California Air Resources Board

Community Air Protection Program

Prioritizing air quality improvements in California’s most polluted communities through enhanced monitoring and targeted deployment of cleaner technologies

The first of its kind in the nation, this groundbreaking effort involving the California Air Resources Board (CARB), local air districts, and communities fundamentally transforms the State’s approach to addressing local air pollution by providing community-level planning and monitoring in addition to ongoing statewide and regional efforts. Program goals involve:

Based on extensive public and stakeholder input, CARB released the Draft Blueprint in June 2018 outlining program design and implementation requirements including:

• Community identification, assessment, and selection criteria
• Community emissions reduction programs criteria
• Statewide strategies to reduce emissions
• Community air monitoring guidance
• Statewide technology clearinghouse overview and other information resources

View and provide comments on this document.

Pathway to Community Air Protection

The Community Air Protection Program consists of multiple elements designed to work together to address specific community pollution concerns.

• Provide grants to local community groups for technical assistance to support participation
• Identify most heavily impacted communities
• Deploy community-level air monitoring
• Adopt community-specific emission reduction plans

• Distribute incentive funding to air districts to accelerate the deployment of cleaner technologies
• Accelerate retrofit of pollution control technologies at industrial facilities
• Enhance emissions data reporting from pollution sources

• Adopt statewide monitoring plan
• Adopt statewide strategy to reduce emissions in heavily impacted communities
• Increase penalties for polluters

Partners

Public engagement is a fundamental element of the Community Air Protection Program. CARB encourages the public
to attend workshops and meetings to remain engaged throughout program development and implementation.

Partnering with communities is essential to the success of the Program. Working together, state, regional, and community representatives will develop solutions, track ongoing progress, and provide access to local pollution data to reduce harmful air emissions and create this new framework for community protection.

Funding

Communities: In June 2018, CARB awarded $10 million in grants to help community-based organizations directly participate in the implementation of AB 617. The funds will better ensure communities have the resources to play a direct role in the development and implementation of efforts to reduce air pollution in their neighborhoods.

Air Districts: As part of the state’s commitment to improving air quality in the most impacted areas, the 2017-18 budget allocated $250 million to local air districts for incentives to support early actions in deploying cleaner technologies. The 2018-19 budget includes continued funding for program implementation.

The initial funding focuses on mobile sources within impacted communities to provide critical near-term emission and exposure reductions. Future funding opportunities will include additional sources.

Spring 2018

Board meeting; draft Blueprint released

Summer 2018

Workshops & stakeholder meetings; release final draft document and proposed list of first-year communities

September 2018

Board considers proposed final draft document and first-year community selection

January 2019

Air districts adopt schedules for expedited Best Available Retrofit Control Technologies (BARCT)

Summer 2019

Community monitoring networks deployed in selected communities

Winter 2019

Board considers proposed community emissions reduction programs

Annually

CARB staff provides informational update, Board selects additional communities for monitoring and emissions reductions programs

More Information

Contact staff at communityair@arb.ca.gov or airecommunitario@arb.ca.gov.