by Katy Grimes, E&E Legal Senior Media Fellow and California Globe Editor
As Appearing in the California Globe
What about CARB’s Western Climate Initiative Inc., registered in Delaware?
This week, Thomas Buckley reported that a slew of new California Air Resources Board (CARB) regulations roll out this year and next, but the government will not have to worry about compliance for its own car and truck fleets.
The regulations have a very specific exemption for government agency fleets, with far more time to convert to a “zero emission vehicle” (ZEV) fleet than the private sector, Buckley reported. State and local government agencies will also be able to count “near-zero emission vehicles” (NZEV) towards their compliance with the new rules, something private fleet owners will not be able to do.
This is not the first time the CARB has exempted itself from its own rules, or exempted itself from state law – or federal banking laws.
Twelve years ago in 2012, I reported that the California Air Resources Board finagled a way to conduct state business without any of that pesky transparency stuff required of state and government agencies by state law. Their motive was blatant.
The CARB Board, with help from then-Democratic Assembly Speaker John Perez, D-Los Angeles, figured out a way to exempt itself from the state’s open meeting act.
