hotze flash. Developed electric cars like the EV1 were never sold to customers, but only leased. After apparently under pressure from the oil and automobile industries, the law was mitigated and reversed, the producers rallied against the will of a user and the vehicles scrapped it almost completely. Texaco / Chevron acquired by GM 's patents for the production of the then most modern nickel -metal hydride batteries ( NiMH ) and limited their use. With the historical development triggered by the CARB legislation dealt published in 2006, the documentary Who killed the electric car? .
The law AB 1493 of 22 July 2002, succeeding AB 1058, although sets strict limits on greenhouse gas emissions from cars that have to be complied with in 2009 in California, but defused previous arrangements for the introduction of zero -emission vehicles ( engl. zero emission vehicle ). In this context, it was decided on 24 September 2004 that registrations of new cars and light trucks may only be performed even under strict emission regulations. Even against this decision, the automotive industry is going on in court.
States with similar regulations are New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, Rhode Iceland, Maine and New Jersey.
In September 2006, the California legislature adopted the law AB 32, known as the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, with the goal to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 2020 on 1990 levels. This puts it in line with the Kyoto Protocol, which was never ratified by the Federal Government of the United States.