Grimes: CARB Approves Cap-and-Invest Amendments Ignoring ‘The Stark Reality’ Driving In-State Refining Capacity to Zero’

California is not a sovereign nation, nor is it an island

The California Air Resources Board approved amendments to the Cap-and-Invest program (formerly Cap-and-Trade) Thursday ignoring ‘The Stark Reality’ Driving In-State Refining Capacity to Zero of CA’s Remaining 7 Refineries.

California’s cap-and-trade program, recently renamed “cap and invest,” places a “cap” on aggregate greenhouse gas emissions from businesses and utilities deemed “polluters” by the California Air Resources Board, which the CARB says are responsible for most of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Readers may remember in February the Globe reported that PBF Energy Inc. and its subsidiaries, which own and operate six domestic oil refineries, including two in Torrance and Martinez, laid bare the impending disaster the CARB could unleash on California. PBF sent a letter to the California Air Resources Board warning about “the stark reality the impacts the current CARB Cap & Investment program would have because of the state’s remaining 7 refineries. And, CARB’s “Proposed Amendments will only worsen the current state of the program, making costs skyrocket further. If enacted as written, the Proposed Amendments will inevitably drive in-state refining capacity to zero.”

PBF has a huge impact on fuels in California.

CARBs proposed amendments are draft amendments to Assembly Bill 1207 by Assemblywoman Jacqui Irwin (D-Thousand Oaks), seeking to extend the cap and trade program to 2045, and legislators are looking at significant changes to the California emissions trading program, now known as California Cap and Invest. It also revises offset limits, establishes an emissions containment reserve, and proposes shifting free allowance allocations from gas companies to electric utilities.