MEETING

STATE OF CALIFORNIA

AIR RESOURCES BOARD

KERN COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS

BOARD CHAMBERS, FIRST FLOOR

1115 TRUXTUN AVENUE

BAKERSFIELD, CA 93301

THURSDAY, JANUARY 24, 2013

9:05 A.M.

TIFFANY C. KRAFT, CSR

CERTIFIED SHORTHAND REPORTER

LICENSE NUMBER 12277

CALIFORNIA REPORTING, LLC

52 LONGWOOD DRIVE

SAN RAFAEL, CA 94901

(415) 457-4417
APPEARANCES

BOARD MEMBERS

Ms. Mary Nichols, Chairperson

Dr. John Balmes

Ms. Dorene D'Adamo

Mr. Hector De La Torre

Mr. Ronald Loveridge

Mrs. Barbara Riordan

Professor Daniel Sperling

Dr. Alex Sherriffs

STAFF

Mr. James Goldstene, Executive Officer

Mr. Alberto Ayala, Chief Deputy Executive Officer

Mr. Richard Corey, Deputy Executive Officer

Ms. Lynn Terry, Deputy Executive Officer

Mr. Ajith Kaduwela, Manager, Regional Air Quality Modeling 

Section, Planning and Technical Support Division

Ms. Lezlie Kimura, SIP and Local Government Strategies 

Section, Planning and Technical Support Division

Ms. Sylvia Vanderspek, Manager, Air Quality Data Branch, 

Particulate Matter Analysis Section
APPEARANCES CONTINUED

ALSO PRESENT

Mr. Gustavo Aguirre, CRPE

Mr. Will Barrett, American Lung Association

Mr. Keith Bergthold, City of Fresno

Ms. Autumn Bernstein, Climate Plan

Mr. Christopher Breedlove

Mr. Craig K. Breon, Sierra Nevada Alliance

Mr. Mana Elena Carrillo, LUCA

Mr. Jose Chavez

Mr. Manuel Cunha, Jr., Nisei Farmers League

Mr. Marvin Dean

Ms. Amanda Eaken, NRDC

Ms. Caroline Farrell, Center on Race, Poverty and the 

Environment

Mr. Gustavo Fernandez, Committee for Better Shafter

Ms. Eloisa Fernandez, Committee for Better Shafter

Mr. Dennis Fox

Ms. Maria Gonzalvez, CRPE

Ms. Valerie Gorospe, Center on Race, Poverty and the 

Environment

Mr. Kevin Hamilton, Clinica Sierra Vista

Mr. Curt Johansen, Council of Infill Builders

Ms. Elizabeth Jonasson, Coalition for Clean Air
APPEARANCES CONTINUED

ALSO PRESENT

Mr. Roy Kendall, Roy Kendall, Inc.

Mr. Gary Lasky, Sierra Club

Ms. Felicity Lyons, Housing California

Ms. Virgnia Madueno

Ms. Colby Morrow, Southern California Gas Company

Mr. Brent Newell, Center on Race, Poverty, and the 

Environment

Mr. Brian Newton, TCCRG

Mr. Gordon Nipp, Sierr Club

Mr. Daniel O'Connell, American Farmland Trust

Mr. Gemo Perez, Greenfield Walking Group

Ms. Betsy Reifschneider, Arch Diocese of Stockton

Mr. Rodrigo Romo, Committee for Better Shafter

Mr. Seyed Sadredin

Ms. Byanka Santoyo

Ms. Sarah Sharpe, Fresno Metro Ministry

Mr. Mario Talavera

Ms. Patricia Taylor, San Joaquin Valley Regional Planning 

Agencies

Ms. Hope Valdez, LUCA

Mr. Refugio Valencia, CRPE

Ms. Teresa Vidales, LUCA

Mr. Mike Wells
INDEX

 PAGE

Item 13-1-3

Chairperson Nichols 8

Item 13-1-1

Chairperson Nichols 8

Executive Officer Goldstene 8

Staff Presentation 9

Mr. Barrett 36

Mr. Nipp 38

Mr. Dean 40

Ms. Morrow 42

Mr. Breedlove 45

Ms. Sharpe 46

Mr. Hamilton 49

Mr. Newell 52

Ms. Farrell 55

Mr. Lasky 57

Ms. Reifsnider 59

Ms. Jonasson 61

Ms. Gorospe 63

Ms. Valdez 67

Ms. Carrilo 68

Ms. Perez 69

Mr. Chavez 70

Ms. Gonzalvez 71

Mr. Aguirre 72

Mr. Talavera 74

Ms. Fernandez 76

Mr. Fernandez 77

Mr. Romo 77

Mr. Valencia 79

Ms. Santoyo 81

Mr. Cunha 83

Mr. Fox 85

Mr. Wells 88

Motion 119

Vote 120

Item 13-1-2

Chairperson Nichols 121

Staff Presentation 121

Ms. Reifschneider 129

Ms. Taylor 130
INDEX CONTINUED

 PAGE

Item 13-1-2

Mr. Barrett 133

Mr. Nipp 136

Mr. Talavera 138

Ms. Jonasson 140

Ms. Sharpe 141

Mr. Lasky 143

Mr. Kendall 145

Mr. Newton 146

Ms. Lyons 147

Ms. Madueno 149

Mr. Breon 150

Mr. O'Connell 152

Ms. Bernstein 155

Mr. Johansen 158

Mr. Bergthold 160

Ms. Eaken 161

Ms. Santoyo 163

Mr. Fox 163

Mr. Wells 165

Adjournment 172

Reporter's Certificate 173
PROCEEDINGS

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Good morning, ladies and 

gentlemen. Let's try to get started here. I'm going the 

call the January 24th, 2013, meeting of the Air Resources 

Board to order. 

We'll begin with the Pledge of Allegiance. 

Please turn this way. 

(Thereupon the Pledge of Allegiance was

Recited in unison.)

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: We'll ask the Clerk to 

please call the roll. 

BOARD CLERK JENSEN: Dr. Balmes? 

BOARD MEMBER BALMES: Here. 

BOARD CLERK JENSEN: Ms. Berg? 

Ms. D'Adamo? 

BOARD MEMBER D'ADAMO: Here. 

BOARD CLERK JENSEN: Mr. De La Torre? 

Mayor Loveridge? 

BOARD MEMBER LOVERIDGE: Here. 

BOARD CLERK JENSEN: Mrs. Riordan? 

BOARD MEMBER RIORDAN: Here. 

BOARD CLERK JENSEN: Supervisor Roberts? 

Dr. Sherriffs? 

BOARD MEMBER SHERRIFFS: Here. 

BOARD CLERK JENSEN: Professor Sperling? 

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BOARD MEMBER SPERLING: Here. 

BOARD CLERK JENSEN: Supervisor Yeager? 

Chairman Nichols? 

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Here. 

We've just been joined by Mr. De La Torre. 

BOARD MEMBER DE LA TORRE: Here. 

BOARD CLERK JENSEN: Chairman Nichols, we have a 

quorum.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Thank you very much. A 

couple of housekeeping items before we get started. 

First of all, we need to thank the Kern County 

Board of Supervisors for allowing us the use of their 

beautiful room with great high tech communications. 

Board members, each of you has a microphone. 

There is a switch in the desktop. So when you want to 

speak, you can just flip it so that the green light shows. 

Otherwise, we won't be using their high-tech voting 

machines today, I don't think. That's a little bit 

farther than we can go. But this is really terrific. 

Just a couple of quick announcements before we 

get started. First of all, as people probably saw when 

they walked into the room, interpretation services are 

available in Spanish for anyone who would like it. There 

are headsets available at the desk outside the hearing 

room at the sign-up table. 

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Is the translator here to make these comments in 

Spanish? 

EXECUTIVE OFFICER GOLDSTENE: He's in the booth. 

THE INTERPRETER: With the permission of the 

parties, this is the interpreter, the official interpreter 

that was asked to come here to provide services. We have 

a team of two interpreters. And with your permission I 

would like to speak in Spanish right now for the people 

that are present.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: All right. Fine. Please, 

go ahead. 

(Whereupon the announcement was translated from 

English to Spanish.)

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Thank you very much. 

Anyone who wishes to testify and hasn't signed up 

already online should fill out a request to speak card. 

Those are also in the lobby outside the Board room. And 

you're requested to turn it in to the Clerk as soon as 

possible. 

If you signed up online in advance to speak 

today, you don't need to fill out a form. But you do need 

to check in with the Clerk, just so she knows you're here, 

or else your name won't be on the speakers list. 

The Board does impose a three-minute limit on 

speakers. We appreciate it if you state your name when 

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you come up to the podium and then summarize your 

testimony, especially if you have written testimony, and 

just go to your main points. Because if you have written 

testimony, it will be in the record and the Board will 

read it. 

For safety reasons, I'm also supposed to notify 

you that there are emergency exits that are in the rear of 

the room, well lighted back there. In the event of an 

emergency, we're required to evacuate this room 

immediately and go outside the building until we hear an 

all-clear signal and then we return to the room. 

I think that's it in terms of official 

announcements. 

I did want to call on the Chairman of the Board 

here, who was going to give us some opening remarks. Mr. 

Scrivner, Supervisor Scrivner. 

SUPERVISOR SCRIVNER: Good morning, Board 

members. My name is Zack Scrivner. And I represent Kern 

County's southeast region as Second District Supervisor. 

And I'm also a member of the Kern Council of Governments. 

I'm not Board Chairman this year. I just 

concluded my term as Board Chairman in December. But it's 

an honor and a privilege to represent the Kern County 

Board of Supervisors before you today. 

First of all, welcome to Bakersfield and Kern 

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County. We appreciate this opportunity to acquaint you 

with our part of the state and to discuss our efforts to 

improve the air. 

Kern County is committed to meeting the state's 

climate change goals, along with air quality standards in 

the San Joaquin Valley air basin and the clean enjoyed in 

the Mojave desert air basin which represents most of my 

district. 

Like other counties and cities in the Valley Kern 

has been working to develop travel model and data 

improvements, design transit and acu-transit facilities 

and the discuss land use growth patterns that will achieve 

this ambitious reduction. 

This work is within the context of Kern's 

strengths and challenges. As you know, our county is home 

to two air basins, as I mentioned, and two air districts. 

We have diverse land features, and we also have rich 

natural resources. 

Kern County makes up 33 percent of the land area 

of the eight-county San Joaquin Valley with 20 percent of 

that population residing in Kern County. We're also the 

number one county for employment growth in the entire 

nation. 

Our industries include large and small scale 

agriculture, manufacturing/distribution centers, chemical 

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plants, and oil and gas production, exploration and 

refineries. 

Our mountain areas are known for world-class 

tourism for white water rafting on the Kern River and 

hiking the wildlife preserves. 

Our desert areas contain the largest wind energy 

and solar photovoltaic complex in California and is home 

to the Mojave air and space port with over 80 innovative 

companies engaged in light industrial to highly advanced 

aerospace design, flight test, and research. 

In support of California's goals to reduce 

greenhouse gases, Kern County over the last four years has 

permitted over 7,567 megawatts of wind and solar PV with 

full environmental impact reports with two-thirds in 

operation or under construction currently. This is seven 

times the number permitted by the next closest county, 

which is Imperial County. When you plug in your Chevy 

Volt, think of Kern County's wind and solar energy 

renewable frontier. Kern County has been working with 

Kern COG planners and transportation specific list from 

all the cities property owners and other stakeholders to 

meet our air quality targets, while ensuring economic 

growth in the important sectors for California; energy, 

oil and gas and renewable, agriculture, agriculture 

support services, manufacturing and distribution, 

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aerospace research, and design. 

We look forward to continuing our partnership 

with the ARB staff, your Board, and with the other Valley 

MPOs. New thinking and solutions to our air quality 

problems and thoughtful land planning for the future of 

economic growth and jobs we need desperately here in 

California. 

So in that vein, again, welcome to Kern County. 

We're glad to have you here. And we hope that you stop by 

more often. Thank you so much.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Thank you very much. 

Appreciate the welcome. And the opportunity to be here. 

Kern County has been in the news quite a bit 

lately because of your growth rate and leadership on 

renewable energy. So it's very timely that we're able to 

have the meeting here today. 

All right. Without further ado, then we'll jump 

into the agenda. 

BOARD MEMBER LOVERIDGE: I thought it's a good 

and helpful opening statement.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Yes. Thank you. Agreed. 

Okay. So our first item on the agenda is the 

consideration of appointment of a new member to the 

Research Screening Committee. This is a consent item, 

unless anybody wants to take it off of consent. If not, 

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then it will be approved. 

We then move to an overview of the science of 

PM2.5 and research on PM2.5 and to a consideration of 

approving the San Joaquin Valley's State Implementation 

Plan for fine particles. And we'll go ahead and have the 

staff presentation. 

EXECUTIVE OFFICER GOLDSTENE: Thank you, Chairman 

Nichols. 

The San Joaquin Valley has some of the most 

challenging PM2.5 air quality issues in the country. In 

2008, the Board approved the San Joaquin Valley's plan for 

meeting the annual standard for PM2.5. 

Today, you'll hear the plan to address the daily 

or 24-hour PM2.5 standard. 

Implementation of ARB's regulations for diesel 

trucks and engines is a key component of the Valley PM2.5 

attainment strategy for both the annual and 24-hour 

standards. 

In the staff presentation, you'll hear about the 

role these ARB regulations play and also about the 

additional district actions that will be taken to meet the 

24-hour standard. 

Ajith Kaduwela will discuss the science behind 

our understanding of PM2.5 in the valley, followed by 

Sylvia Vanderspek with an overview of the plan. 

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(Thereupon an overhead presentation was 

presented as follows.)

REGIONAL AIR QUALITY MODELING SECTION MANAGER 

KADUWELA: Thank you, Mr. Goldstene. 

Good morning, Chairman Nichols and members of the 

Board. 

My presentation today is the first of two-part 

presentation. The focus is on the science supporting the 

San Joaquin Valley's 24-hour PM2.5 plan and summarizes 

information that was presented at two science workshops 

conducted by ARB staff in the Valley during the plan 

development. 

--o0o--

REGIONAL AIR QUALITY MODELING SECTION MANAGER 

KADUWELA: I will first present what we know about the 

PM2.5 problem in the Valley, then move onto how we use 

photochemical models to demonstrate attainment and 

determine significant precursors. Significant precursors 

are the pollutants which are most effective in reducing 

PM2.5. Finally, I will finish with the description of 

what we are doing to continue to improve the science.

--o0o--

REGIONAL AIR QUALITY MODELING SECTION MANAGER 

KADUWELA: A strong scientific foundation is the key to an 

effective State Implementation Plan. Scientific studies 

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also provide the much-needed research quality data to 

understand the nature of the PM2.5 problem. 

The same data also helps us improve the air 

quality models that we use to simulate the pollutant 

concentrations in the Valley. These models are the most 

powerful tool we have to predict the future air quality 

responses to emission controls.

--o0o--

REGIONAL AIR QUALITY MODELING SECTION MANAGER 

KADUWELA: CRPAQS was a year-long air quality study 

conducted in 2000 in the San Joaquin Valley. It remains 

one of the most comprehensive scientific research studies 

conducted in any area of the world. 

Part of CRPAQS was an intensive summer ozone 

study known as the Central California Ozone Study, or 

CCOS. These two studies continue to be the foundation of 

the ozone and PM State Implementation Plans prepared for 

the Valley since 2000.

--o0o--

REGIONAL AIR QUALITY MODELING SECTION MANAGER 

KADUWELA: Multiple years of measurement show that PM2.5 

concentrations are higher during the winter months 

compared to the summer. The main reason is the stagnation 

of cold air masses in the Valley during the winter that 

are conducive to both accumulation of directly-emitted 

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particles and formation of particles in the atmosphere due 

to chemical reactions. These stagnation events can last 

from days to weeks, sandwiched between weather fronts that 

clean out the Valley.

--o0o--

REGIONAL AIR QUALITY MODELING SECTION MANAGER 

KADUWELA: In addressing the PM2.5 challenge, one of the 

first steps is to look at the chemical makeup of PM2.5 on 

exceedance days. PM2.5 is made up of many constituents 

that can be emitted directly or formed through chemical 

reactions of precursor emissions, such as oxides of 

nitrogen, oxides of sulfur, volatile organic compounds, 

and ammonia. 

Examining the chemical composition provide an 

understanding of contributing sources, as well as being a 

key input to the regulatory process. 

Four sites in the Valley collect this 

information. Two are funded by the EPA. ARB funds two 

additional sites to provide better spacial coverage. 

The pie charts show average composition for days 

that exceed the standard in both Bakersfield and Fresno. 

Ammonium nitrate is the largest contributor at both sites, 

followed by organic carbon. Together, these two 

constituents comprise 85 to 90 percent of the PM2.5 mass.

--o0o--

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REGIONAL AIR QUALITY MODELING SECTION MANAGER 

KADUWELA: Oxides of nitrogen, or NOx, emitted from 

combustion sources, such as automobiles and industrial 

sources, undergo oxidation in the atmosphere to form 

nitric acid. This nitric acid then reacts with ammonium 

nitrate. 

Due to its photochemical formation, ammonium 

nitrate concentrations are regional in nature. A number 

of scientific studies have confirmed that reducing NOx is 

the most effective way to reduce ammonium nitrate in the 

Valley. 

Since 2002, there has been a significant 

reduction in NOx emissions in the Valley. And as a 

result, wintertime ammonium nitrate concentrations have 

decreased by approximately 40 percent.

--o0o--

REGIONAL AIR QUALITY MODELING SECTION MANAGER 

KADUWELA: Organic carbon can be either directly emitted, 

which we call primary, or can be formed in the atmosphere 

due to chemical reactions, which we call secondary. 

Primary organic carbon is dominant in the winter, 

with the highest concentrations in urban areas due to wood 

burning, cooking, and mobile sources. 

Secondary organic carbon formation is not 

significant during winter months. 

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Since 2002, winter organic carbon concentrations 

have decreased by approximately 50 percent due to ongoing 

mobile source reductions, as well as wood burning 

curtailments.

--o0o--

REGIONAL AIR QUALITY MODELING SECTION MANAGER 

KADUWELA: To understand the complex interactions that 

occur in the atmosphere, we use photochemical models. 

California has an internationally recognized photochemical 

modeling program, combining the expertise of the 

University of California with ARB scientists and modelers. 

The results we obtain by using 

state-of-the-science models help us identify the most 

effective mix of pollutants to control and to establish 

attainment targets. These models are used to predict the 

relative changes in PM2.5 concentrations. Then in 

combination with measure data to develop 

precursor-specific emission targets to achieve attainment. 

The air quality and weather models used during the SIP 

development processes are EPA approved.

--o0o--

REGIONAL AIR QUALITY MODELING SECTION MANAGER 

KADUWELA: The figure on the left shows several modeling 

regions, or domains, used by the ARB as part of the 

regulatory process. Their spacial coverage range from 

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several states down to an area focused on the San Joaquin 

Valley. We used the small black domain in the middle of 

the figure for this plan. 

The modeling domain consists of a large number of 

grid cells arranged both horizontally and vertically. The 

top of our modeling domains reach the stratosphere. 

As I mentioned before, we use the 

state-of-the-science weather model to predict weather 

variables for every grid cell every few seconds for an 

entire year. We also predict all components of PM2.5 for 

every grid cell every few seconds for a year. We then 

conduct a model performance evaluation to answer the 

question: Does the model reasonably predict the observe 

nature of the PM2.5 problem? The results of the model 

performance evaluation for this SIP show that the model is 

meeting EPA performance criteria.

--o0o--

REGIONAL AIR QUALITY MODELING SECTION MANAGER 

KADUWELA: Once the model meets its performance goals, it 

is the best tool available to assess the effectiveness of 

controlling each precursor. We have conducted sensitivity 

simulations the assess the effectiveness of all possible 

PM2.5 precursors. This assessment includes not only 

current work, but the knowledge gained through our 

previous modeling studies. Thus, the emission control 

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approach presented in this plan is based upon a 

comprehensive assessment of all the available science.

--o0o--

REGIONAL AIR QUALITY MODELING SECTION MANAGER 

KADUWELA: This table summarizes the results of precursors 

sensitivity modeling conducted as part of the 24-hour SIP 

development. The table lists the precursors in the first 

column, the amount of PM reduced as a result of the 

modeled 25 percent reduction in each precursor in the 

second column, and the reduction in PM2.5 per ton of 

emission reductions in the third column. 

Note in the second column that primary PM2.5 is 

the most effective precursor to control, then NOx, and so 

forth down the column. 

Note in the third column that the per-ton 

effectiveness in reducing PM2.5 can differ by orders of 

magnitude for different precursors. Ammonia reductions on 

a per-ton basis are 40 times less effective than primary 

PM2.5 controls and ten times less effective than NOx 

controls, while SOX controls have the same effectiveness 

as NOx controls on a per ton basis, there's so little 

ammonium sulfate at the Bakersfield site that it is only a 

small contribution of the total PM2.5 mass. Control of 

volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, can be slightly 

disbeneficial. 

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--o0o--

REGIONAL AIR QUALITY MODELING SECTION MANAGER 

KADUWELA: In summary, reductions indirect PM2.5 are the 

most beneficial. NOx controls also provide large 

benefits. Ammonia controls offer very small benefits, and 

VOC controls produce very small disbenefits.

--o0o--

REGIONAL AIR QUALITY MODELING SECTION MANAGER 

KADUWELA: This plan is based on the best science 

available to us today. However, we continue to carry out 

new research efforts which build upon the existing 

knowledge base. 

To improve the science, ARB funds several SIP 

relevant research projects each year. In addition, the 

agency funds three biennial international conferences at 

the University of California at Davis. The foci of these 

three conferences are: Atmospheric mechanisms, 

methodologies to model particulate matter, and weather 

modeling relevant to the complex terrain of California. 

In addition, ARB participants in field studies to 

improve modeling databases. Listed here are the recent 

field studies we have participated in. The last one on 

the list named Discover AQ is taking place as we speak.

--o0o--

REGIONAL AIR QUALITY MODELING SECTION MANAGER 

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KADUWELA: Discover AQ is a five-year effort funded by 

NASA to improve the use of space-based atmospheric 

measurements to augment ground-based measurement networks. 

Discover AQ is being conducted in phases in different 

parts of the U.S. and the current deployment is in the San 

Joaquin Valley. 

ARB and U.S. EPA, together with several 

universities, are major collaborators with NASA in the 

current campaign, which will be conducted using 

satellites, instrumented airplanes, and ground monitoring 

stations. 

The finding of this study will continue to 

enhance and provide additional tools for understanding 

PM2.5 formation during the wintertime in the San Joaquin 

Valley. 

I will now turn the presentation over to Syliva 

Vanderspek.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Excuse me. Before you do 

that, because I think there is a logical break point here, 

if I may. And I made a mistake at the beginning. I guess 

I was so concerned about the fact we were starting a 

little bit late that I failed to introduce the member of 

the San Joaquin Valley Air District who sits on our Board, 

Dr. Sherriffs, and to ask him if he wanted to make any 

initial comments either about the science or about where 

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we are today, given the fact he's both a practicing 

physician and does research in this part of the world. 

So if you would care to add any additional 

thoughts at this point in the proceeding, this would be a 

good time to do it. 

BOARD MEMBER SHERRIFFS: Thank you. What an 

unexpected privilege.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Well, you can't get away 

with

BOARD MEMBER SHERRIFFS: First, I'd like to thank 

Mr. Scrivner for his presentation, because it is a very 

important reminder. I think we often think of Kern County 

and corner of Kern County as a big problem. And it's an 

important reminder that Kern County is -- yes, there are 

problems, but this is also very much part of the solution. 

And really appreciate your overview of what goes on here. 

I think I would just preface what's been said by 

emphasizing the importance to health to our discussion 

here. Because clearly, the PM2.5 is the biggest negative 

health impact of what we're dealing with in terms of air 

quality. So this is very important work. It's very 

difficult work. But it's extremely important work. 

And these are measured in real lives. You know, 

we're talking order of magnitude 600 excess deaths every 

year related to our current air quality, which is 

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considerably improved from the past. But we clearly have 

a ways to go. It is millions of direct dollars in health 

care costs. And if we think about the indirect costs, 

losses to businesses in terms of lost work days and so on, 

losses to school districts in terms of absences of 

students so they're not getting funding for that, there 

are a number of studies looking at it from different 

angles that put the bill at one to two billion dollars 

annually. So these are big and important numbers. 

Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Thanks very much. I'm 

sorry if that put you on the spot unexpectedly, but I 

thought we could have backed up for just a second and done 

a little bit more introductory work. 

So I think it's fair to say that it is exciting 

to be here to receive the kind of welcome and the kind of 

perspective that we had this morning also from the 

Supervisor. Because the last time that I attended an Air 

Resources Board meeting -- official meeting in San 

Bernardino was back when Jerry Brown was Governor the 

first time. Sorry, the last time I attended a meeting in 

Kern County. I don't know why I said San Bernardino. I 

was thinking about where I was a couple days ago. 

But in Kern County, we were dealing with air 

impacts of steam injection in the oil fields. And it was 

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a very contentious time. I was very happy to see Less 

Clark when I walked in here this morning. Because we live 

in a different world now than we did back then. I think 

in those days there was a lot of questioning about whether 

there even was an air quality problem in this part of the 

world. That issue in and of itself was seriously under 

contention. So indeed, we have come a long way. Even 

though the challenges are big and real, there has been a 

huge amount of progress. 

I'm sorry to interrupt the flow of your 

presentation, but Sylvia, I'm sure you can pick up there. 

AIR QUALITY DATA BRANCH MANAGER VANDERSPEK: 

Thank you, Chairman Nichols. 

Now that you have heard about the science of PM.5 

formation in the San Joaquin Valley, I will describe the 

24-hour PM2.5 SIP that you have before you today.

--o0o--

AIR QUALITY DATA BRANCH MANAGER VANDERSPEK: In 

this portion of the presentation, I will discuss staff's 

recommendations for Board action and further elaborate on 

the nature of the Valley's PM2.5 problem. 

Next, I will provide an overview of how the SIP 

demonstrates attainment of the 24-hour standard. 

Finally, I will highlight other upcoming SIPs and 

ARB's coordinated planning process.

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--o0o--

AIR QUALITY DATA BRANCH MANAGER VANDERSPEK: The 

San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District adopted 

the 2012 PM2.5 SIP at their hearing last month. ARB and 

district staff worked for three years developing the 

various SIP elements which address the 35 microgram per 

meter cubed 24-hour PM2.5 standard. Much of the technical 

work as described by Dr. Kaduwela was prepared by ARB 

staff with input from Valley staff. ARB staff has 

reviewed this plan and found that it meets Federal Clean 

Air Act requirements. Therefore, we are recommending that 

the Board approve this plan as a revision to the SIP.

--o0o--

AIR QUALITY DATA BRANCH MANAGER VANDERSPEK: 

Since the nature of episodic PM2.5 is complex, 

understanding what causes high PM levels is essential to 

evaluating the benefit of ongoing control programs, as 

well as formulating future attainment strategies.

--o0o--

AIR QUALITY DATA BRANCH MANAGER VANDERSPEK: As 

you heard earlier, the air pollution problem in the San 

Joaquin Valley is one of the most intensively studied in 

the world. The mountains that surround three sides of the 

Valley serve to trap air pollution. Thus, in the winter, 

PM2.5 can build up over many days and in severe episodes 

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up to several weeks. 

During these PM2.5 episodes, the air is stagnant, 

the temperatures are cool, and humidity is high. PM2.5 

levels can remain high until a storm disperses the 

pollutants. The intensity of PM2.5 episodes can vary year 

to year depending upon the frequency and duration of these 

adverse weather conditions.

--o0o--

AIR QUALITY DATA BRANCH MANAGER VANDERSPEK: To 

illustrate the variability in episodes, the chart on this 

slide depicts the number of days over the 24-hour standard 

in each of the last twelve years at two key sites, 

Bakersfield and Fresno. 

Understanding long-term trends in PM2.5 levels 

requires consideration of the interplay between emission 

reductions, impacts from natural events, and yearly 

variability in weather conditions.

--o0o--

AIR QUALITY DATA BRANCH MANAGER VANDERSPEK: For 

example, the large wildfires that occurred in 2008 

affected the number of exceedance days in that year, with 

11 exceedance days due to the impacts at Fresno and ten at 

Bakersfield. 

In addition, analysis of weather data shows that 

in 2000, 2002, 2007, and 2011, there were periods that 

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were especially conducive to PM2.5 formation over 

multi-day episodes. These four years all show an increase 

in the number of exceedance days as compared to the prior 

year. To ensure that the SIP is health protective, 2007, 

a year with adverse weather conditions, was used in the 

plan.

--o0o--

AIR QUALITY DATA BRANCH MANAGER VANDERSPEK: 

Comparing PM2.5 concentrations in years with similar 

weather provides greater insight into the effectiveness of 

the ongoing control program. 

As noted in the last slide, four years, 2000, 

2002, 2007, and 2011 stand out -- possibly should we go 

back to the last slide so they can see it.

--o0o--

AIR QUALITY DATA BRANCH MANAGER VANDERSPEK: -- 

stand out as having weather conditions that resulted in 

long duration episodes. 

Winter average PM2.5 concentrations for these 

four years are shown in the slide you would have seen for 

Bakersfield on the left and Fresno on the right. So at 

both sites under similar weather conditions, there has 

been a continuing decline in PM2.5 levels. This progress 

tracks concurrent reductions in NOx emissions from ARB's 

mobile source control program, as well as district control 

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efforts, especially the curtailment of residential 

burning.

--o0o--

AIR QUALITY DATA BRANCH MANAGER VANDERSPEK: The 

magnitude of the ongoing NOx reductions that are 

associated with the observed progress has been 

substantial, as illustrated in this chart depicting Valley 

NOx emission trends from 2000 to 2020. 

Between 2000 and 2010, NOx emissions decreased 

approximately 45 percent, with a further 45 percent 

decline forecasted to occur by 2020. 

In addition to district stationary source 

controls, these emissions reductions are due to actions 

this Board has taken related to diesel trucks, passenger 

cars, and off-road engines.

--o0o--

AIR QUALITY DATA BRANCH MANAGER VANDERSPEK: As 

we have been discussing, weather can play a large role in 

short-term trends. The weather in 2011 was very conducive 

to producing high PM2.5 concentrations, especially in the 

month of December. This extensive episode carried through 

into the middle of the January of 2012. 

The weather in the remaining part of 2012, 

however, was more moderate. Preliminary data shows that 

most PM2.5 design values will improve with the inclusion 

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of 2012 air quality data.

--o0o--

AIR QUALITY DATA BRANCH MANAGER VANDERSPEK: The 

next portion of the presentation will discuss how the SIP 

demonstrates attainment of the 24-hour PM2.5 standard.

--o0o--

AIR QUALITY DATA BRANCH MANAGER VANDERSPEK: The 

2012 PM2.5 SIP was adopted by the Valley Board on December 

20, 2012. The SIP addresses the 35 micrograms per meter 

cubed 24-hour PM2.5 standard that EPA established in 2006. 

The SIP shows that by 2017, approximately 90 

percent of the Valley residents will be living in 

communities meeting this air quality standard. The 

remaining location, Bakersfield, is predicted to meet the 

standard by 2019.

--o0o--

AIR QUALITY DATA BRANCH MANAGER VANDERSPEK: The 

Valley's attainment strategy is based on emission 

reductions that will be achieved from continuing 

implementation of ongoing control programs, as well as two 

new district measures. This strategy reflects a focus on 

two major components of PM2.5 during the winter, ammonium 

nitrate and organic carbon. 

ARB's mobile source emission control program 

addresses NOx and diesel PM emissions, provides 

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significant benefits with a 50 percent reduction in NOx 

emissions between 2007 and 2019. These programs, coupled 

with further enhancement of the district wood burning 

curtailment program, bring the entire Valley into 

attainment, with the exception of one location in 

Bakersfield. 

Staff analysis of sources in the Bakersfield area 

identified certain commercial cooking operations as a 

significant uncontrolled source of directly emitted PM2.5. 

Inclusion of a district rule to further reduce emissions 

from commercial cooking provides the final increment of 

reductions to address the remaining localized area of 

non-attainment in Bakersfield. 

Now I will briefly highlight the key elements of 

the strategy for attaining the standard, starting with the 

directly emitted PM2.5.

--o0o--

AIR QUALITY DATA BRANCH MANAGER VANDERSPEK: 

Ammonium nitrate is the largest component of PM2.5, and 

ongoing NOx reductions have led to decreasing ammonium 

nitrate levels valley-wide. However, directly emitted 

organic carbon is also a significant contributor to winter 

PM2.5 episodes. Therefore, a key aspect of the attainment 

strategy addresses directly emitted PM2.5 sources. Major 

sources include ongoing reductions from diesel engines and 

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passenger vehicles and new district measures to further 

reduce residential burning and commercial cooking 

emissions.

--o0o--

AIR QUALITY DATA BRANCH MANAGER VANDERSPEK: The 

district's first new measure addresses direct PM2.5 from 

residential wood burning. Exposure to wood smoke is 

harmful, with studies showing that exposure increases 

hospitalization and emergency room visits for various 

respiratory illnesses and cardiovascular disease. 

Progressive amendments strengthening the 

district's wood burning rule have provided significant 

community health benefits. 

The Valley is, therefore, proposing to amend 

their current rule to further limit wood burning to 

prevent the buildup of PM2.5 that could lead to levels 

above the standard. 

Strengthening this rule will also provide further 

protection for children, asthmatics, and other sensitive 

populations. In response to stakeholder concerns, the 

district has moved adoption of this measure forward to 

2014.

--o0o--

AIR QUALITY DATA BRANCH MANAGER VANDERSPEK: The 

final measure that brings the entire Valley into 

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attainment is reducing emissions from commercial cooking 

operations. The district currently has a rule for 

commercial cooking operations that addresses chain driven 

commercial cooking devices. The district plans to amend 

the rule to also address under-fired grill type devices. 

The district has been partnering with the South Coast to 

advance technologies for this type of device. Given this 

need for additional technology development, rule adoption 

is planned for 2016.

--o0o--

AIR QUALITY DATA BRANCH MANAGER VANDERSPEK: 

While many different precursors contribute to PM2.5 

formation, EPA's PM2.5 implementation rule enables states 

to focus on the most effective control strategies by 

distinguishing among PM2.5 precursors on the basis of 

significant contribution to attainment. 

The rule also establishes a presumption that 

PM2.5 NOx and SOX are significant precursors, while VOCs 

and ammonia are not. As Dr. Kaduwela described earlier, 

the latest science demonstrates that PM2.5 NOx and SOX are 

the appropriate significant precursors for this SIP. The 

annual PM2.5 SIP that EPA approved in 2011 also identified 

these as the only significant precursors. While ammonia 

has not been shown to be a significant precursor, the 

district has included an ammonia feasibility study and has 

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committed to pursue any feasible and cost effective 

measure identified through this process.

--o0o--

AIR QUALITY DATA BRANCH MANAGER VANDERSPEK: In 

addition to the attainment demonstration, the Clean Air 

Act also requires the SIP elements shown in this slide. 

This includes an accurate accounting of emissions in the 

2007 base year, as well as forecasted emissions for future 

years. The SIP must also provide for steady progress in 

reducing emissions during the years leading to attainment. 

Reasonably available control measures must also 

be adopted. EPA has interpreted this as measures that are 

technologically and economically feasible and, when 

considered in aggregate, would advance attainment by at 

least one year. While the district plan identified 

several rules that could be improved, including those for 

wood burning and cooking, no additional measures were 

identified that could advance attainment by a year or 

more. 

Finally, contingency measures provide additional 

emission reductions in the event an area fails to achieve 

interim emission targets or attain the PM2.5 standard by 

its attainment date. 

Staff has reviewed the SIP and finds that it 

meets these requirements.

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--o0o--

AIR QUALITY DATA BRANCH MANAGER VANDERSPEK: 

While you are considering the 24-hour PM2.5 SIP for the 

2006 standard today, there are many other SIP efforts 

ongoing in the Valley.

--o0o--

AIR QUALITY DATA BRANCH MANAGER VANDERSPEK: As 

this time line shows, California has adopted a number of 

SIPs for the San Joaquin Valley, with more to come as 

federal standards continue to be strengthened. 

In 2011, EPA approved both the annual PM2.5 plan 

and the 8-hour ozone plan. On the horizon will be new 

SIPs related to the revised 8-hour ozone standard and the 

PM2.5 annual standard that EPA strengthened last month. 

In addition, a new one-hour ozone SIP is 

required. Although the one-hour ozone standard has been 

revoked, EPA recently established a requirement that the 

San Joaquin Valley submit a new one-hour ozone attainment 

demonstration. This is intended to avoid backsliding on 

previous SIP obligations.

--o0o--

AIR QUALITY DATA BRANCH MANAGER VANDERSPEK: To 

address these ongoing SIP needs, multi-pollutant planning 

will be important as we move forward. While there are 

multiple SIPs for ozone and PM2.5 with differing 

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attainment deadlines, common strategies are the core of 

both attainment needs, with an ongoing focus on NOx 

reductions for both pollutants. We will also need to 

integrate our SIP planning efforts with the work being 

done for AB 32 and the freight planning efforts. 

Finally, EPA is required under the Clean Air Act 

to conduct a periodic review of standards which typically 

result in new standards as the health science progresses. 

While this can be challenging from a planning perspective, 

California has the opportunity to be strategic in our 

efforts. ARB staff has committed to working with the San 

Joaquin Valley District to streamline the process where we 

can, while making the best use of the latest science.

--o0o--

AIR QUALITY DATA BRANCH MANAGER VANDERSPEK: In 

closing, ARB staff recommends that the Board approve the 

San Joaquin Valley 2012 PM2.5 plan as a revision to the 

California SIP and direct the Executive Officer to submit 

this plan to EPA. 

This concludes the presentation. And we would be 

happy to answer any questions you may have.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Thank you very much. We 

have a list of 13 witnesses who have signed up to speak on 

this item. Before we go to the witnesses, do any Board 

members have any questions? 

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Yes, Dr. Balmes. 

BOARD MEMBER BALMES: So Ms. Vanderspek, if I go 

to slide 21, which is the year to year variability in 

PM2.5, in terms of number of days of exceedances, across 

the years -- 

AIR QUALITY DATA BRANCH MANAGER VANDERSPEK: Yes

BOARD MEMBER BALMES: -- from 1999 to 2011, as a 

scientist, I have to look at data displays all the time. 

And if I tried to publish a graph like this to say there 

was a big effect across this time period, it would look 

like the effect was in the early part of the 2000 decade, 

because basically there hasn't been much change since 2003 

on average in terms of number of exceedances. 

I realize there is weather variability and forest 

fire, wild land fire responsible for 2008, for example. I 

don't know if that was the case for 2007 as well. But 

just like your comment to me, there doesn't look like 

there's been a lot of progress in terms of exceedances, 

days of exceedance since 2003. 

AIR QUALITY DATA BRANCH MANAGER VANDERSPEK: 

Well, there has been a lot of progress in the early part. 

The more recent progress, if you look at it, there are 

many metrics to look at PM2.5. If you look at another 

metric such as how high the values get, what we have seen 

is a shift from higher values into lower values. And 

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still we do have a long ways -- we still have a long ways 

to go. But we have seen progress in that aspect.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Do you have a slide or can 

you give us a number in terms of the peak values? Because 

I -- 

DEPUTY EXECUTIVE OFFICER TERRY: Actually, that 

was the slide that didn't show up, the key slide. 

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Oh, I see. 

DEPUTY EXECUTIVE OFFICER TERRY: So the point was 

while there is this variability shown on exceedance days, 

staff did a weather analysis and shows progress counting 

for weather in terms of concentrations. 

BOARD MEMBER BALMES: Of course, that's average. 

We have the slide 22 that didn't display. So that's the 

average PM2.5. And I'm fully aware that's gone down. And 

I don't want to take away from the progress that's been 

made in that San Joaquin Valley. 

But days of exceedances are perhaps particularly 

important in terms of health effects in terms of asthmatic 

kids and adults, for that matter. So that's -- we 

actually don't have a slide in the packet in terms of how 

high the exceedance is. 

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Well, that is a good point. 

And another thing that is missing again, not to 

critique the presentation -- but I guess that's what I'm 

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going to do -- is it doesn't really map the progress 

against measures that have actually been in place over 

this period of time or that are coming into effect. 

So to the extent that mobile source controls are 

the most important aspect of this, which I believe they 

are, you know, where are we in terms of achieving the 

benefits of those measures that we've been adopting over 

the years, some of which we had to delay because of 

economic and other considerations that are only now coming 

into effect that would give us more of a sense of security 

that progress that we saw is going to pick up again. It 

would be very helpful I guess if we had a little bit more 

of that to look at as well. 

AIR QUALITY DATA BRANCH CHIEF MAGLIANO: This is 

Karen Magliano. I'm Chief of the Air Quality Data Branch. 

One of the things we did look at was can we track 

trends in those speciation elements of PM2.5 as compared 

to declines in emissions. As you saw in the pie charts, 

ammonium nitrate is one of the biggest pieces of PM2.5. 

And so we have looked at trends over time in the 

ammonium nitrate concentrations and how does that compare 

to both ambient NOx concentrations as well as the NOx 

emission inventory. And while we apologize we did not 

have that in the presentation, we did put together what is 

known as a weight of evidence document which looks at the 

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entirety of the air quality data. And as part of that, we 

do see that there is a very strong correlation between 

ammonium nitrate concentrations coming down, ambient NOx, 

and NOx emissions as well. 

BOARD MEMBER BALMES: Believe it or not, I read 

that document. I think it does overall show the 

tremendous progress that has been made with regard to 

reducing precursors for PM2.5 in the Valley over this 

period of time. 

I was struck by slide 21 in terms of exceedances, 

which I realize are in part due to forces we can't 

control. But it's again -- 

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: People have to breathe on 

those days, too. 

BOARD MEMBER BALMES: Exactly. 

AIR QUALITY DATA BRANCH CHIEF MAGLIANO: It 

certainly highlights the challenge the Valley faces. 

DEPUTY EXECUTIVE OFFICER TERRY: On that point, 

Dr. Balmes, really the point of that slide was to say that 

one of the decisions made in the planning process is to 

pick the base year for the analysis. So we purposefully 

selected 2007, which as you can see, is a year with a lot 

of exceedances to address that very issue that we are not 

assuming good weather in an attainment year. We are 

assuming bad weather in the attainment year.

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CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Okay. Well, with that, 

unless there are other questions, we'll proceed to our 

list of witnesses. And I'll read a few names in advance 

just so people can be ready. Where do the speakers 

actually come? Oh, right here. 

Okay. Beginning with Emily Schrepf and then Will 

Barrett and Gordon Nipp. 

Is Emily Schrepf here? If not, then we'll go to 

Will Barrett. Good morning. 

MR. BARRETT: Good morning, Chairman Nichols and 

members of the Board, staff. 

I'm Will Barrett on behalf of the American Lung 

Association of California. 

The Lung Association views this plan as an 

important opportunity to continue to address the difficult 

air quality challenges in the Valley that are among the 

most difficult in the nation. As we report each year in 

our state of the air report, this is a top priority and 

one that needs to be addressed quickly and efficiently. 

We strongly supported the recent U.S. EPA efforts 

to strengthen the annual PM standard. We do know that 

work is being done and progress is being made, but there 

is much more work to be done. 

And also along with my colleague at the Fresno 

Madera Medical Society, who is ill and not able to be here 

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today, we would like to say we encourage you to look for 

any ways that could increase the near-term benefits of the 

plan by, for example, we appreciate the more stringent 

wood burning provision was moved up to earlier years to 

provide more near-term health benefits. We believe all of 

the measures should be evaluated for earlier 

implementation to further strengthen the plan. 

For example, the commercial charbroiling rule 

could be developed earlier than proposed at this point to 

just begin to accrue more near-term health benefits. 

One key element of the plan I wanted to highlight 

was the analysis of the health benefits that was included 

in the appendices. And that illustrates for the public 

the benefits in real terms of the plan and why we're 

striving so hard to clean up the air. 

Some of the highlights of that assessment were 

avoiding the negative respiratory health impacts that 

included 600 premature deaths, 700 pediatric asthma 

emergency room visits, 115,000 asthma attacks, 125,000 

lost work days that could be avoided if under attainment. 

And I think that any efforts that could be made to move 

forward quickly can really bring those to bear sooner. 

So we do urge the Board to continue to evaluate 

all the health benefits of the air quality standards and 

new programs that are put in place to illustrate to the 

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public the importance of what we're doing to support 

cleaner air in California, and especially here in the 

Valley that provides more tangible benefits. It's an 

important aspect of building community support. And we 

want to see that continue. 

We also do encourage the Board to continue to 

work with the Valley Air District and communities on, as 

noted in the presentation, multi-pollutant planning and 

investment that's laid out in the air district's vision 

document. That will ensure that ongoing attention as PM 

plans and ozone plans and climate plans are going forward 

that we can make sure we're hitting all our bases and 

improving air quality for everybody as efficiently as 

possible. 

We do could support moving forward and we look 

forward to continued progress to enact the strongest 

near-term health benefits and emission reduction 

strategies possible to advance California's clean air 

leadership. 

So with that, I thank you for your time.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Thank you very much. 

Mr. Nipp from the Sierra Club. 

MR. NIPP: Good morning. My name is Gordon Nipp. 

I'm the Vice Chair of the local Sierra Club Chapter. The 

Kern-Kaweah Chapter, with about 1400 members in mostly the 

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southern San Joaquin Valley. 

We've long been involved in air quality issues, 

particularly important for us since we have no choice but 

to breathe the polluted air. I think that the PM2.5 

attainment plan goes neither far enough, nor fast enough 

towards cleaning our air. The plan could and should be 

strengthened. 

For example, the indirect source rule only 

addresses about half of the air pollution associated with 

large new development and for that matter doesn't address 

greenhouse gas emissions at all. A number of developers 

have signed agreements with the air district to offset all 

of the air pollution associated with their project, all of 

the criteria pollutants associated with their project. 

And for that matter, some projects have signed private 

agreements to offset some of the greenhouse gases 

associated with their projects. 

So it's feasible to strengthen ISR. And that's 

one of a number of steps that could and should be taken to 

speed up PM2.5 attainment. 

The southern San Joaquin Valley fights it out 

annually with Los Angeles for the dirtiest air in the 

country. And for our health and our children's health, we 

who live here would much prefer to lose that distinction. 

I urge you to reject this plan in favor of swifter 

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compliance and stronger rules. 

Thank you for your consideration.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Thank you. 

We are going to be using the timer. We sort of 

forgot for the first couple of witnesses. But 

fortunately, you all were very succinct so I don't think 

it's a problem. 

We're going to next hear from Marvin Dean and 

then Colby Morrow and Christopher Breedlove. 

MR. DEAN: Okay. Thank you. My name is Marvin 

Dean. I'm here representing two organizations, the Kern 

Minority Contractor's Association, which is a small 

minority construction trade association. And the other is 

A. Philip Randolph, which is an environmental justice 

community-based non-profit organization that deal with 

clean air and healthy living issues. 

Before I get into my remarks, I just want to give 

a little background. When the air district was first 

formed, as you know back in the Willie Brown days, that 

was very contentious whether or not you should have a 

nine-county Valley district, because every county wanted 

to have its own air district. The creation of that 

required a Hearing Board to be created in order to hear 

these violations of pollutant laws. I was appointed to 

serve on the first Hearing Board, and I served ten years. 

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I'm very familiar with this issue. 

And I'm currently serving on the Environmental 

Justice Task Force that the air district has created to 

deal with environmental justice communities. 

I want to start by saying I'm very thankful for 

you guys to be here. That should be underscored. A lot 

of people may or may not know that Kern County and the air 

district is penalized by 29 million a year by the EPA 

because of the air quality issues in the Valley. And this 

2.5 plan, a lot of people are concerned about the costs to 

implement and also what it's going to do for these 

environmental justice community to have to come into 

compliance. But we need to address the air issues. And 

we all have to breathe this stuff. 

But I'd just like to say a couple things. I'm 

neutral on this plan. I think it's a good start. And I 

think by having this conversation, we can build on it. 

And then I would just suggest that because one of 

the biggest problem is the diesel engines that pass 

through here, trucks that don't stop up and down this 

Valley. Some people laugh when I say this, but I'm one 

that think if we could put a toll road on 99 -- when I go 

in the Bay Area and these other cities, there's toll roads 

we have to pay. But we get a lot of people making impacts 

to the pollutants here not paying for the cost this Valley 

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has to pay for. 

And the other thing I would say is high speed 

rail. I just got back from Sacramento for the High Speed 

Rail meeting. That's why we need it, to get the cars off 

the road coming through the Valley. 

The last thing I would say in closing is that 

whatever we do here, there ought to be grant money and 

incentives to help these environmental justice communities 

and small businesses and residents going to have to come 

in with the impact of cost that everybody is going to have 

to share. That's what I want to close with. 

And again, I want to thank you all for coming. 

And I'll do what I can. I have to leave. I have to be in 

L.A. and back for an environmental justice meeting at 

5:00. 

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: I hope you're driving a 

clean vehicle. Thanks, Mr. Dean. Colby Morrow. 

MS. MORROW: Good morning, Chair Nichols, Board 

members. 

My name is Colby Morrow. I'm with Southern 

California Gas Company. Southern California Gas Company 

is one of the four investor-owned public utilities. And 

we provide natural gas service in portions of Kings -- 

Kern, Kings, Tulare, and Fresno County. 

Attainment of air quality standards is very 

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important to So. Cal Gas for all of the communities in 

which we provide service. We appreciate both the APCD 

staff and your staff for the incredible impressive effort 

that the plan is over 1100 pages. And I bet Dr. Balmes 

read them all. 

Regardless, So. Cal Gas does support the control 

strategies in the plan. 

While we're happy to see acknowledgement of 

emission reductions from energy efficiency measures, we 

note that natural gas is not acknowledged as a fuel option 

for the mobile sector. So. Cal Gas believes that natural 

gas is well positioned to be a major part of most paths 

for near zero and zero emission transportation options. 

We also agree with the statements regarding goods 

movement made by San Joaquin Valley APCO Air Pollution 

Control Officer to his Board during their plan adoption 

hearing in December. These are: The San Joaquin Valley 

has unique issues addressing goods movement considering 

the long distances that goods need to be transported. 

Zero emission technology and/or electrification cannot 

meet all of the Valley's goods movement needs. And 

compressed natural gas and liquid natural gas, CNG/LNG 

have to be a bigger part of the solution in the Valley. 

We agree wholeheartedly with all those statements. 

So. Cal Gas is discussing advanced natural gas 

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technologies with the Air Pollution Control District, with 

South Coast Air Quality Management District, and with your 

staff. 

Recent mobile source analysis, like the vision 

for clean air, does not currently include available fuels 

such as natural gas that we believe is part of the clean 

energy solution. 

So. Cal Gas is also studying how natural gas 

technology with make greater contributions to reducing 

both criteria and greenhouse gas emissions. As we move 

toward the future, So. Cal Gas would like to see adoption 

of regulations that do not mandate or prohibit energy 

uses, but instead establish performance or emissions 

standards that foster competition and fuel the investment 

and innovations that result in newer and cleaner energy 

technologies. Natural gas is a clean, abundant, low cost 

form of energy in use and available today. And So. Cal 

Gas wants to positively contribute to the solutions for 

improved air quality in our state. And I thank you very 

much for the opportunity. 

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Thank you. And you just 

made your time limit. 

Christopher Breedlove and then Sarah Sharpe and 

Kevin Hamilton. 

MR. BREEDLOVE: Hello. Thank you for your 

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attention on this important measure today. My name is 

Christopher Breedlove. I'm a pastor in Fresno. I reside 

in Fresno and represent a lot of families in my 

congregation and association of congregations that I 

associate with. 

There is a concern with the measure here today 

that it needs to be stronger and needs to happen on a 

quicker timetable. 

For example, it could be stronger in the sense 

that the implementation of no burn days for agriculture 

could occur on the same days as urban fireplaces. If I 

could use an analogy, if we were a patient, if we were in 

an emergency room and even though we've had improvements 

over the years somewhat measured, we would still be in 

critical care. The doctor would not release us from 

critical care. The impact of pollution in our air, the 

poor ambient air quality, adversely impacts the health of 

family members, for example, my family -- the majority of 

my family suffers from asthma. There is a financial 

impact on that. 

While I feel like I have good insurance and I'm 

able to cover the medical treatment of my children, it's 

still costly. Even more families, more and more families 

do not have adequate health coverage and are adversely 

financially impacted by the results of poor air quality 

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that that places on the human body. 

So this measure needs to be strengthened. The 

mitigation doesn't go far enough. It needs to be on a 

quicker timetable. If we're in critical care, urgent 

measures need to occur quicker and faster. 

Sometimes there's adverse reaction towards 

regulation. Sometimes there are reactions towards 

regulations being over-reaching and concerns about jobs 

and economy and finances. 

What I think the concerted side of this argument 

fails to recognize is that good sensible regulation, 

strong regulation can actually spur innovation. And 

improving the quality of our air could help families that 

suffer financially because they're struggling to take care 

and to save their lives from the adverse impacts of 

negative air, poor ambient air quality. 

Thank you for your time. And thank you for your 

consideration.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Thank you. 

Sarah Sharpe, the Fresno Metro Ministry. 

MS. SHARPE: Good morning, Chair Nichols and 

Board members. It's nice to see you in our area. 

I'm Sarah Sharpe, the Environmental Health 

Director for Fresno Metro Ministry. We are proud founding 

members of the Central Valley Air Quality Coalition. I've 

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been a Steering Committee Chair of this coalition for the 

past few years. It was founded in 2003. Our coalition is 

a partnership -- we often call it CVAQC, just in case you 

might hear it called that. 

Our partnership was founded in 2003, and we are a 

partnership of over 70 community, medical, public health, 

environmental, and environmental justice organizations 

that represent thousands of residents in the San Joaquin 

Valley. 

We are unified in our vision for a healthy, safe, 

and economically prosperous San Joaquin Valley where a 

chronic air pollution and epidemic sickness due to poor 

air quality is eliminated. 

We're committed to improving the health of 

Californias by seeking full and vigorous enforcement of 

the Federal Clean Air Act, strengthening state law and 

district regulations relating to air quality and educating 

the public about the serious health impacts of our air 

pollution. And that is our mission statement. I just 

wanted to make sure you're familiar with us. 

There will be eight others speaking after me that 

are part of this coalition. And actually, some of the 

speakers previous were also members. 

So the plan before you today will determine 

health outcomes for more than six out of every ten Valley 

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residents. I just want to remind you that all of us 

obviously, but especially the sensitive groups, we believe 

that between 60 and 72 percent of our Valley residents fit 

into the sensitive group from our understanding of the 

definition for air pollution. Meaning, they are at risk 

of harm every day that the air quality index is at the 

orange level or higher. 

And as you know, fine particulates, or PM2.5, 

hang in our moist Valley air during the fall and winter. 

This week is especially -- it smells like dairies in 

Fresno -- in the city of Fresno, and everybody has been 

asking me why. I tried to explain to them the moisture in 

the air carries it. 

These months are known by the Valley doctors as 

the heart attack season, which is one of the many severe 

outcomes caused by particulate pollution. But there are 

many other acute impacts, including strokes and asthma 

attacks. And we are now finding out from research that 

there are long-term damage, including genetic mutations to 

our DMA. I won't go into that too far. 

As a coalition, we are primarily concerned with 

public health outcomes in our valley. We've been involved 

in rule making and plan development over the years, 

including the 2007 ozone SIP and the 2008 PM2.5 plan. 

So today, my comments will be very general and 

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the following people will speak more to the specifics. 

But we are very pleased to have been working and involved 

in the plan from the very beginning. We had facilitated 

meetings with U.S. EPA, your staff, and the Valley Air 

District staff. We were a little bit unhappy with some of 

the process because the deadlines kept getting pushed back 

and pushed back. It was hard to make comments in a timely 

manner and have time to prepare, understand what was 

happening. But in the long run -- and then there was also 

some proposed community forums that were supposed to 

happen by the Valley Air District that did not happen. 

But aside from that, we thank you for coming here 

to visit us in our most polluted region. We will be 

asking you to reject the plan today and the people after 

me will explain why. We believe it could be stronger and 

a lot of the measures could be done sooner than they are 

proposed in the plan. Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Thanks for the overview. 

Next hear from Kevin Hamilton and then Brent 

Newell. 

MR. HAMILTON: I'm lucky I get the technical 

piece today. I've never read testimony before so excuse 

me. 

Good morning, Madam Chair, members of the Board. 

I'm Kevin Hamilton with Clinica Sierra Vista and Advocates 

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for Healthy Air. We are members of CVAQC. 

My reason for testifying today is to ask the 

Board to reject the plan the district has presented for 

approval this day and return it for them to modification. 

This is based on a recent DC circuit decision to reject 

EPA's interpretation of the regulation holding PM2.5 plans 

to the pre-1990 flexible state planning requirement known 

as Subpart 1 and order compliance with the more strict 

Subpart 4 standard. This makes the proposed plan 

incomplete and noncompliant. 

The essential differences are Subpart 1 did not 

provide for different non-attainment classifications or 

tiers of control, while Subpart 4 creates two 

classifications, moderate or serious, and defined control 

tiers. 

Also, Subpart 1 allowed five years to meet the 

standard with up to a ten-year extension available for 

those who failed. Subpart 4 removes that extension and 

creates a six-year limit with an automatic bunk to serious 

non-attainment along with a much stricter compliance 

requirement for proposed controls. BACM instead of RACM, 

for instance, and serious non-attainment plans must 

include all precursors to PM2.5, NOx, SOx, ammonia, VOCs, 

unless EPA determines that sources of this particular 

precursor do not contribute significantly to PM2.5 levels 

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that exceed the standard. 

Under the old subpart, districts could assume 

ammonia and VOC were not pollutants that need to be 

included. 

The argument seems to be there is nothing more 

that can be done. So there's no need to consider earlier 

attainment. All stones have been overturned. We've heard 

this claim for many years. And yet, as Fresno County's 

environmental rep to the Community Advisory Committee of 

the Board, I can truthfully report that many meeting 

agendas in the last year were filled with rules that EPA 

had returned to the district for strengthening. In all 

cases, the district was able to accomplish the task. 

Staff made this claim in both the last ozone and 

PM2.5 plans, and yet we are here with more rules built 

into the strategy. Commentors have provided a list of new 

stones, and our friends and our partners, to lift open 

burning, flares, ag, IC controls, ammonium, solid fuel 

burning, dah, dah, dah, charboiler controls, even though 

we believe that is unfair to shift the burden to the 

public to do the district's job in creating the new ideas. 

Enough with the specious claims, "We have done 

all that is possible." EPA tightened the annual particle 

standard earlier this month and is certain to adopt 

significant new protections for ozone in the next year or 

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so. It's time to move away from planning that starts from 

the assumption that nothing more can be done. 

In closing, I would like to remark it's been my 

experience that strong successful organizations are led by 

those whose initial positions on projects required by 

statutes are that they can and will succeed. They do not 

present -- 30 seconds -- ten seconds -- fantastical 

scenarios asserting disastrous outcomes. Good planning 

requires starting with the complete picture of what is 

needed, a systematic review of strategies that might be 

possible, and the realistic impact through the lens of 

public health, and finally, a cohesive plan for 

implementation that produces success as a result. 

Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Thank you. Did you submit 

written testimony? Did you submit it in writing? 

MR. HAMILTON: I didn't submit this in writing 

but I'm happy to?

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Okay. Good. I want to 

make sure our staff have looked at the legal arguments 

there. 

Brent Newell and then Caroline Farrell. 

MR. NEWELL: Good morning, Madam Chair, members 

of the Board. 

My name is Brent Newell. I'm the Legal Director 

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on the Center on Race, Poverty, and the Environment. 

The Center is also a founding member of the 

Central Valley Air Quality Coalition. And I join my 

colleagues and ask that you do your duty to make this plan 

a lot better. 

This plan is like a house that's built on a 

foundation of sand. It's crumbling. And I say that based 

on what Mr. Hamilton just said, that this plan was 

designed to comply with Subpart 1 of Part D, Title 1 of 

the Clean Air Act, when it should comply with Subpart 4, 

which has much more stringent provisions. 

Under California law, California Health and 

Safety Code Section 41650, you have an obligation to adopt 

this plan if you make a finding it complies with the Clean 

Air Act. You also have authority the Legislature gave you 

that if the plan does not comply with the Clean Air Act, 

then you may directly make revisions to that plan. 

Now, Mr. Hamilton said that, you know, directed 

you to the recent decision from the DC Circuit Court of 

Appeals in Natural Resources Defense Council versus EPA 

number 08-1250 where the court unequivocally held that 

EPA's implementation of rule on which this plan is based 

was illegal. 

EPA should have told jurisdictions like you to 

adopt plans that meet Subpart 4 instead of Subpart 1. The 

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differences are the stringency of the rules, under Subpart 

4, the rules are supposed to make BACM, best available 

control measures. This plan meets RACM, reasonably 

available control measures -- or I should say purports to 

meet RACM. 

There's different deadlines to attain. Under 

Subpart 4, this plan should meet the PM2.5 standards in 

five years. And you must make a demonstration that -- and 

meet certain requirements to get an extension. That 

hasn't been done. 

The presumption on ammonium flips. Ammonia is 

required to be addressed -- required -- unless a 

demonstration is made that it does not contribute to PM2.5 

levels. 

So what I'm saying to you is based on this 

decision from the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, you cannot 

make the finding that you're required to make under 

Section 41652. What I'm respectfully asking you to do is 

instead exercise your authority to make revisions to the 

plan directly or send it back to the Air District to get 

it done right. 

May I have a few moments to conclude?

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Yeah. 

MR. NEWELL: Thank you. 

It's long past time that the Board take air 

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quality planning very seriously. One of the staff members 

referenced the one-hour plans that needed to be done and 

said EPA said you had to do them. The only reason EPA 

said you had to do them is because we sued them in court 

and made them tell you to redo the one-hour plans. 

Given the health effects of PM 2.5, don't you 

think that you should do it once and do it right? Thank 

you.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Thank you. 

Caroline Farrell and then Gary Lasky and Betsy 

Reifsnider. 

MS. FARRELL: Good morning, members of the Board. 

My name is Caroline Farrell. I'm the Executive 

Director of the Center on Race, Poverty, and the 

Environment. I'm also a member of CVAQC. 

I'm going to talk specifically about the flare 

rule 4311 indicating how it can be strengthened and should 

be strengthened. The rule is largely a reporting rule and 

reports have been submitted as of June 2012. It should be 

reviewed and an inventory should be updated given the 

number of fracking projects in the southern Valley that 

have emerged over the last few years. It's especially 

important because the rule is based on the assumption that 

flares are normally used to dispose of low volume 

continuous emissions, but are also designed to handle sort 

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of a large quantities of waste associated with emergencies

that might occur. 

Flare gas volumes can vary from a few cubic 

meters per hour during regular operations up to several 

thousand cubic meters per hour during major events. This 

is from the Air District's Appendix D on the plan. 

Current -- current permitting of some of the 

fracking projects, particularly in north Shafter, indicate 

some of these assumptions may not be actually playing out. 

North Shafter oil field use a flare permit to burn up to 

three million cubic feet of gas daily in July, August, 

September, and October when a buyer stopped purchasing the 

gas. Neighboring residence complained of roaring flares 

over 20 feet high. That led to local air district 

complaints and the eventual move and creation of a partial 

barrier so you would obstruct the sound and view from the 

residents. 

In addition, the flare rule that the district has 

adopted is not as stringent as other districts. In Santa 

Barbara, Rule 359 has a substantive component. So there 

is a target in the air district rule to minimize a flare 

minimization. But there is no target. It's a feasibility 

standard. So mitigate as feasible. In assignment a 

Barbara, they have an actual target volume should not 

exceed five percent of averaged monthly gas handled, 

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produced, treated at source. 

So it seems like the rule could be strengthened 

to add a substantive reduction target. And that could 

accelerate attainment. That's particularly important in 

the South Valley where fracking is increasing as well as 

where we're going to come into attainment last in 2019. 

So I would indicate that that be an area of inquiry and 

strength limiting. Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Thank you. 

Gary Lasky. 

MR. LASKY: Good morning, members of the Board. 

My name is Gary Lasky. I'm live in Fresno. I'm the Vice 

Chair of the Sierra Club Tehipite Chapter. You've heard 

today from the Kern-Kiweah chapter, our cousins to the 

south. We're a four-county region from Fresno to Merced 

with 1900 members. And statewide, the Sierra Club has 

over a quarter million members. 

We're here today -- I'm here today as a member of 

CVAQC as well to talk about the open burning Rule 4103, 

also known as agricultural burning. When I moved to this 

valley four years ago, I learned about the agricultural 

burning. Vineyards, for instance, grape vines which 

causes enormous hardship for people with asthma during the 

winter months. As the burning takes place early in the 

morning, the haze is low to the ground. And people with 

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asthma, like my partner, have a tremendous problem with 

that. 

I was really delighted to hear about legislation 

that would end this practice. Only, there are many 

exemptions still being given. And my testimony today is 

to identify where this could be tightened up, the rule 

could be reviewed and tightened. 

The exemptions and continued postponements of the 

open burning prohibitions are for citrus orchard removal, 

grape vineyard removal and operations of less than 20 

acres. And these exemptions should be removed. For 

citrus orchard removal, there is no longer the excuse that 

biomass plants will turn away this material because 

biomass plants will accept it. And hundreds of trucks 

each day deliver biomass fuel to the valley from 150 miles 

or more. 

Second, vineyard material currently is -- we're 

told that it's not economically feasible to send it to the 

biomass plants. But what they do is remove all stakes and 

wires before burning because it's profitable to recycle 

these stakes and wires. And clean grapevines are being 

burned today because the air district continues to justify 

this practice based on false economic assumptions. 

Open burnings of pruning from almond from fields 

of 20 acres or less continues under the provably false 

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justification that the set-up charge by custom shredding 

operators is prohibited for small acreage. This is no 

longer true. Shredding businesses have proliferated and 

there is little difference in the cost per acre, whether 

they do five acres or 1,000 acres when they shred. 

It's time to revisit this rule and enforce 

100 percent of the prohibitions demanded by the California 

Health and Safety Code. 

Finally, the smoke management system used to 

justify open burning needs to be better defined. There 

should be a strengthening of open burning rules along with 

any fireplace rule changes. This would be especially 

important for those seasons when open agriculture burning 

takes place and the fireplace rule is not applicable. 

Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Thank you. 

Ms. Reifsnider. And then Elizabeth Johasson and 

Valerie Gorospe. 

MS. REIFSNIDER: Good morning. My name is Betsy 

Reifsnider. I'm the Environment Justice Director for 

Catholic Charities and the Stockton Deices. And we 

include the counties of San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Toulumne, 

Calavaras, Alpine, and Mono. We also are a CVAQC member. 

And I would just like to add to the comments that 

Mr. Nipp made earlier on the need to strengthen the 

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indirect source rule as part of the PM2.5 plan. 

The district is rightfully proud in this 

ground-breaking and one-of-a-kind regulation. The ISR is 

good, but it needs to be stronger. 

As far back as December 2005 at a hearing of the 

San Joaquin Air District Governing Board, Parish leaders 

from the Stockton Deices spoke in favor of adopting the 

ISR. And in our written testimony, Catholic Charities 

said, "Although the proposed indirect source rule will 

only reduce NOx emissions by 20 percent, the draft 

establishes a valuable framework that could be enhanced 

over time." So even eight years ago, we felt that the ISR 

needed strengthening. And that time has come. 

The San Joaquin Air District should strengthen 

the ISR to improve the connection between ISR fees that 

the district collects and the actual emission reductions 

achieved by a developer. At present, the fee structure 

does not offset emissions on a one-to-one basis and we 

think they should. 

The district could make sure that mitigation 

measures actually take place. Development agreements, 

CEQA documentation, and other agreements should be in 

place before the air district actually approves the ISR 

with a developer for a proposed project. And the district 

could provide advanced consider options for projects that 

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go beyond minimum requirements. 

And I'd just like to end by saying that one of 

our parishes, St. Joachim in Lockford was subject to the 

ISR when it built a new parish hall. And despite fears of 

the pastor, it worked very well. And I commend the San 

Joaquin district staff for helping the parishioners 

through this process. 

I believe it strengthened the ISR, can be an 

effective tool in reducing PM2 pollution again if it's 

strengthened. I thank you all.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Thank you. 

Elizabeth Jonasson. 

MS. JONASSON: Good morning. My name is 

Elizabeth Jonasson. I'm the Valley representative for 

Coalition for Clean Air. We're a statewide nonprofit 

advocacy organization. 

I share a lot of the concerns mentioned 

previously. I'd like to focus my comments on anther area 

of opportunity that is being missed. I have brought this 

up in forums and workshops and would really like to stress 

the need for fleet rules. We have often heard that 

pollution from mobile sources represents a big challenge 

for the Valley to expeditiously meet attainment. It is 

with much surprise there has been no effort to exercise 

the authority the district has over these source. 

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Assuming a five-year extension to meeting the 

standard is completely unwarranted, as there are multiple 

reductions that have been left off the table, including a 

suite of fleet rules. 

So what do I mean by this? The Air District has 

the authority under the California Health and Safety Code 

Section 40919(a)(4) each district with serious air 

pollution shall include the following measures in its 

attainment plan: Measures to achieve the use of 

significant number of low emission motor vehicles by 

operators and motor vehicle fleets. I'm sure you're 

aware. South Coast has successfully defended this 

authority in court and is a perfectly viable legally 

defensible way of achieving mobile source emission 

reductions. 

This authority applies to government owned, 

licensed, or subcontracted vehicles. It is not exclusive 

to refuse garbage trucks as has been mentioned before. 

South Coast has approved rules for street sweepers light, 

medium, and heavy-duty public vehicles, transit buses, 

airport ground access vehicles, and school buses, as well 

as refuse trucks. There are some examples, but others can 

be explored as well. 

Another related area of missed opportunity in 

this plan is around alternative fueling infrastructure. 

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Both the vision for clean air and the South Coast SIP have 

changed to include natural gas and renewable natural gas 

as a fuel that will be part of the future. So the San 

Joaquin Valley plan should do the same. 

For various reasons, including the rising cost of 

other fuel compared to alternative sources, businesses and 

agencies are turning over their fleets. Not having the 

alternative fueling infrastructure in the Valley hinders 

the ability of these fleets to turn over to technology 

that are much cleaner. 

I know this is of concern to members of the 

California Trucking Association, amongst others. 

In sum, I respectfully ask this Board to send the 

plan back or change it so it does not assume a five-year 

deadline extension and can include some of the proposed 

changes now including the addition of fleet rules and add 

alternative infrastructure language in the plan. Thank 

you.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Thanks. 

Valerie Gorospe and Seyed Sadredin and Hope 

Valdez. 

MS. GOROSPE: Good morning. My name is Valerie 

Gorospe. I work for the Center on Race, Poverty, and the 

Environment. 

CRPE is a member of the Central Valley Air 

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Quality Coalition. We represent many people and families 

here in the San Joaquin Valley. 

First and foremost, other than my advocacy for 

environmental justice communities, I advocate for my 

daughter who was diagnosed with valley fever a year and a 

half ago and has had to take her medication daily for over 

a year. 

My daughter is now in the category of sensitive 

group. Her valley fever specialist told us we needed to 

pay attention and watch the particulate matter pollution, 

especially while under her treatment. 

I've subscribed to the air district's RAN system, 

the notification system, and I have also got the air 

quality ap on my phone. The notifications that I receive 

via e-mail when I check this ap give me information from 

the local air monitors, which by the way, at 10:30 I got a 

notification if you're in a sensitive group, it's at a 

level three now for Bakersfield. 

So I must ask is our air district's air pollution 

monitoring system really an effective warning system? The 

monitors in the San Joaquin Valley are placed at fixed 

sites. Pollution drifts with the air currents and 

concentrates change depending on sources that day and how 

far the monitor is from them. Not all monitors measure 

everything. Less than half the monitoring system measures 

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PM2.5, which we know is the most deadly form of pollution. 

The one-hour family checks for every morning before my 

daughter goes to school, the type of pollution we plan for 

or plan our activities around. 

This early warning system is basing its 

information on a spot that is ten, sometimes hundreds of 

miles away. For example, we live in Delano. Should I be 

looking at Bakersfield, Shafter or Visalia's air monitor? 

Many monitors in the network are based on old technology 

that require high maintenance. And I have seen that often 

it's been broken or off line. 

We are staking our lives -- I would also like to 

address my work that I've done with the Bucket Brigade 

with Global Community Monitoring in Arvin with air 

sampling. And my thing is going off, but I have just have 

two small paragraphs, if I can do that. 

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Okay. 

MR. GOROSPE: I've been a part of the air 

sampling for the Arvin Bucket Brigade. We collected 

samples, while inhaling odors of rot eggs, sewage, 

ammonia, rotting fruits, rotting trash, and rotting fish. 

These are odors during the sampling. 

There were 15 VOC and sulfur air quality samples. 

The air samples detected up to six different chemicals, 

including hydrogen sulfide. 

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Three more sentences. 

Four of these were above at least one 

health-based standard. So we're staking our lives and 

health -- my daughter's health, my daughter's lungs, the 

lives and the health of our children on this information. 

The plan before you today is not an effective plan to 

clean our air. I'm opposed to the plan before you, and 

I'm asking for you to reject it. Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Okay. Thanks. 

BOARD MEMBER D'ADAMO: Madam Chair, I'm right 

here. 

DeeDee.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Sorry. 

BOARD MEMBER D'ADAMO: I just have a suggestion 

to make. I think many of us are jotting down some of the 

concerns that have been raised. And I'm thinking maybe if 

the Air District could be speak at the end and be given a 

fair amount of time to kind of go through one by one, 

because I see there are quite a few others that are 

opposed to the plan. 

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Would that work for you? 

MR. SADREDIN: Would I get more than three 

minutes? 

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Yeah. We're going to give 

you more than three minutes. You're not a public witness. 

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You're a co-regulator, as they say. That's great. 

Let's hear from Hope Valdez and then Teresa 

Vidales and Mana Carrillo. 

MS. VALDEZ: Good morning, Chairmember and other 

members. 

My English is not so good, so I apologize. So I 

will speak to you in Spanglish. 

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: You may speak to us in 

Spanish. I don't see where the translator is, though. 

Would you mind? Do you mind if our Board member 

who speaks Spanish, Mr. De La Torre, translates for you? 

All right. That's acceptable. 

MS. VALDEZ: Good morning. My name is Hope 

Valdez. I represent LUCA, CVAQC, La Firm. I'm here today 

because I'm against how the plan is being carried out. 

First of all, I have to thank you for allowing me 

to be here today and allowing me to support my people. 

I'm currently working with Summer Night Lights 

for a Better Health. We have assumed a group of 150 

people and we're exercising outdoors. And many of them 

are complaining that they are not able to breathe 

properly. I'm also representing LUCA, United Latin 

Americans against Pollution. I would like you to please 

and in favor of all the Latin Americans I'm representing 

here today that you do a better job and make a bigger 

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effort for the health -- in favor of the health of those 

who I represent. 

The pain I feel is when I go out to offer my time 

to kids and I see that they are not able to breathe, that 

is not fair. It's not fair that some people are not doing 

their part as they should. Thank you very much. Have a 

great day.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Okay. Thank you. 

Do you want to stay down here just in case? We 

have a number of people coming up who may wish translation 

services. Okay. 

Next would be Teresa Vidales. Or there she is. 

Great. 

MS. CARRILLO: Hello. Good day. Good day to 

everyone. My name is Mana Elena Carrillo. I represent a 

group, LUCAS. I've come from Fresno, California. The 

purpose I'm here today is I have a son. He has asthma, 

and to ask you to please do something to clean up the air 

as soon as possible so that my son can go out to play. 

And for my health also, due to the situation I am now, I 

would like to ask you to try to better the air and the 

environment for our own health. 

That's all. Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Thank you very much. 

The next would be I believe it's Gemo Perez. 

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MS. PEREZ: Good morning, everyone. My name is 

Gemo Perez. I represent Greenfield Walking Group. We're 

also members of CVAQC in Greenfield, Bakersfield. 

I have a daughter that now is 19-year-old. When 

she was two months old, she was diagnosed with asthma in 

Riverside County, where we used to reside before. 

The pediatrician gave her treatment. And after 

my daughter turned five years of age, she never had a 

problem again with her lungs. And we even thought she was 

completely healed up. 

Ten years ago, we decided to move to Bakersfield, 

and that was when her asthma returned more aggressively. 

Since my daughter has had to be taken to the emergency 

room at the hospital, now besides the asthma, I also fear 

since my daughter's insurance has ended a year ago, last 

time we took her to the hospital to the emergency room, 

the cost for the services provided was around $1700. 

That's why every time my daughter has an asthma attack, 

I'm very frightened seeing her so sick. And just the fact 

thinking at the same time that having to call the 

ambulance, the cost of the hospital, and not being able to 

pay those bills, that is why I believe that this district 

plan is not enough to clean our air, nor enough to do it 

fast. 

Thank you very much.

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CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Thank you very much. 

And thank you to our translator. You're doing a 

terrific job. Really appreciate it. 

Jose Chavez. 

MR. CHAVEZ: Good morning. My name is Jose 

Chavez. I live in Arvin City. I'm a member of the 

Committee for a Better Arvin and one of the groups that is 

part of CVAQC. 

I would like to speak about three different 

topics. The plan is not enough to clean our air, nor 

enough to do it fast. 

Number two, I'm concerned about the pollution, 

the air pollution, because my family and relatives, the 

consequences of this could be harsh. The illnesses that 

I'm currently suffering in my lungs specifically, my 

throat, I'm always sick. My cousin, a ten-year-old boy -- 

my nephew suffers from asthma. Therefore, he must always 

be taking medication. 

I and my family used to live in Los Angeles. And 

it's a big difference in regards to pollution in Arvin, 

being a smaller city compared to Los Angeles. We've been 

gathering Bucket Brigade air samples in the community. 

And we've collected 13 samples already, from which five of 

those -- five of those samples contained risk of illness 

of the cardiovascular type and the respiratory system. In 

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those five days, people are exposed to ending up at the 

hospital for an indefinite time. 

To conclude, I would respectfully request since 

we are the ones living in the community, we suffer and we 

suffer also the consequences. And we also need that you 

try to improve and have cleaner air. Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Thank you very much, Mr. 

Chavez. 

Maria Gonzalvez. If you want to come down ahead 

of time, that would be head. 

Next in line is Gustavo Aguirre and Mario 

Talavera. 

MS. GONZALVEZ: Good morning. My name is Mario 

Talavera. I live in Arvin City. 

Four years ago, I got the valley fever. And 

since then, I've been taking medication to the point that 

it has effected my liver. 

Three doctors gave me the same opinion, which was 

each illness was due to the medication. Besides that, I 

got diabetes. So every day I go out for a walk and I walk 

about quarter of a mile, and then I have to stop. The 

thing is that the air to me feels very heavy. Therefore, 

I have to turn back home due to the fact I'm not able to 

breathe anymore. 

So I respectfully request that when a decision is 

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done or is made on regards to the quality of the air, that 

you also keep in mind all of us who suffer from this 

illness. Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Thank you. 

Mr. Aguirre. 

MR. AGUIRRE: Good morning. My first comment 

would be -- and I appreciate your efforts of helping us, 

the Spanish-speaking language. But for us, the residents, 

our opportunity when you come here to our valley and our 

community is to share with you what we are -- what are the 

realities in our life. And I see that -- I don't think 

the translator -- but for us, I think it's very important 

to hear directly from people giving their testimony. 

That's not happen today. This is only the translator 

basically. I don't know if you are listening to the 

witness. Maybe next time just having an extra mike so we 

can deliver what we want to share with you. 

In terms of what you are considering today, I 

only saw -- and I'm not an expert on these areas, but I 

tried to speak as a resident mainly. I don't see a lot of 

options consider in the plan. How about the industry? I 

don't think we have -- like everything consider. Like, we 

have a community recycling center, and the Board of 

Supervisors made a decision to close down that operation 

because it was regulation and many rules. And that is 

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still in operation. So you need to do something else with 

industry. 

It's good, the burning -- the wood burning and 

all of that. But how the industry? We get polluters. My 

nine-year-old daughter, she have asthma. And one time I 

was driving and she started having an asthma attack and 

she said, "Dad, I cannot breathe." What do I do? Do I 

get a speed ticket to get to the medicine or the hospital? 

Or what do you do? 

And I was community organizer. I was visiting a 

family. And I saw three pieces of asthma medicine each 

one with a medicine, Deanna, Juan, Amberta. I asked the 

family, "How many kids do you have?" They said three. 

I don't know if you came yesterday by plane, but 

if you came, I think you had opportunity to see how bad 

the air we have here in our valley. And I think it was 

mentioned already that we, the residence of the valley, 

are pay for not complying with some of the plans. 

So I suggest that -- I cannot trust what is being 

done valley-wide to improve air, because we are paying for 

it. 

And I want -- expect -- my concern is, yes, we 

are going to have big growth here in the valley, but how 

can we assure that this Valley is a healthy valley, which 

for the people that are living here we will be able to 

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have a healthy quality of life, as well as those coming to 

our area. 

So I think you need to consider all the 

cumulative impact, not only one. What are the other 

contaminants that we are facing here? So I ask you to 

reject the proposed plan and consider it. And I know I'm 

not an expert, but I know there are opportunities to 

reduce the pollution because we are here and we see the 

polluters. Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Thank you very much. 

Mr. Talavera. 

MR. TALAVERA: Good morning, Board of Directors. 

My name is Mario Talavera. I'm the President of LUCA. I 

live in the Fresno area. 

I opposed to this plan of attainment, and this 

Board should vote to reject it. The plan is going at a 

pace as the one of a turtle. It does not go as far in 

regards to cleanness of our air. It is also not going as 

fast in regards to the demographic growth to the sources 

of pollution that are stationary and the mobile ones. 

Once again, the people that live in the San 

Joaquin Valley are not being attended. The plan does not 

have protection, support. It does not leave a margin for 

error. The modeling of the air quality used in this plan 

does not offer any alternatives or means to obtain a 

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cleaner air faster. 

We, therefore, need actions with immediate 

results for the short term support and/or accommodations 

of other members of this coalition of air quality in the 

Central Valley. 

I have four children. All of them have asthma, 

including myself. My home seems like a pharmacy from all 

the fact we have so much medicine. And it seems like a 

hospital, too. When it's not one who gets the asthma 

attack, it's a different one. So we have to give them a 

treatment. My 21-year-old son, when he was two years old, 

had a stroke. He's nine years old. He's been in that 

state for nine years. Who's not to say that because of 

this PM2.5 that comes in through the veins, the ones that 

are involved in such a thing know about it. Maybe that 

could be the cause. 

My children tell me that at school they can't 

participate in recreational activities or in physical 

education class due to their asthma. They get agitated. 

And I'm saddened by it because I like sports a lot and I 

would like them to participate in sports. But the asthma 

prohibits them from doing so. 

For this reason -- and not only for my family but 

all the residents in this valley, I ask you that you take 

action immediately because our San Joaquin Valley is 

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growing old, is getting sick. And if we do not do 

something about it, it's going to die. Not the valley, 

but did residents. 

Thank you very much. 

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Next we have Eloisa 

Fernandez.

MS. FERNANDEZ: Good morning to everyone in the 

EPA. My name is Eloisa Fernandez. I live in Shafter, 

community of Shafter. I would like to request 

respectfully that you please make a good decision for the 

air that is very polluted. 

I have grandchildren who are sick with asthma. 

My health is also not that well. I also suffer from 

asthma. The doctor tells us that it's because of the 

pollution in the air. I would like to ask you, you that 

have the power and have a voice, to make the proper 

decisions to see if the quality of the air can change. I 

expect from you to take a good decision. 

I used to live in San Jose, California. I've 

moved down here due to the fact of the accessibility of 

the house -- of the homes. They are cheaper here. But 

the health of my family and I has gotten worse due to the 

pollution in the air. The areas here are not that well. 

They're really bad. 

Thank you very much and I wish you all a great 

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day. 

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Okay. Mr. Fernandez. 

Gustavo Fernandez. 

MR. FERNANDEZ: Good morning, all, members of the 

Committee. 

Just a simple request. I've come from the 

Shafter community. I see that everyone, the public and I, 

are focused on the same thing, which is cleaning up the 

pollution in the air. 

I know that cleaning this is not -- cannot do 

this from one day to another. With all the members from 

the Board here, from the cabinet from Governor Brown and 

request to them that each of them do their job due to the 

needs of the entire Kern County. In order that in the 

future we have a cleaner air for all our grandchildren, 

the next generation, and for everyone. Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Thank you for coming. 

Rodrigo Romo. 

MR. ROMO: Good morning. I speak English, but 

I'd rather do it in Spanish. My name is Rodrigo Romo, 

member of the Community for a Better Shafter. 

The reason why I'm here is very clear. Just like 

all the people here gathered today, I believe that we 

share the same purposes, the improvement of our 

environment, and I address you that have the authority and 

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the power in hand. 

I would like to ask you, how many of you have a 

loved one or a child with asthma? Personally, I have two 

who suffer from asthma. And I'm surprised to know that 

each day the pollution increases in this valley. I 

believe that everyone who has gathered here today is 

fighting for the same cause, but we cannot do it alone. 

We need your support and your help. We would like our 

children to grow healthy and to not depend from an 

apparatus to be able to breathe when they exercise or 

practice a sport. 

On my behalf, I still cannot thank you because I 

do not know if you take into consideration what I say. 

Because there is a difference between listening and paying 

attention to the problem. Maybe a few days go by and you 

forget. But I would like that when it comes time to make 

a decision, you think back of -- you think in all the 

communities that are gathered here today asking for your 

help to save our valley. 

Thank you for listening to me. Enjoy your stay 

in the city. And before you go back to your homes that 

you take a deep breath, take a deep breath of this 

polluted air, and that you take with yourselves a little 

bit of what our children breathe every day. 

Thank you very much.

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CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Mr. Valencia. 

MR. VALENCIA: Good morning, everyone. Thank you 

for giving me the opportunity to come here today and share 

how we feel and to share our feeling that is caused by 

this polluted air that we have here in this Valley. 

My name is Refugio Valencia. I've lived in 

Bakersfield for the last four years. I work for the 

organization Center for Race, Poverty, and the 

Environment. I work as a community organizer. And I 

represent the Tulare community, Wasco, Shafter, Arvin, and 

Greenfield here in Kern. What I've heard from all of them 

are comments regarding asthma, the allergies that are 

caused from the bad air. 

And myself, just like them, after living in this 

valley for two years, I have serious allergy problems. 

And what aggravates my condition further is that my doctor 

is not going to cure me. The only thing he does is to 

suggest medication to minimize my illness. 

Besides that, my wife also suffers from severe 

allergy problems. One of my sister also suffers from 

asthma. And I feel desperate when I see them having their 

attacks, especially because she's my youngest sister. 

But coming back to the PM2.5 topic, it's very sad 

that each time that we have the opportunity to come and we 

listen to thousands of people with the same testimonies 

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and as other partners of mine came to speak, I'm also 

going to ask you if besides that plan that you may adopt 

to improve the air quality that you also improve the many 

other types of pollutants that exist in the air and that 

they might be minimized. Because it's not just about the 

residues from diesel and other particles that dairies are 

producing and the wood burning, because we've known that 

there's a law which prohibits wood burning. 

And more of -- even there are more than three of 

us who are here, we've seen, have right next to the 99 

freeway. A lot of almond have been taken down and have 

been burned. All around the city you notice when the 

chimneys are on. And do we know why these people are 

doing this? Or is it that they do not know that this law 

exists? 

So these little things that and some of the 

report that we have, that's how we know that this plan 

will not reduce the pollution. Therefore, I request that 

you reject this plan and you revise and you check who 

drafted this plan so that you can present to them a plan 

that does guarantee that the air quality will improve, 

despite that the ones that we are already ill from the 

quality of the air will not get our health back. 

Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Thank you. 

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Byanka Santoyo. 

MS. SANTOYO: Good morning, members of the Board. 

I'm here to get all your full attention. 

My name is Byanka Santoyo. I'm a resident from 

Arvin. I'm also a member of the Central Valley Air 

Quality Coalition. I'm here to oppose this plan and the 

Board should vote to reject it. 

Residents of the San Joaquin Valley air are being 

neglected of clean air. The Kern County and the Arvin 

residents are being bombarded by chemical exposure on a 

daily basis. Many of the violations of organic compounds, 

diesel, ozone, and particulate matter is creating our 

unhealthy air pollution for our vulnerable population like 

children, pregnant women, seniors, and those with already 

compromised immune systems. 

I've been active with the Kern County and the 

Arvin Bucket Brigade collecting air samples in our 

community. The average levels of our sample particulate 

matter have exceeded the World Health Organization 

standards. Two of these samples have exceeded the EPA and 

the world health organization in the 24-hour standard 

period. 

Monitoring the ozone during the summer, I 

discover many days the Arvin monitor was shut down on 

those days that would have red high levels. As you 

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recently heard, our Arvin monitor was relocated to the 

Sunset school, and it's about a mile away from Arvin. But 

we still are having the un-red monitor days. 

Coordinating with the community global monitoring 

and the CRPE and the CBA, we have an ozone monitor 

installed within the city limits to compare the ozone 

readings from the San Joaquin Valley air, and we're seeing 

a great difference between both of them. Their readings 

are way off. And we do have record of those. 

Many years in Arvin have been ranked by the 

American Lung Association as a top city of the nation with 

highest concentration of a short-term fine particulate 

matter pollution. Living in a high contaminated city has 

affected my family and their health. My brother suffers 

from chronic allergies and asthma and has days where he 

cannot go outside and play his sports. 

Being a resident, I ask of you to reject this 

plan. Vote no. Direct your staff to come back with the 

stronger rules and shorter timetables for putting these 

rules in action. 

And I also have a letter of one of the members 

that couldn't make it, but he is all for it. Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Please give it to the 

clerk. Thank you. The lady over here. 

Okay. Manual Cunha from the Nisei Farmers League 

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and then Dennis Fox and Mike Wells. 

MR. CUNHA: Good morning, Chairman Mary Nichols. 

Again, I want to thank the Board, Chairman 

Nichols, and Board members, staff, San Joaquin Valley 

staff, and the research staff of ARB. You've done a great 

job in working with the Policy Committee and others on 

doing the right research. So we thank you for that and 

all the hard work. 

I'm a little bit disappointed in that agriculture 

was brought up several about with agricultural burning. 

And the information that was given by the individual was 

not correct in the amount of exemptions, et cetera, et 

cetera. 

In the San Joaquin Valley has the only burn rule 

of the state that was done by Mr. Dean Florez. And we are 

less than nine percent. The greatest amount of emissions 

from smoke is from prescribed burns and forest fires. 

Okay. And fires that occur at night from buildings, et 

cetera, et cetera, and structures. Just like last night 

we had a massive fire in Fresno on a wood structure. 

I'm a little bit disappointed that agriculture 

seems to be the one to go out, and especially when people 

stay our facts were false when the economic study was 

done, it was done with USDA, CDFA, your staff, the San 

Joaquin Valley staff and even tied with U.C. Davis on the 

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impact of cost of dealing with grape stakes, or grape 

vines. Excuse me. And removal of the steal, et cetera. 

So I am a little disappointed that people don't have their 

facts together. And the agriculture industry has been a 

part of technology to deal with what we call a burn box. 

That was future technology of dealing with small amounts 

of agricultural burn in a self-burning situation, and that 

technology is going forward. 

But to say that a thousand acre grower is the 

same as a five acre grower with a chipper, absolutely 

false. Absolutely a lie. And I'm not going to go any 

further in that. 

But I'm irritated because we've done a lot in 

agriculture. I replaced over 4,000 diesel pumps with 

electrification through a program called Ag Ice, a 

tremendous program. The agriculture industry right now 

has replaced 2,000 tractors way ahead of a tractor rule, 

reduced ten tons of NOx ahead of your SIP requirement that 

was submitted in '07 for an '08 that was to be ten tons 

done by 2017. 

As of December 12th of 2012, we've reduced ten 

tons. Way in advance. Agriculture is out there doing its 

part to clean up the air. But also provide an economic 

means to have food grown in this valley and in this state. 

If people don't want that, that's fine. We can 

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certainly move our agriculture to China and other 

counties, and you can get that food here. No problem. 

But the ag industry has tried very, very hard 

from the dairy side, the tree production side to work with 

your staff, with EPA to do the most modern technology 

available. 

The last thing I will say, we will be working 

with James Goldstene, Eric White on your truck rule. 

Because I think when we sit down and sit with your staff 

on the truck rule, you're going to find that your truck 

rule had several problems with the manufacturers of 

filters. And we will be working with your staff to make 

sure that that issue is resolved and your staff has made a 

commitment to work with us. But I think we've found out 

that technology that people rushed on trucks was a 

failure. 

But Madam Chair, we support this very much from 

the ag side. And we are continually working to clean up 

the air as agriculture. We all believe it's important. 

And your staff have been great to work with us and so have 

you. And thank you.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Thank you for being here 

and for your work over a very long time on these issues. 

Okay. Dennis Fox and then Mike Wells, and that 

is the end of my list. 

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MR. FOX: Hi. You might remember me from CALFED. 

I'm Dennis Fox, Chairman members. And I'd like to bring 

up three vectors that have not been mentioned. 

First one is rail. Our COG has noticed it's 

very, very short-sighted to be scrapping the rail. And 

it's more efficient, more cost effective, and we can move 

our commodities to foreign countries and help our balance 

of payments with rail than we would with trucks. And it 

also would be most beneficial to our air. 

Second one, smoke. And I bring this up to you is 

because I'm with the -- before I get into -- I'm with the 

Asthma Coalition -- I do qualify -- of Kern County. The 

smoke is from the National Park. Mr. Sadredin says they 

are the biggest violator of air quality in our area. This 

year, you notice they did Lassen with smoke. They started 

off with Yellowstone, smoked up five states, and 

suppression was taken from them and given to the Forest 

Service to put the thing out. They did, like, to burn up 

national lands. The NPS, National Park Service, does 

vistas, not cause/effect relationships. Oh, fire natural, 

the more the fire, the more the natural. That does not 

work in the summer. Fires are not natural in the summer 

when they are having their burns. They do not. 

It's a two-for. One, the taxpayers are paying 

their fines. Second, is we get that twelve dollars 

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assessment on our vehicle registration. So what we need 

is an injunction by you on the federal government. Not 

easy. But it would put the responsibility back to the 

managers. Perhaps when they break the injunction and get 

confined for a couple weeks with Bubba, very lonely Bubba, 

maybe they will get the message. 

The third, the BLM. They're getting to be a 

park. They lost a motorcycle park up by Coalinga. 

They're driving through asbestos, not too healthy. So 

they're going to move it down to Taft where they mine 

kitty litter. No more asbestos. Now you get cellucosis 

(phonetic) But that area is also ripe with 2.5 fungus 

Valley Fever. So people will come down and get Valley 

Fever here, go back to elsewhere in California where it's 

not, and the doctors are going to have fun trying to 

figure out what it is. 

Thank you. 

BOARD MEMBER LOVERIDGE: Madam Chair, we've had a 

number of comments about asthma. I was wondering if 

Dennis Fox is speaking officially for the Kern Asthma 

Coalition. Is this an official -- 

MR. FOX: It's about as official as you get. 

We've taken it up. Some of them are irate and some of the 

people are prohibited from their work from speaking to 

you. 

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BOARD MEMBER LOVERIDGE: So there is no official 

position of the Asthma Coalition? 

MR. FOX: Yeah. It's more or less official. 

We're going up to RAMP with our comments and then let the 

RAMP, which is the regional will carry on with you.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Okay. 

MR. FOX: Does that answer it?

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Yes. 

MR. FOX: Any other questions?

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: No. Thank you. 

MR. FOX: Thanks.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Okay. Mr. Wells. 

MR. WELLS: Good morning. My name is Mike Wells. 

I work at Fresno Metro Ministry, which is a multi-faith 

community benefit organization in Fresno, California. On 

behalf of the diverse and robust faith community in 

Fresno, we advocate alongside and on behalf of the 

vulnerable population, which is -- depending on how you 

measure that, it could be more than half even of the 

population in Fresno and a lot of the valley. And we're 

also a member of the Central Valley Air Quality Coalition. 

And we are here to encourage you to adopt a PM2.5 SIP that 

is even stronger than the one that's been put forward 

today. And I want to speak briefly specifically about the 

char-broil rule, which is part of this SIP. 

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The draft plan currently recommends amending Rule 

4692 to include controls on the under fire char-broilers 

in the year 2016 and implement a new rule in 2017. And we 

would encourage you to adopt a rule and a plan that 

doesn't wait that long. In the Bay Area Air District, 

they already have a rule that is already in place using 

cost-effective technology that helps to control the 

emissions from the char-broilers. 

I remember a couple years ago Dr. Foreman who 

sits with Dr. Sheriff on our Local Air Board mentioned 

that of all the different kinds of PM2.5, the ones that 

come out of these char-broilers are particularly harmful 

for our health. And so it's one that we would just urge 

you to adopt a rule that would require us to act more 

quickly and not wait four years, but to implement the same 

kind of rule that the Bay Area has immediately. And then 

if four or five years from now there's something even 

better, to go ahead and implement that, too. 

And we're very well aware that doing this might 

increase the price that we paid for our delicious 

char-broiled food, but that's something that we're willing 

to accept, especially because of the cost savings in 

health care, both out of our personal pockets and the 

public costs that are incurred because of, as Dr. Foreman 

mentioned, the particularly harmful emissions from the 

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char-broilers. Thank you very much.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Okay. Thank you for coming 

and spending the time with us. Obviously, this is an 

issue of great importance. And we appreciate the time and 

effort that so many people have made to come and share 

your thoughts with us. 

That concludes the public witnesses, but we 

wanted to hear now from the Air District whose plan it is 

that we're actually considering here today. 

So Seyed, you've heard a lot of different 

concerns. We may raise some if you forget to answer any 

of them. But please, go ahead and share your views. 

MR. SADREDIN: Thank you, Madam Chair, members of 

the Board. I'd like to join everyone here and welcome you 

to the Valley. It's an honor and pleasure to have you 

here. 

First of all, I want to thank your staff for 

really working with the district, both in their work as a 

partner in putting this plan together to the extent the 

mobile source emission make up the bulk of the emissions, 

and we have to rely on many of the strong control measures 

that your Board has adopted. 

And also I think I want to thank them for being a 

strong in their role as oversight. I say I think I want 

to thank them because they were tough on us. They held 

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our feet to the fire to make sure this plan that is before 

you is the strongest plan possible and will ensure 

attaining the standard as expeditiously as possible. They 

did that in a polite fashion, although they broke our arms 

here and there a couple times. Thank you very much for 

your work. 

You do have world class staff when it comes to 

modeling. There is no other agency, no other staffing 

complement in the nation that has greater expertise when 

it comes to the scientific research and the modeling 

expertise that are involved and put in a plan like this 

together in an area that has a lot of difficult 

challenges. 

I wanted to briefly mention what our Board did 

with respect to the fireplace rule. Your staff did 

mention that the Board did decide to have that rule go 

into effect three years sooner than what this plan calls 

for. And that was done under a local initiative that we 

have started in San Joaquin Valley which relies on a 

risk-based or health-based approach to dealing with air 

quality. 

The plan that is before you essentially relies on 

a mass-based strategy where you reduce emissions to reduce 

the standard at the end of the day. 

With the fireplace rule, there is no way the 

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valley can come into attainment without the fireplace 

rule. But adopting the fireplace rule early will not 

expedite attainment because before it really has any 

impact on the attainment, we need all the major NOx 

reductions from your rules on mobile sources as well as 

the stationary sources to bring us to a point where the 

last mile essentially will be delivered by the fireplace 

rule. 

But our Board consistent, with our risk-based 

strategy, decided to do that sooner because purely from a 

health perspective for prioritizing health benefits, the 

Board realizes the significant health impact that comes 

from wood smoke, the carbon emissions, the toxic emissions 

right in your neighborhood at the worst time of the year. 

So although they will not expedite attainment any time 

sooner, the Board decided to do that rule three years 

earlier than what is called for in the plan. 

And finally, I wanted to share with you some 

frustration that was expressed by our Board when they 

adopted this plan with regard to the Clean Air Act. We 

fully support the Clean Air Act, and we think it has led 

to significant improvement nationwide and in San Joaquin 

Valley in terms of air quality and quality of life for 

Valley residents. 

But for those of us like South Coast and San 

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Joaquin that have mature programs, we believe some of the 

well-intentioned provisions in the ag, which in some cases 

were put in place in vacuum without having the real 

experiences of it, are leading to some unintended 

consequences that lead to some confusion by the 

businesses. A lot of redundancy. And we have the 

legislative work ahead of us to see what we can do to do 

some fine-tuning here and there. 

But given the current disfunction in Washington, 

that is going to be a long-term effort. We're hoping to 

work with your staff. I've been talking to Lynn Terry and 

others on your staff to see what we can do to harmonize 

some of the multiple standards. We're going to have eight 

SIPs shortly with different time lines, although for 

different pollutants, both for PM and ozone and different 

averaging times. They really go after the same sources, 

same pollutants. And we need to find a way to harmonize 

the process. And your staff has indicated they would be 

willing to work with us in that regard. 

Let me go to some of the issues that have been 

raised here. And I'd like to start with the excellent 

question that Dr. Balmes asked at the outset and give you 

some additional thoughts on that particular issue. 

Now when the slide that you saw and when we talk 

in our plan about exceedance days, if you really don't pay 

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attention to what really exceedance means, people may feel 

that the entire San Joaquin Valley has done many 

exceedance days. I'm sure you know, but for the benefit 

of the audience, when we talk about the number of 

exceedance days, we're talking about the worst location at 

the worst time of the year. 

As you know, San Joaquin Valley is the largest 

air basin in the district, in the state; 25,000 square 

miles, eight counties. If you look county by county, 

there are many valley residents -- about 50 percent of the 

valley's population that has gone from having dozens of 

exceedances to zero today. They are already in compliance 

with the 30 microgram standard. 

So I think a better reflection of what the 

improvement has been and that's something that we talked 

with your staff and are hoping to be able to present to 

you is if you could put together an exposure-based number 

of exceedances. If you look at how many members of the 

San Joaquin Valley, how many residents were exposed to the 

exceedances, you can see there is a huge decline in the 

number of population based. There are less people that 

are exposed to the population and the peaks are lower. 

Just to answer your basic question though, there 

are a couple of things I want to point you to. First in 

the plan itself, Appendix A, page 38, if you look at the 

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chart that is there, it shows that we have gone 

essentially from peak violation happened ten percent of 

the time to less than one percent of the time that we're 

exposed to the peaks. 

In terms of the design value, which is really the 

peaks as defined by the Federal Clean Air Act, in Kern 

County, the design value has been reduced by 35 percent. 

And unfortunately, given our topography, geography, we 

need another 50 percent reduction, and are headed -- given 

the transport of air pollution externally and internally 

to the Valley, you know, the peaks are shown high 

resistance now to making improvements. 

So 35 percent in Kern County and 55 percent in 

Tulare County in terms of the reductions and the number 

and the design value. 

And just finally on that point, in terms of 

looking at just unhealthy and good days, in 2002, 

ten years ago, in the entire eight counties, if you added 

the number of unhealthy days, we had 156 days of unhealthy 

air quality. Last year, we only had 20. Total eight 

counties if you added the number of unhealthy days in 

every county, we've gone to 20. 

So air quality today, if you look at -- take a 

comprehensive look at it, it's the best it's ever been in 

San Joaquin Valley thanks to your good work and your Board 

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with the mobile source emissions and the business and the 

investments that businesses have made in San Joaquin 

County have made to reduce air pollution. We still have a 

long ways to go. There is no mission accomplished flag 

here, and we have more to do with your help. 

Just some of the comments or specific suggestions 

that were made. I took notes on some of them. If I 

missed any of them, please feel free to let me know and 

I'll try to answer. 

First with respect to the ag burn rule, I thought 

we had corrected that misconception at our December 

hearing. What you heard was why don't you ban ag burning 

on the same days when you are banning fireplace. That is 

already the law. So adopting this plan will actually add 

further restrictions to open burning, agriculture burning 

as we increase the number of no-burn days for fireplaces, 

residential burn days, on those days, no farmer can burn. 

It's also important to know that to the extent we 

have some minimal exceptions remaining in the rule right 

now -- which by the way even those things that are 

exempted cannot be burned on the no-burn fireplace rule. 

Burning is only allowed on days when meteorology indicates 

it will have no impact on air quality in terms of 

attainment or exceedances. 

So we really need to understand that fully. Ag 

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burning right now has no impact on our attainment status 

because it's pretty much near-zero burning that we allow. 

And then when we allow it, it's only on days when our 

basin can tolerate those emissions. 

You heard some comments about indirect source 

review. I agree with my friend Betsy with Catholic 

Charities, we take pride in San Joaquin Valley for having 

the really only ISOR rule in the state. 

I think part of the misunderstanding there when 

you hear that our IRS only deals with 50 percent of the 

emissions is really what we had to do to comply with the 

state law in that you cannot double count emissions. And 

the rule applies to both residential and commercial. 

So if we told both of those sectors to reduce 

your emissions by 100 percent every trip, we would be 

double counting. So what we said is for the residents, 

you only pay for one trip, from where you go from the 

residents to the commercial. And then for the commercial, 

we say you pay for the return trip. At the end of the 

day, ISR rule actually covers 100 percent of the emissions 

that are tied to those activities. And then we do, as 

Gordon Nipp mentioned, we work with developers to go 

beyond what is permissible under the law through voluntary 

mitigation agreements that had been very successful. 

Also under Prop 26 if you recall from a couple 

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years ago, at this point, although I don't want to concede 

that entirely legally, it's very difficult to add ISR fees 

without a two-thirds vote of the public. Although we 

think there might be some door open for some of our 

friends in other air districts that might want to do ISR 

that you can make a case for mitigation fees. It's not 

entirely clear at this point that you can just add to the 

ISR fees. But it's been a very successful program and 

hopefully when the economy picks up and more construction, 

we will see more benefits from that. 

Another specific comment was the flare rule, when 

they said we should look at the Santa Barbara flare rule, 

which is exactly what we did. Our district looked at 

every single rule. And the lady that made that comment 

and said that Santa Barbara have a specific exemption or a 

specific limit that you have to meet, whereas in San 

Joaquin it says do everything that's feasible, if you read 

the Santa Barbara rule more carefully, there is a 

provision that says, if the source can make a case they 

did not meet that standard, then they have a way out to 

meet that standard. So we looked at every single rule in 

the state. Our rule is as strong or stronger than any 

rule when it comes to flaring in the state. 

And fleet rules were mentioned. As you may 

recall, South Coast a number of years ago adopted a fleet 

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rule. The court said you can only have it apply to public 

sector. At the time, it did have some benefits. But 

thanks to your good work at the State Air Resources Board, 

today all those fleet rules are subject to your 

regulations. We get all those reductions. Also with the 

advancement of diesel technology today, that the latest 

tier diesel engines, their emissions, their NOx emissions 

are equal to natural gas. In some cases, even better. So 

there is really no benefit from a local rule that's simply 

would be overlapping your rule and also with the 

technology that exists. 

Char-broiler rule was mentioned why don't we do 

it sooner. It was mentioned that Bay Area already has a 

rule. Bay Area already has a rule, but there's no one 

that is complying with it right now. It is a rule that 

only applies to new facilities. It does not apply to 

existing facilities. And no new facility has been built 

that actually has the technology. 

The rule that we have we're hoping to adopt is 

actually technology forcing. Both South Coast and our 

district understand the technology for charbroiling does 

not exist right now. So we're hoping that by 2016, it 

will be available. Even though it is still questionable, 

we did put it in our plan. And hopefully I don't have to 

come back in 2016 and say the technology did not come 

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about. So the rule that you have before you in this plan 

is actually technology forcing and pushing for something 

that does not exist right now. 

And also, char-broiler rule right now will not 

expedite attainment. As I told you similar to fireplace 

rule, before the reductions that come from those rules 

that are critical to block us the last mile, attainment is 

not possible before all the NOx measures, the mobile 

source rules, the truck rule, off-road rule and everything 

is fully or to a great extent applied. And we can see 

those reductions that will bring us into attainment. 

There was some comments about Subpart 1, the 

court ruling recently. Of course, EPA is still trying to 

figure out what the legal implications of that are. But 

in terms of the substance of what was in this rule, every 

rule that we have already in this package meets BACM 

requirement. EPA has already approved many of these 

rules, even in their older version before they were 

strengthened as BACM. 

And we went well beyond what was required in 

Subpart 1 for looking at precursors. First of all, we 

have not let ammonia alone. The district already has a 

rule that reduced ammonia emissions by 100 tons per day. 

We have -- as you know under our ozone plan, we have a 

whole host of measures to reduce VOCs, even though for PM 

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we're saying sometimes that's not very helpful. So we've 

gone well beyond it. And we think we meet the Subpart 1 

requirements anyway. But ultimately, we're going to have 

to see what the EPA rules are. And if they have to change 

their implementation rule, would they make any allowance 

for plans that have been adopted? Or would there be some 

sort of a provision to re-exam them to see if they meet 

all those requirements. 

But ultimately, before they approve our plan, 

they have to make sure it meets the Subpart 1 requirement, 

and we believe it does. 

And one philosophical comment that was made that 

every time we bring a plan to you we say we've left no 

stone unturned. How is it that we can come every few 

years and say -- I think that's what they should be 

expecting that we do and you do. Every time we bring a 

plan to you, we have left no stone unturned. As you can 

see in this plan as your Board has indicated always is our 

job is not done. We're going to continue digging more. 

We're spending million of dollars on technology 

advancement. Look at the vision document. If our work 

was done, there wouldn't be a need for a vision document. 

We say we've left no stone unturned, because that's true. 

But you also have to realize our job is never done, and we 

continue to work on it. And hopefully we can bring you 

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more measures as time goes on. 

Those are some of the comments that I had jotted 

down. If there are any that I missed, I would be happy 

to -- 

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: I think there might be some 

questions from the Board. And maybe you can just stay 

with us as we have some further discussion. 

Did anyone want to raise any questions right this 

minute? Yes, DeeDee. 

BOARD MEMBER D'ADAMO: Well, I had a question. 

Seyed, thanks for going through that list. You pretty 

much answered the questions that I had, except one. And 

that was a concern raised by Sarah Sharpe regarding the 

lack of workshops. So just wondering how many workshops 

you had. Did you make a commitment to do more and for 

whatever reason were not able to do. I'll wait for your 

comment and then maybe have a question. 

MR. SADREDIN: I'm not sure what Sarah is talking 

about not meeting our commitment. I know there was some 

Expectations that maybe we'll do town hall meetings 

similar to what we did when you and Supervisor Case when 

we were doing the extreme, I think there was some 

expectation that we'll go up and down the valley and hold 

town hall meetings about this. 

We didn't do that, but that was in the time line 

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we were talking about, it was not possible. We did dozens 

of meetings, both public workshop meetings as well as 

individual meetings. We had like three meetings just with 

CVAQC members alone where we took their comments. I think 

it was a very extensive public process that both our 

agency as well as ARB did. And you can ask your staff 

about the workshop they did about the modeling concept or 

the modeling process. 

So I think we left no stone unturned in terms of 

doing as many workshops as we could do. Just doing the 

town hall meetings was not possible. 

BOARD MEMBER D'ADAMO: I would just make a 

comment on that. I think first of all, I have seen 

tremendous progress. As a resident living here in the 

valley and then also just working on this, you know, from 

the policy perspective, huge progress. And I think 

everyone deserves to be complimented, including those that 

are opposed to this plan because they're asking for more. 

They're not saying that the individual provisions aren't 

good at all. They're just asking for more. 

And what I'm noticing here though is that, kind 

of comparing it to the ozone plan that we adopted a few 

years back where we had a lot of concerns from residents, 

the concerns seem to be more focused on the southern part 

of the Valley. And for good reason, because I can 

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understand how people must feel. As a parent, I was 

really struck by one of the comments by one of the 

witnesses that whenever their children have an asthma 

attack and she has to think about an ambulance, she just 

gets worried about the cost. Parents shouldn't be worried 

about the cost. They should just be focused on their 

children. 

But there is a cost, as Dr. Sheriffs said, in 

economic terms. So I'm just wondering maybe if more could 

be done. Assuming that even if we adopt this plan, if 

more could be done on outreach, getting out into the 

communities. Obviously, working with some of the 

associations that are represented here today, but then 

even going beyond out in the communities, in particular, 

in the southern part of the district. Because I do think 

that there has been a big change. 

I know Manuel talked about all that's been done 

with the ag burning rule. But there seems to be a 

disconnect. Folks still think ag burning is allowed. And 

even though it is in certain circumstances, it is far 

limited from what it was years ago. 

And then also the information that I think the 

air district can help to get out about all that you're 

doing in addition to the plan, like you were talking about 

the fireplace rule three years earlier. And then, of 

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course, all the incentive dollars, turning over the 

equipment getting there before the regulatory deadlines. 

And I just think that that would be helpful. And I would 

be happy to help in any way I can as well. I'm sure staff 

would be willing to help out as well. Anything that we 

can do to help get the word out. So thank you. 

MR. SADREDIN: Certainly. Definitely we'll do 

what we can. That's a difficult area to communicate in 

San Joaquin community. We have three media markets. It's 

a huge challenge, but a never-ending process that we can 

always improve upon. 

BOARD MEMBER D'ADAMO: Right. And the only other 

question I had, and not for Seyed, for Ellen about the 

Clean Air Act issue.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Okay. Why don't you ask 

that now and then other Board members may have additional 

points. 

CHIEF COUNSEL PETER: There was a question Mr. 

Newell brought up about the decision in the District of 

Columbia Court of Appeal. There was a decision. It was 

released on January 4th of this year. It was from a 

three-judge panel of the court. And it found that the 

more stringent sub-part of four regulations are required. 

So it rejected EPA's arguments in favor of the current 

status. And did say that the Subpart 4 did go into 

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effect. 

The relief that the court ordered was for EPA to 

go back and re-promulgate new rules consistent with its 

decision. So in terms of how this effects us here today, 

one observation is the decision -- the court decision is 

not final. And I'm not privy to what EPA is going to do. 

But they have certain steps they can ask for 

reconsideration or petition to the Supreme Court. So it's 

not a final decision yet. 

And second, the court directed EPA to go back and 

do these new rules. So there is none of those rules 

obviously apply to San Joaquin as we're sitting here 

today. 

So in terms of any legal barriers for you to act 

today, I don't see that there is any. 

And also from the legal point of view, you can 

flip it around, and there is nothing also that precludes 

you from later going back. So a vote today doesn't lock 

you in forever. I'm sure you know that from previous 

situations the SIP revisions are very fluid. 

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Excuse me. Ellen, could 

you just clarify for a minute what the more stringent 

Subpart 4 versus the existing one would actually do that 

would be different? I mean, assuming that it were in 

effect today, what would we do that's different from -- 

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CHIEF COUNSEL PETER: Brent Newell outlined a 

couple of pieces in terms of what the stringency is here. 

And perhaps you folks can jump in on this. 

One thing I would like to say, Seyed said they 

are meeting Subpart 1. We cannot evaluate that right now. 

I can't address that situation. But -- 

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: I understand. I wasn't 

asking for you -- 

CHIEF COUNSEL PETER: In terms of the difference 

between Part 4 and Part 1, there are some different 

things, if you give me a minute I can do it. 

Or Lynn, do you know off the top of your head?

DEPUTY EXECUTIVE OFFICER TERRY: I'll start and 

Karen can jump in. 

I think the primary one that was discussed was 

there was a classification scheme moderate and then 

serious. And then there's reasonably available controls 

if you're moderate and best available. So this would 

bring into play best available. So we would have to 

jointly go back and consider whether if the Board were to 

adopt this plan, consider whether or not the rules that 

are part of it meet the BACM test. 

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: And what Seyed said was 

that their rules had already been declared to have met, 

not just RACM, but BACM. If we can use these horrible 

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acronyms. 

MR. SADREDIN: The last slide that your staff had 

talked about all these various plans that have been 

together, which this plan essentially takes a lot of 

measures in those old plans, one of them PM10. PM10 was 

already subject to BACM. And even our previous versions 

of the rules have been strengthened in this plan, they 

have ruled those meet the BACM requirements.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: I probably should not have 

even suggested that we get into further legal arguments 

here. I'm just trying to understand the point is that I 

think that our counsel is making that assuming this 

decision is valid and assuming it is upheld and goes into 

effect and so forth, the question is really what would we 

do differently today. And it sounds like the answer would 

be that once EPA goes through its rulemaking and all that, 

we might have to come back and do more. 

I mean, that's conceivable that they would -- 

that we would be having additional holes that we had to 

fill. 

But that, to me, is exactly what happens 

continually with the Clean Air Act, just as you were 

saying, that it's an incremental process. Standards get 

tighter. Rules get tighter. But you keep on making 

progress ultimately towards the goal. 

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Yes, Mayor. 

BOARD MEMBER LOVERIDGE: Mary, it would be 

helpful to me -- how soon will this come back again? It's 

not one time looking at the plan and it goes away forever. 

When does this -- 

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: This particular PM2.5 plan, 

once we approve it, gets sent onto EPA and then EPA holds 

onto it for a while and -- 

DEPUTY EXECUTIVE OFFICER TERRY: They're acting 

much more expeditiously. We're encouraged. 

BOARD MEMBER LOVERIDGE: It's not the approval of 

it. The question is -- 

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: When would we see it again. 

BOARD MEMBER LOVERIDGE: The idea you're 

continually working on it, when will it appear again? 

DEPUTY EXECUTIVE OFFICER TERRY: Good question. 

And if you -- that time line that we had in the staff 

presentation is an illustration of how that process works. 

So what happens is each individual SIP for a particular 

pollutant and a particular standard has to be submitted by 

a certain deadline. And that deadline was December 14th 

of 2012. So we feel we have a continuing obligation to 

get that to EPA based on the current implementation rule. 

And if the Board approves it, it would go forward. This 

particular SIP would be done. 

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Now, we would immediately begin working on the 

next SIP like we always do. And we could start working on 

an evaluation of whether the BACM requirement is already 

met or whether there is a technology advancement that 

might change the standard for BACM, but we would start 

that immediately. EPA would go back and do their 

implementation rule. They set the deadlines for submittal 

of the next SIP through a SIP call. And they haven't 

given us any indication of how much time we would have to 

do that. But certainly they give us at least a year. 

They did that with the one-hour ozone SIP call.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: The point being that the 

alternative, just hypothetically, of not approving a plan 

leaves them with no approved plan, which then means they 

can't be sued to make them implement the regulations that 

are in the approved plan or in any other way forced to do 

it, not that they would necessarily not. But it's kind of 

you're damned if you do and damned if you don't, right? 

MR. NEWELL: I have a point of order. We could 

put up a footnote from the opinion that will explain what 

the differences are. 

CHIEF COUNSEL PETER: There are two footnotes, 

and they're about this long and very legal of the court. 

But basically, it hits some of the points that both Brent 

brought up earlier and that Lynn was addressing, the 

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difference between BACM, RACM, the presumption for ammonia 

and so forth. We can do that. I'm not sure it's going to 

be helpful. 

I think your point is there is nothing that keeps 

the Board here from acting on this plan and also 

re-visiting it.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Well, I would be very 

interested in seeing the footnote. I don't want to see it 

put up on a slide. I'd like to actually read it on a 

piece of paper. I'd like to read the opinion, if that's 

possible. And maybe we may want to take a little bit of 

time to do that. But let's -- thank you. Appreciate 

that. We can do that. 

MR. SADREDIN: Madam Chair, if I could just in 

response to Mayor Loveridge just add a couple other 

thoughts in addition to what your staff has already said. 

First of all, EPA, nor the court, after this 

ruling came back and said, all right. Wait a minute. You 

don't have to submit your plan now the deadline in effect. 

We are essentially in the sanction phase as soon as EPA 

says no plan has been submitted. Both South Coast and San 

Joaquin would be -- under the current state of the law, 

failure to act would not meet the Clean Air Act. 

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: That was my next question. 

You have a deadline to submit something. 

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MR. SADREDIN: But in terms of what the Mayor 

Loveridge asked how soon would this come to you. Aside 

from six months from now and the context of the one-hour 

ozone plan and all the other plans, but just this 

particular plan, I think the likely scenario is that if 

EPA does not appeal, they will do a rule that at the 

minimum will require us at some point to at least make a 

demonstration that we meet these requirements. And that 

could be a few months from now or more than a year, 

depending on how soon EPA acts. 

I'm confident that we can meet all those 

requirements, although we're not asking your Board to make 

a finding upon that. Your staff cannot make a finding 

upon that. 

I'm thinking, at minimum, a demonstration will be 

required. And if the demonstration has some gaps, that 

more needs to be done, then a plan has to be submitted 

back to you or EPA will reject it, send it back, and we 

have to come back with another plan for you.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Well, okay. Thanks. 

I think I'm going to close this part of this 

discussion down. It's making it more confusing. 

Yes, you had a different point, though. 

Completely different question. Yes, of course. 

BOARD MEMBER BALMES: They're more comments than 

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questions. 

First off, I mentioned before that I like data. 

And I actually collect data on health among residents of 

the San Joaquin Valley, particularly with regard to 

Fresno. But our group at U.C. Berkeley, collaborating 

with Stanford, is also starting to do work in the valley 

at large. Actually, the four most populous counties in 

the Valley, including Kern.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Is this a commercial? 

BOARD MEMBER BALMES: No, it's not. 

Madam Chair, actually, thanks for the joke, but 

I'm really being quite serious here. Because I want to 

validate the community members' concerns about air 

pollution exposures in the San Joaquin Valley. 

First of all, I want to thank all the community 

members that came and spoke and took the time. I know 

it's easier for those of us in suits that have to be here 

as opposed to people who don't have suits who have a hard 

time missing work or missing their families to be here. 

And the point I was starting to make about our 

research is I agree with the presentations because I know 

the data that air quality is better in the San Joaquin 

Valley than it used to be with regard to the criteria air 

pollutants. And that's what the Clean Air Act is all 

about. 

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But our recent findings, some of which aren't yet 

published, but have been presented recently in Sacramento 

at the Cal/EPA building, suggest that a problem that we 

don't have a handle on yet is near-roadway traffic 

exposures, which isn't really regulated. We're doing a 

good job of trying to improve emissions -- try to reduce 

emissions from vehicles. But I just want to underscore 

how important that is, because even if we get regional 

PM2.5 to be in attainment with the EPA -- current EPA 

standard and it's going to be stricter in the future, as 

most of you know, we still won't have solved all the 

problems. So that was point one. 

And with regard to an outcome that we've started 

to look at low birth -- well, excuse me -- pre-term birth. 

So premature births, there's quite an impressive 

relationship between exposures to criteria air pollutants 

throughout the valley and pre-term birth, specifically 

very early pre-term birth. And we have this crude 

multi-pollutant index where if you're in the top quartile, 

the highest 25 percent of exposure to the criteria air 

pollutants and you also throw in the highest quartile of 

traffic exposure based on traffic density near your home, 

then you have considerably greater risk of having a 

pre-term birth than if you live in a clean place without 

any exceedances -- excuse me. I shouldn't say 

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exceedances. But the lower three-quarters of the 

population exposed to less pollution. 

So I guess my point is, as a air pollution health 

effects researcher, the valley does, indeed, have a long 

way to go. And the people that are most impacted are 

people in low income minority communities. And our 

research also shows that. 

We were enjoined by one member of the public that 

testified that not just to listen, but to act. And I 

think for the reasons that have just been discussed, we 

need to approve the current plan. Because not approving 

the plan doesn't gain us any benefit in terms of reducing 

pollution. And it will just bring down the wrath of 

federal EPA, which I don't think we necessarily want even 

the community health folks really don't want EPA to be 

stopping. I don't think they want stopping development in 

the Central Valley because Central Valley development 

involves jobs and transportation funds actually. So I 

think we should approve the plan, but I also think we 

should be trying to do more, especially in the near term.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Well, thank you for that. 

And I apologize if my attempt to inject humor was seen as 

undermining the issue. 

BOARD MEMBER BALMES: I can handle it.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: I do want to say that your 

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point about the research again underscores the fact that 

there is a difference between what we're doing here 

legally in terms of complying with the requirements of the 

Clean Air Act to come up with a plan to deal with a 

regional air pollutant which is based on these complex 

models and demonstrations that are based on numerical 

calculations over a particular monitoring station versus 

what people actually breathe on a day-to-day basis. And 

the research that you and your colleagues are doing has 

really helped educate many of us, even including me, about 

the fact that even meeting the air quality standards in 

and of itself doesn't guarantee that people in particular 

locations, especially those living along freeway corridors 

are being exposed to much worse pollution than the law 

necessarily wanted them to see. But that's just the 

way -- that's the way the standards work. That's the way 

the law works. We're still required to do a plan to meet 

those standard, regardless. 

But what the testimony here today really reminded 

me of was the fact that even if we were to meet the 

standards, we need to be doing more in those parts of the 

state where people are exposed to the worst pollution. 

And particularly as we've been told time and time again, 

this tends to be correlated heavily with being in a 

low-income community being isolated, racial minorities, 

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ethnic minorities, and so forth, that we need to be 

directing more attention and more resources in the 

direction of helping to improve overall exposures in those 

communities. 

I'm hopeful since I'm always looking for 

something to be optimistic about that in addition to the 

progress that will come about from moving towards the 

standards that the ability that we now have to help direct 

some financial resources through the legislation that's 

going to be allocating money that comes out of AB 32 will 

be targeted exactly in that area. That's really the first 

time we've been in a position to do that. And thanks to 

the last year's legislation that the Governor signed, that 

the emphasis is on disadvantaged communities. So there 

may be some better news on the way. 

But I agree with the thrust of your comment that 

not moving forward today would be worse than acting, it 

seems to me. 

Yes, Dr. Sherriffs. 

BOARD MEMBER SHERRIFFS: Thank you. 

I also want to thank very much all who testified, 

both in person and submitted letters. 

I would also agree that the fact that many who 

testified have had to leave in no way diminishes their 

contribution or the force of their arguments. 

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This is a very challenging process for everyone. 

The goals are very challenging. I also recommend 

acceptance of the plan. And I do that as the 

representative to this Board of the San Joaquin Valley Air 

Pollution Control District, which voted unanimously in 

support of the plan. I also do that -- I don't feel too 

conflicted here, a little conflicted here, but not too 

conflicted, as a member of this Board conflicted for 

reasons that have been discussed. 

The plan provides significant improvements in air 

quality, and we need to grab what we can grab. This is 

clearly going to lead to definite health benefits, both to 

individuals and communities. But it is never fast enough. 

The San Joaquin Board moved that wood burning 

rule forward, and that means 90 percent of the residents 

of the Valley will be living in areas that meet that 

standard in 2017. But as has been mentioned, that means 

their ten percent, it's going to take another couple years 

to get there. And there are different health effects in 

the mean time for that group. We all want this as soon as 

possible. 

There were many important observations and 

suggestions, expectations from those who gave testimony. 

And I really want to urge those who testified to stay 

engaged in this process, to attend the San Joaquin Valley 

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Air Pollution Control District Board meetings, workshops, 

their aspects of the plan that I think do have potential 

to be moved forward. 

We've talked a little bit about charbroiling, and 

I can't request. I guess we're looking for jack in the 

black box to help us with that one. Sorry. 

But this is not the last plan. This is not the 

last best plan. This is not the last standard that we 

will need to meet. We are committed to incremental 

progress. Better science as has been pointed out leads us 

in better directions, but also ends up presenting new 

challenges. So really appreciate the comments of those 

who testified, and the hope they will continue to be 

engaged and keep us moving in the right direction. 

BOARD MEMBER LOVERIDGE: If that's a motion, I 

will second the motion. 

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: I will take the comment as 

a motion, and it's been seconded by Mayor Loveridge. 

Are there any additional comments or questions? 

I should have closed the record before. The 

record is closed on this item. We will go ahead and vote. 

If not, I'm going to ask the Clerk to call the 

roll. 

BOARD CLERK JENSEN: Dr. Balmes? 

BOARD MEMBER BALMES: Yes. 

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BOARD CLERK JENSEN: Ms. Berg? 

Ms. D'Adamo? 

BOARD MEMBER D'ADAMO: Yes. 

BOARD CLERK JENSEN: Mr. De La Torre? 

BOARD MEMBER DE LA TORRE: Yes. 

BOARD CLERK JENSEN: Mayor Loveridge? 

BOARD MEMBER LOVERIDGE: Yes. 

BOARD CLERK JENSEN: Mrs. Riordan? 

BOARD MEMBER RIORDAN: Aye. Be different. Which 

means yes. 

BOARD CLERK JENSEN: Dr. Sherriffs? 

BOARD MEMBER SHERRIFFS: Aye. Yes. 

BOARD CLERK JENSEN: Professor Sperling? 

BOARD MEMBER SPERLING: Yes. 

BOARD CLERK JENSEN: Chairman Nichols.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Yes. 

BOARD CLERK JENSEN: The motion passes.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Thank you very much. 

And congratulations on a major step forward. 

Thank you very much. 

We have one more item, but I think we should 

probably give ourselves a stretch break here. And let's 

give ourselves ten minutes. Is that sufficient? Okay. 

And then we will resume with our discussion of progress on 

SB 375. Thank you very much. 

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(Whereupon a recess was taken.)

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Let's quickly move to the 

presentation. Staff, I know you've worked hard to put 

this together. But I'm going to ask everybody to be as 

quick as they can. 

(Thereupon an overhead presentation was 

presented as follows.)

MS. KIMURA: Thank you. 

I'll begin with some background on Senate Bill 

375 implementation related to the San Joaquin Valley.

--o0o--

MS. KIMURA: In September 2010, this Board set 

passenger vehicle greenhouse gas emission reduction 

targets for all metropolitan planning organizations in 

California, including the Valley MPOs covering San 

Joaquin, Stanislaus, Merced, Madera, Fresno, Kings, and 

Kern Counties. 

At the time targets were set, the Board 

recognized that these MPOs were faced with several 

challenges, including the timing of their four-year 

regional transportation plan updates, the need for 

significant travel demand model improvements, and a policy 

decision the Valley MPOs need to make about how to 

coordinate their SB 375 planning efforts. This is a 

special option for the valley provided by statute.

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--o0o--

MS. KIMURA: The MPOs have made significant 

progress over the past two years. They've worked with 

each other and in coordination with ARB and the San 

Joaquin Valley Air District staff to build the technical 

and policy foundation for SB 375 implementation and 

sustainable communities strategy plan development. 

The San Joaquin Valley Regional Planning Agencies 

Policy Council made up of elected officials from each of 

the eight counties, along with the eight MPO Executive 

Directors have continued to take a leadership role in 

coordinating efforts between the agencies. 

Their efforts have resulted in completion of a 

significant amount of work so far on both travel model 

improvements and scenario planning, that support their SCS 

plan development efforts. 

Moving forward, the MPOs have acknowledged there 

is still more work to be done, including ongoing 

information sharing with ARB staff on their continued 

multi-county coordination efforts.

--o0o--

MS. KIMURA: Under the leadership of the Policy 

Council, the MPO initiated a joint process in 2010 to 

improve their travel demand modeling capability. This 

process, known as the San Joaquin Valley Model Improvement 

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Program, or MIP, was funded by a $2.5 million grant from 

the Strategic Growth Council. The funds come from 

Proposition 84 revenues. 

Over the past two years, a team of technical 

consultants worked with staff from each of the eight MPOs 

to upgrade the models and modeling processes. The MIP 

resulted in a substantially upgraded and standardized 

travel models delivered in the summer 2012. 

The new models standardized the software, inputs, 

and methodologies between the eight MPOs. This 

standardization enhances the MPOs' ability to share data 

and resources with each other, coordinate on model 

improvement and training efforts, as well as analyze 

multi-county issues. The new models are also designed to 

better evaluate the types of land use and transportation 

policies likely to be considered in their SCS plan 

development. They are built to be more sensitive to the 

effects of land use and travel network characteristics, 

travel cost, congestion, as well as socioeconomic 

variables, such as household income and vehicle ownership. 

Work is ongoing to get the new models ready for 

official adoption and use in their RTP/SCS planning 

processes, and MPO staff anticipate releasing a 

calibration and validation report for the new models later 

this year.

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--o0o--

MS. KIMURA: A number of work efforts are also 

underway to support scenario planning as part of the MPOs 

RPT/SCS plan development. One effort focuses on 

incorporating planning information from recent demographic 

and housing market trend analyses into each MPO scenario 

planning discussions. 

Most recently, a study by the Infill Builders 

Association and studies completed for the MPOs by the 

Planning Center and Concord Group provide new information 

on the housing market outlook specific to the counties in 

the Valley. These analyses address current housing supply 

levels and projected future demand and supply by housing 

type and tenure related to demographic, economic, social, 

and other trends. They suggest that in order to better 

meet future market demand, housing growth in the valley 

will need to include a larger proportion of smaller home 

types, smaller lots, attached, and rental housing. 

A report released last week by the American 

Farmland Trust underscores the importance of this 

information to Valley planning agencies as they work on 

their SCSs, since plans that help meet these trends are 

also expected to help the Valley's farmland conservation 

efforts. 

In addition to working with newly available 

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planning data, the MPOs in partnership with the Valley Air 

District have also invested in the development of a new 

county-specific land use scenario tool called Envision 

Tomorrow. This tool is intended to assist MPO and local 

agency planners in more easily exploring and quantifying 

the effects of different land use scenarios. The Fresno 

MPO has already started using this tool for scenario 

investigation with their local partners and stakeholders.

--o0o--

MS. KIMURA: Local general plans are one guide 

for developing land use scenarios in the scenario planning 

process. For this reason, the MPOs and other Valley 

stakeholders are also working with their local member 

agencies to incorporate sustainable growth strategies into 

these and other local programs. 

Currently, 14 of the larger cities in the Valley, 

including Fresno and Modesto, and 43 of the smaller cities 

in the Valley have ongoing work to integrate sustainable 

growth principles into their local general plans and other 

policy documents with help from both federal and State 

grant funds. 

Furthermore, recognizing that SB 375 introduces a 

new planning approach with the SCS, the MPOs are working 

on a coordinated public outreach effort to get their 

residents and stakeholders engaged with the new process. 

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Using funding received through another Proposition 84 

grant, they are working to develop a public outreach 

strategy, coordinate workshops, and develop informational 

tools and displays. 

In total, the MPOs in the Valley have received 

$4.5 million in Proposition 84 funds to support 

sustainable communities planning.

--o0o--

MS. KIMURA: In anticipation of today's update to 

the Board, the MPOs also developed informational scenarios 

using early version of their new travel models. The 

scenarios for 2020 and 2035 are starting points from which 

each MPO will begin the local dialogue to develop 

strategies for their regional plans. 

Some of the strategies evaluated in these test 

scenarios include increases in compact development and 

focused growth along existing major corridors and activity 

centers of each county. The results provide preliminary 

information about how the new models are representing 

these regions. Recognizing that the results will change 

as the RTP/SCSs are developed and refined, the MPO 

Executive Director's proposed and the Policy Council 

adopted a recommendation to ARB that five and ten percent 

reduction targets for 2020 and 2035 respectively be 

maintained on an aggregate valley-wide basis. 

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In making this recommendation, the Policy Council 

reflected the Valley MPOs commitment to continue their 

coordination efforts.

--o0o--

MS. KIMURA: ARB staff will continue to be 

actively engaged with the MPOs and stakeholders as the 

details relating to implementation of these joint targets 

are worked out. With first draft SCS plans anticipated 

this summer, ARB MPO coordination and information sharing 

will focus on reviewing the greenhouse gas technical 

methodologies in the first half of this year, followed by 

formal evaluation of MPO modeling and plans later in the 

year. 

That concludes my presentation. Thank you. 

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Thank you, Ms Kimura. 

Obviously, this is a challenging task, and we're not 

finished. And there has been progress. And it's good to 

hear that people are optimistic about how far they can get 

with all of this, in spite of what I know are significant 

challenges. But I suspect we're going to hear suggestions 

for how folks think they could perhaps do better. So we 

should certainly be listening to that as well. 

I think the good news is SB 375 has provoked a 

lot of work in a good way. I mean, it's positive 

assessment analysis thinking that is being done. And I 

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really think this supports a somewhat optimistic view I 

guess of where we're headed on air quality overall as well 

because these things are not unconnected, you know, even 

though the plan is not part of our SIP. We know that the 

steps that are being taken towards sustainable community 

strategies and are designed to reduce emissions of 

greenhouse gases will have a beneficial effect on air 

pollution as well. So it's perhaps a back-door way of 

getting there. But I think it's good to bear that in mind 

that there are co-benefits to everything I guess will be 

how I would put it. 

We do have a number of people who have signed up 

who said they want to come talk about this. But we have a 

question. 

BOARD MEMBER SHERRIFFS: Thank you. 

I agree it's great to see the progress made and 

the buy-in of the process that's evolved. 

Talking about next steps, obviously, staff are 

going to continue to be engaged with the MPOs. When does 

that Board hear again? What's that plan? 

MS. KIMURA: So the process is once the MPOs 

finally Adopt their RTP/SCSs, which they have told us they 

anticipate to do in the fall of this year, ARB staff will 

undertake the process of reviewing those plans. And it is 

likely we will come back to the Board at that point and 

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report to you on our review.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Okay. I'm going to start 

calling on people who have signed up to speak then, 

beginning with Betsy Reifsnider and then Patricia Taylor 

and Will Barrett. 

MS. REIFSNIDER: Hello again. And thank you. 

Betsy Reifsnider, Catholic Charity Diocese of Stockton. 

We are a signatory of the Seizing the Opportunity 

platform that I believe you all received. And in 

addition, we are part of a coalition of the Northern San 

Joaquin Valley working with historically marginalized 

groups who are trying to shape how their communities will 

grow and prosper, and the SB 375 process will help make 

that happen. So we're very encouraged. 

We're particularly pleased to work closely with 

the San Joaquin Council of Governments and with their SB 

375 Public Advisory Committee that they have started. And 

we believe that every county in the Central Valley should 

meet the eminently achievable targets of five percent by 

2020 and ten percent by 2035. 

We believe every county should have a transparent 

SB 375 process, and we believe that every county should 

report on its own reductions in greenhouse gas emissions 

and vehicle miles traveled. 

We ask ARB to help Central Valley Councils of 

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Government work with underrepresented communities to find 

ways for these communities to be fully engaged. And 

people do want to be engaged. At one of our community 

coalition meetings, we heard from San Joaquin County 

nonprofit hospitals that they conduct a community health 

needs assessment every three years. And they found that 

access to public transportation was one of people's 

biggest public health concerns through this needs 

assessment. 

So finally, we're very encouraged, and thank you 

so much. And we hope you'll do everything to make the SCS 

targets ambitious and achievable, that reporting as 

transparent and specific and the planning process welcomes 

everyone. And I thank you so much for the opportunity.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Thank you. 

Ms. Taylor and then Will Barrett and Gordon Nipp. 

MS. TAYLOR: Madam Chair, members of the Board, 

thank you for this opportunity to provide you with a 

status report on 375 in the Valley. 

My name is Patricia Taylor. I'm with the Madera 

County Transportation Commission. I'm here this afternoon 

to represent the San Joaquin Valley COG Regional 

Transportation Planning Agencies. 

Lezlie actually did a fantastic job providing you 

and explaining to you the status of the SB 375 in the 

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valley. So my focus this afternoon will primarily be on 

the valley's implementation efforts and our commitment. 

The San Joaquin Valley MPOs are committed to 

development of an implementation plan for the targets. 

Now, this will occur as part of the SCS documentation. As 

it was mentioned earlier, in Lezlie's presentation, the 

Policy Council met December 14th and took the action to 

support the existing five percent and ten percent targets 

to be maintained. The individual eight county MPOs also 

took similar action at our November, December, and January 

meetings. 

The valley has a long history of voluntarily 

coordinating efforts. And I'll touch on that in the next 

slide. Inter-agency planning efforts between MPOs and ARB 

will continue and is ongoing, especially over the months 

ahead as final numbers result from the SCS process. 

Coordination is ongoing in the valley. It is 

nothing new to the valley MPOs. The San Joaquin Valley 

has a long history of successful coordination. As a 

matter of fact, in early 1990s -- actually 1992, the 

Valley determined that it is in our best interest to work 

together as it relates to air quality planning. So we all 

signed onto a Memorandum of Understanding to ensure a 

coordinated and regional approach to transportation and 

air quality efforts. 

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Our working relationships in regards to 

coordination and cooperation were related to 

transportation air quality has evolved over the years. 

And we have worked on a number of planning efforts 

together. Prop 1B, 99 bond funding, goods movement 

planning, the model improvement program, blueprint 

planning, and we've also had created the Policy Council, 

which was formed in 2006. And Lezlie also mentioned 

that's a 16-member Board made up of two elected officials 

from each county. It's a true partnership in working 

together on regional issues. And the main purpose is to 

build regional consensus on issues of valley-wide 

importance. 

Each MPO is currently in the process of 

developing its RTP and its SCS and development continues 

through a public outreach effort. Some cost effective 

innovative strategies include the blueprint toolkit, which 

is an educational guide and a reference source. It's a 

voluntary way for local jurisdictions to identify 

strategies to implement SCS land use strategies. 

There's ACE, which is the Altamont Commuter 

Express, the San Joaquin Intercity Rail, the BRT, Bus 

Rapid Transit, and increased vanpool and carpool programs. 

I'll skip the next two slides for the sake of 

time. 

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For the next steps moving forward, development of 

the implementation plan to document how the Valley will 

demonstrate compliance with the Valley-wide SB 375 target 

is anticipated to be completed within around the summer of 

this year. The development of the RTPs and the SCS each 

MPO will develop an individual SCS that will include a 

coordinated Valley-wide chapter. This is anticipated to 

be completed in the fall of this year.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: So overall you're on track. 

MS. TAYLOR: Yes, we are on track. That's our 

goal. 

In conclusion, the Valley's MPOs have coordinated 

efforts since 2010 and are committed and moving in a 

positive direction towards implementation of SB 375. The 

MPOs recognize one size does not fit all and that 

differences among the MPOs should be recognized. 

Significant positive strides have been made and they 

continue to move forward. Thank you for the opportunity.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Thanks. I'm sorry for the 

curtailed time. Three minutes goes by really fast. I'll 

remind the others as well. Okay. Thank you. 

Will Barrett, then Gordon Nipp and then Mario 

Talavera. 

MR. BARRETT: Good afternoon. Will Barrett with 

the American Lung Association of California. Happy to be 

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here again today to talk to you about the Lung 

Association's strong support for SB 375 implementation. 

The Lung Association was engaged in SB 375 in the 

Legislature all throughout the RTC process and in the 

development of all of the SCSs to date. We're in the 

process now of hiring the new full-time staff to work on 

implementation both in the Valley and in the Inland 

Empire. Very excited about that. 

The Lung Association's commitment to SB 375 is 

shared by a deep coalition that Betsy Reifsnider mentioned 

earlier. We're also a signatory to that. But also the 

public health and medical organizations that have 

testified before you along the way, including the Fresno 

Madera Medical Society who wanted to pass along their 

apologies they weren't able to be here today, but do share 

a lot of the same goals I have to speak to you about. 

We know that building health into the planning 

process early is key to reducing the burdens of harmful 

air pollutants as well as a wide range of chronic 

illnesses associated with auto dependent community design. 

At this point, we're working with several health 

partners to develop new health benefit data and other 

cobenefit data that could accrue across the valley using 

the rapid fire model scenario or a scenario that tracks 

with some of the housing market demand data that was 

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mentioned earlier. 

The preliminary results -- we're showing 

significant benefits within the Valley in 2035, including 

approximately $350 million in avoided health costs, 435 

square miles of land conserved, billions of gallons of 

fuel saved, which translated into a few thousand dollars 

per year, and household savings, as well as $2.7 billion 

in infrastructure avoided cost for municipalities. 

The COGs have been receptive to the need for more 

health information. To date -- and we will definitely be 

sharing our more developed data with them in the coming 

month. The Valley COG should certainly be commended for 

coming together in this coordinated effort. We know that 

the modeling improvements that have been made and the 

coordination that's gone on through the Policy Council 

will pay dividends as the eight plans come together in the 

future. 

But today, we just want to request that the Board 

work both to support the COGs in achieving their targets 

but also to ensure accountability to the targets as well. 

We ask that the Board support all of their COGs in 

achieving the five and ten percent targets individually. 

Clearly, some COGs will achieve these and go beyond these 

targets. But we would like to see all of the COGs hitting 

the five and ten percent even within a valley-wide 

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structure, because we don't want any of the individual 

communities to miss out on the co-benefits that we see as 

so important. 

We also believe secondly that the Board should 

work to ensure consistent progress is planned between 2020 

and 2035 so that performance doesn't weaken in the later 

years of the program. 

And then we would also like to see all the 

counties in the COGs evaluate and report the benefits of 

their own plans, even within the full valley-wide process, 

including VMT, greenhouse gas emissions, and any health 

co-benefits they can model. 

So, again, we want to say we hope to see the 

plans developed into a strong basis for progress moving 

forward. We commend the staff of the ARB and the COGs for 

the work to date and look forward to being a resource to 

all the progress going forward. Thank you very much.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Thank you for representing 

the health perspective in this process. 

Mr. Nipp. 

MR. NIPP: My name is Gordon Nipp. Again, I'm 

the Vice Chair of the Local Sierra Club Chapter of the 

Kern-Kiweah Chapter covering Kern County, Kings County, 

Tulare County, southern part of the San Joaquin Valley. 

We also are Signatories on this Seizing the 

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Opportunity document that I think you have a copy of. 

I've attended a number of SB 375 SCS meetings at 

Kern COG, and I think it's the staff at Kern COG is doing 

their best to address the issue. 

I'm pleased that Kern County and the Valley are 

working to hit the five percent and ten percent targets. 

It wasn't always clear that would happen. 

Much of the focus so far has been on coming up 

with a good computer model. An important issue to be 

sure -- I have a Ph.D. in mathematics, and I've done 

computer modeling myself. So it's certainly an important 

thing to be accurate in the computer model. 

But I'm a little concerned that maybe we miss the 

point about actually reducing greenhouse gas emissions. 

There needs -- maybe there needs to be more focus on the 

underlying assumptions for the computer model. Maybe 

assumptions like urban growth boundaries and farmland 

preservation. And then making sure that the local 

agencies adopt policies and enforcement measures to assure 

that these assumptions are meaningfully implemented. 

I would urge Air Resources Board to closely 

scrutinize the plans of counties to assure that these 

plans are transparent and they are implemented equitably 

and effectively to ensure that the proposed reductions in 

vehicle mile traveled and greenhouse gas emissions 

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actually occur, not only on paper, but on the ground as 

well. 

Climate change is probably the foremost issue for 

my organization, the Sierra Club. It could very well be 

the defining issue for our species. 

We thank you for your efforts to ensure that SB 

375 is ambitiously and effectively implemented and 

enforced. And I thank you for coming to my hometown, 

Bakersfield.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Thanks again. 

Is Mr. Talavera still here? I don't know if he 

wanted to testify on this item. Yes, come on down then. 

And then Ms. Jonasson and Ms. Sharpe. 

MR. TALAVERA: Good afternoon, Board of 

Directors, once again. My name is Mario Talavera. I'm 

the President of LUCA, Latin Americans United for a Better 

Quality of Air. 

I live in Fresno. I've been following the plan 

of this measure, SB 375. In Fresno, I have joined two 

others groups of public interest to signal how the Valley 

can take advantage of this opportunity. We appreciate the 

work of the Government Board of the Valley. 

The Valley together is now at a point of reaching 

their objective, which is five percent and ten percent, 

which is a great advance in the few years. 

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The ambitious planification of use of the floor 

and transportation can have big benefits for the Valley. 

All the citizens from all the counties in the San Joaquin 

Valley need to serve the benefits, such as driving short 

distances, a cleaner air, cleaner water, and a place to 

live that is safe, healthy, and accessible. 

All of the counties in the Valley must begin 

ambitious actions, fulfill the objectives of the five and 

ten percent, and continue lowering the pollution in the 

following years. 

The Air Resources Board must ask to every Board 

of the government that each of them informs about their 

reductions in miles -- in miles they have traveled per 

vehicle and on their reduction of winter gases. They must 

make this public throughout all the means of communication 

such as radio, TV, newspapers, internet. Every Board of 

the government that did not meet the five and ten percent, 

or if they did, in a speedy fashion. But then after that, 

going back in a significant manner, the Air Resource Board 

should investigate in-depth their report to be able to 

know that they are trying to make the effort as much as 

possible. 

The Air Resource Board must make sure that the 

measure SB 375 is beneficial to all, the ones living in 

the San Joaquin Valley, and that no one and no group shall 

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be excluded. 

The Air Resource Board must be sensitive. The 

Air Resource Board shall make aware to the Committee in 

regards to the metropolitan organization as to how this 

measure SB 375 must be equal and the manner that it should 

not effect significantly the communities of low resources 

of the color. 

The Air Resources Board must support the 

government boards of the Valley both in the study and in 

the community that are vulnerable and that will be 

effected financially and health-wise. 

As I communicate this to you and transmit this 

also to your government, to your elected government 

officials.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Okay. I need you to finish 

thank you. Thank. Great. Thanks. 

We now have Elizabeth Jonasson. And then Sarah 

Sharpe, and then Gary Lasky. 

MS. JONASSON: Good afternoon. Elizabeth 

Jonasson with Coalition for Clean Air in Fresno. And we 

are also signatories to the Seizing the Opportunity 

platform and agree with a lot of the comments made 

previously. 

I have been directly involved in SB 375 in the 

Valley for a couple years now, particularly focused in 

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Fresno and serving on the SB 375 target-setting task force 

and now the RPT roundtable for Fresno. 

During this time, I have been quite impressed 

with the increasing openness of several Valley MPOs 

exhibited. The commitment to a more public process is 

definitely evident. 

While there is still a long way to go in the SCS 

development in the Valley, I'm encouraged that the 

majority of the MPOs are easily demonstrating attainment 

of the targets, and I would like to see these every county 

reach these attainable five and ten percent attainable 

goals. 

I would like to encourage ARB to continue working 

proactively with Valley governments and organizations to 

properly resolve some of the outstanding issues, like 

ensuring consistent assumptions throughout the Valley and 

determining how targeted achievement will be measured in a 

way that encourages ambitious work in each county, and it 

doesn't hamper smart growth planning in neighboring 

counties. Thank you very much.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Okay. Sarah, and then Gary 

Lasky and Roy Kendall. 

MS. SHARPE: Good afternoon. Sarah Sharpe, 

Fresno Metro Ministry Environmental Health Program. 

Keep it brief. I agree with many of the comments 

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already made. We also have been participating primarily 

in Fresno County COG planning. I sit on the Environmental 

Justice Taskforce for the COG. And we have been following 

this for very long time as well. In fact, I remember when 

I was pregnant with my son, who is now two-and-a-half. We 

were organizing people to advocate for the targets. And 

we're pleased that we have now found we can meet them. We 

were, as many people mentioned, not sure we would get to 

this point. So we are very pleased that we have gotten to 

the point where we all agree these are reasonable targets. 

And now we can look at more ambitious targets in the 

future. 

So just wanted to put on the record that we 

appreciate your revision and oversight of this process. 

We want to make sure that it goes as smoothly as possible. 

We are and will be participating in the SCS implementation 

and development in Fresno County. And we have been very 

active in getting more people involved and able to 

understand what is happening with this and how much it can 

benefit our communities. 

We think that there are, as you said, co-benefits 

that are numerous for clean air, public health, and as you 

know, sprawl is a major issue in Fresno and our 

neighboring counties. So we think this is a huge 

opportunity. We appreciate your efforts and want to 

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encourage you to have as much oversight as possible. 

Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Thanks. 

Gary Lasky. 

Mr. LASKY: Gary Lasky, Sierra Club Tehipite 

Chapter in Fresno. 

I wish to clarify a remark I made earlier. There 

are 150,000 members of the Sierra Club in California. And 

we cover four counties, our chapter. I'm the Vice Chair 

of Fresno, Merced, Madera, and Mariposa. Three of these 

are within the air district in the Valley. 

And our focus this coming year is going to be on 

working with Madera County to have the best possible SCS 

document they can obtain. We're deleted that the 

outlining counties, in particular, Tulare and Madera 

recently have agreed to the five and ten percent reduction 

in vehicle miles traveled. 

I just wish to take a minute here and clarify 

that in an emerging and sprawling place where there is an 

opportunity for housing development, such as Madera 

County, we have a number of developments that are 

presently proposed. One is under litigation right now 

where Caltrans as well as the city of Fresno and others 

have filed suit. That's because one reason is the traffic 

that will be generated will be just enormous. Not only 

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the vehicle trips, but the conjunction. 

The developers have proposed that there be 

jobs/housing balance, three million square feet in one 

project for light industrial and commercial development. 

But the question is we've learned elsewhere in the state 

of experiences in Contra Costa County and Orange County 

back when I was a Ph.D. student down in Irvine that you 

may build the housing and try to find jobs there, but the 

people that can afford the housing in that community -- 

the people who work in that community may have to commute 

in from a lower cost housing place. So you end up with 

what may appear to be a housing/jobs balance on paper, but 

in reality you have commuters going both directions. 

That's something we want to avoid. 

The good news is that with these five and ten 

percent guidelines, they're per capita, so that even 

though we increase our population, we have the potential 

to reach and exceed the reductions that are proposed in 

the VMT target. 

And want to thank you all for your participation 

and particularly for the work before the Regional Policy 

Council when I was there last fall, and I recognize that 

CARB was doing their very best to help these different 

MPOs work together. And now that they have, we want to be 

sure that each one will be able to reach or exceed their 

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targets of five or ten percent. Thank you very much.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Roy Kendall. 

MR. KENDALL: Good afternoon and thank you for 

the opportunity. 

My name is Roy Kendall. I'm from Visalia, 

California, and I'd like to offer three ideas. They're 

not necessarily new ideas. There's almost no new ideas. 

But these are just ideas that need to be considered to 

improve our air quality. 

Number one is we just strictly enforce the 

existing, that is the current, speed limits on all our 

roads -- not just 99, 5, but in the city limits we 

strictly enforce the existing speed limits, you know we're 

going to reduce air pollution. It's a given. Lower 

speeds, lower air pollution. Higher speed, higher air 

pollution. 

Number two is a given also. And everybody knows 

this. And that is that we tax cigarettes as a source of 

first and secondhand smoke. Additional tax as a source of 

air pollution. 

And then third, that we just ban all fireplaces. 

We ban outdoor incinerators, and now we just need to ban 

indoor incinerators across the board. And I just wanted 

to let you know I agree with Gordon Nipp and the Sierra 

Club that we need to reject and improve. Thank you very 

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much.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Thank you. 

Brian Newton. 

Mr. NEWTON: Good afternoon, Madam Chair, Board 

members, and staff. Thank you for the work that you do. 

My name is Brian Newton. I'm a founding member 

of Tulare County Citizens for Responsible Growth. We're a 

signatory to the platform that has been handed to you 

today. 

Our organization has been working on the Tulare 

County General Plan since 2005. We see rigorous 

implementation of SB 375 as an important piece of a much 

larger puzzle that might, if we're lucky and work hard, 

lead to more resource-efficient growth, improve the 

quality of life, for my, my family, and our neighbors, and 

make an important statement in the much larger challenge 

of climate change. 

Frankly, we expect Tulare County to drag its 

heels in embracing and implementing SB 375. So we need 

you, you and your staff, to push hard on Tulare and other 

counties to track progress or lack thereof on the VMT 

targets and to fully realize the many potential benefits 

of this important law. 

On a more personal note, my wife and I have lived 

in Visalia since 18980. We raised our daughter there, but 

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she lives in the Colorado Rockies. She has hinted she 

would like to return to Visalia to live. However, her 

first child will be born in June. And in good conscious, 

for the health of her child and our grandchild, I feel I 

must discourage her desire to move back here until the 

Valley's air quality improves. Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Thank you. 

Felicity Lyons. 

MS. LYONS: Hello, Chairman Nichols and 

California Air Resources Board. Thanks for the 

opportunity to talk about the San Joaquin Valley SB 375 

targets with you today. 

My name is Felicity Lyons. I'm the Sustainable 

Communities Coordinator at Housing California in 

Sacramento. And for those of you who don't know what we 

do, we are the voice in the State Capitol for children and 

seniors and families, people experiencing homelessness and 

everyone who needs a safe, stable, affordable place for 

people to call home. 

We've also signed onto the platform that you 

received a copy of and others have mentioned. And I just 

wanted to talk a little bit about the study that was 

referenced by the ARB staff that talked about the demand 

for small lot single family homes and attached family 

housing units, such as apartments and townhomes. The 

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result of the study should be weighed heavily when 

planning for new development in the Valley, more focused 

growth pattern will save Valley households in driving and 

utility cost. 

I also wanted to echo Mr. Lasky's comments about 

the jobs/housing balance and discuss that the jobs/housing 

fit is sort of the term that we use to make sure there is 

a good balance between wages and affordability of homes. 

And you'll find a description of that in our platform. 

In addition to new housing development, the 

economic success of the San Joaquin Valley is dependant on 

low-wage workers, many of whom will never move into the 

newly constructed homes. So their existing homes are 

important to consider. Many live in dilapidated housing 

conditions, often in communities that lack basic 

infrastructure and opportunities for economic advancement. 

And so careful planning should ensure that all of these 

residents, especially low-wage workers are able to live 

where they work, use public transportation to get where 

they need to go and lead healthy lifestyles. 

Regarding the targets, I also concur with the 

comment by others that each county individually should 

meet the targets of five and ten percent, and they should 

be recorded separately in order some ensure transparency 

to the public. As the Valleys work together, the public 

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should included in determining what guidance is provided 

by ARB. 

Finally, ARB should help to ensure that SB 375 

provide the benefits for residents across the San Joaquin 

Valley and that no community or residents are left behind 

by helping the Valley COGs to access the state-of-the-art 

methods that are available to identify environmental 

justice communities and examine health and equity benefits 

of scenarios and also perhaps form a panel of 

environmental justice experts and fund research projects 

on equity and environmental justice issues to provide 

technical assistance to the Council of governments. 

Thank you for your time today. Housing 

California and our local partners here in the Valley look 

forward to continued engagement on SB 375 implementation.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Okay. Thanks. 

Virginia Madueno. 

MS. MADUENO: Good afternoon, Chair Nichols, and 

distinguished members of the Air Resources Board. 

My name is Virginia Madueno, and I'm a life-long 

resident of the San Joaquin Valley. I'm also a small 

business owner, community leader, and a community 

advocate. 

I'm here to tell you or to ask you to continue to 

do the good work that you're doing and to do diligence in 

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working with our Valley COGs. Greater emphasis should be 

placed on how we can all come together as a region to show 

a real commitment and ensuring a better quality of life 

for our residents. 

Our Valley deserves leadership that can support 

an effort in helping to improve air quality for all. 

We applaud the work already done and know that 

every county in the Valley can and should continue to do 

its due diligence in meeting the targets. 

As a business owner, I recognize the importance 

and to find solutions for businesses and residence in the 

Valley to co-exist. It's a matter of coming together and 

finding meaningful dialog where we can again come together 

and find solutions that make sense for us as a Valley. I 

thank you for your time.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Craig Brown. 

MR. BREON: Good afternoon. Craig Breon, like 

Bri on crackers, without the crackers. 

I'm the Regional Climate Change Program Director 

for the Sierra Nevada Alliance. We have 85 member groups 

up and down 400 miles of the Sierra, many in the southern 

Sierra. 

Part of my involvement here is to remind people 

while we continually say this is the San Joaquin Valley 

for the counties Madera, Fresno, Tulare, and Kern have 

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substantial land in the Sierra. And the decision made 

under this law have heavy impacts, both for the future 

growth pressure and for the air quality of the southern 

Sierra. 

In coming down here, I was thinking of a cartoon. 

I have it on my computer, but I have to give the visual. 

It's a room like this with a banner that says, 

"Climate Summit," and the PowerPoint presentation has 

energy independence, preserve forests, sustainability, 

green jobs, livable cities, renewables, clean water, 

healthy children, et cetera. And then there is a 

curmudgeon in the back saying, "What if it's all a big 

hoax and we create a better world for nothing?" 

Even if you didn't think that SB 375 was going to 

do great things to reduce vehicle miles traveled and 

therefore greenhouse gases, as Chair Nichols was talking 

about the co-benefits, what this law can do in a modest 

form in the next 10 to 15 years, if implemented right, is 

bring us a little more affordable housing to these 

communities, to allow lower income people to spend a 

little less money on transportation on a yearly basis, to 

have some additional preservation of farmlands and 

foothills, and to have slightly more optimistic outlooks 

for our local jurisdiction's budgets. But those 

co-benefits alone make this something tremendously 

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valuable. 

And there's a lot of us in this room that are 

going to help with the heavy lifting here. It's the 

general plans, the individual development projects, the 

transportation projects that come forward. But if you 

guys set the ground rules or help set the ground rules, 

you've heard what many of us who have signed onto 

this platform, including my organization, have emphasized 

in terms of what we'd like you to focus on. 

I hope you do read through this. It took a long 

time for us to put it together and a lot of different 

groups and different interests to come up with what we 

thought our recommendations for the right path forward 

here were. 

And I urge you to work today in what you say to 

us, tomorrow in what you say to your staff, and in the 

next months in what you say to the local jurisdictions 

here to realize the benefits of this fairly important law.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Thanks. 

Daniel O'Connell and then Autumn Bernstein. 

MR. O'CONNELL: Hi. Thank you for coming down to 

the Valley and listening to us. 

Daniel O'Connell, San Joaquin representative for 

American Farmland Trust. 

And I wanted to start and propose that land use 

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policy is going to be integral to the implementation of 

SCS and RTP objectives in San Joaquin Valley. I'm going 

to illustrate that in a few PowerPoint slides in a moment. 

But I wanted to start off by acknowledging and 

referencing this document that AFT also signed onto. And 

it's been called a platform. And I'm still wondering what 

the correct wording of this is. An enormously diverse 

amount of public interest organizations worked together 

for a very long time to do this. 

And it's our -- so what is it? I wrote down it's 

an expression of values. It's an articulation of a 

process. And it's an avenue for civic engagement and 

education, not only amongst ourselves as we learn and work 

together, listening deeply to each other and all of our 

own personal concerns or interests, but how we're going to 

interact with COGs, with you. This is the Valley in a lot 

of ways speaking what we see and want. 

The opportunities and promises of the SCS are 

extraordinary. And you hear often the co-benefits 

represent for me, as we worked on this platform, I think 

it's starting to represent a vision for the Valley where 

we want to go. 

So this is in there. And this is the 

conservation portion of it. I'm just going to pass by it 

pretty quickly for time's sake. But it lays out a process 

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that a COG or the people working on a general plan in a 

city or a county can work on. It's a process there for 

conservation and how they can interact with SCS. 

Let's move onto the San Joaquin Valley. This map 

juxtaposes irrigated farmland with irrigated areas. The 

dark green are prime or statewide importance under the 

Department of Conservation's mapping. The light green 

have some problems, high salinity, water problems, 

environmental sensitivity. 

Let's take a closer look. An enlargement of the 

map shows projected urban development in red and orange. 

If the current trends continue, all of those areas in red 

and orange will be developed. The red would be saved if 

the B-plus scenario of the San Joaquin Valley blueprint is 

implemented. Juxtaposing urban expansion with the 

Valley's prime farmland puts a premium on efficiency of 

development. Developing land efficiently for each new 

person, job, and dollar of economic activity. 

How is San Joaquin Valley doing with its 

efficiency of development? We're developing a six-people 

per acre. As you see, it's very low. How I frame this is 

we are one of the least efficient, yet we have the most 

valuable resources, and extraordinary problems that the 

co-benefits of this sort of planning and SCS would greatly 

help.

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--o0o--

MR. O'CONNELL: I'd like to end with this picture 

of Los Angeles in 1915. Up until 1955, it was the most 

productive ag region in the United States for more 

evidence and research AFT has a new report that I referred 

to accept in calling saving farmland and growing cities

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: We do have your report. 

MR. O'CONNELL: Thank you very much for coming 

down here. 

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: I saw it in advance. 

Appreciate you guys are working on this. Of course, it's 

about land use.

Autumn Bernstein and then Curt Johansen and Keith 

Bergthold. 

MS. BERNSTEIN: Good afternoon, Madam Chair, 

members of the Board. My name is Autumn Bernstein. I'm 

the Director of Climate Plan. We're a statewide coalition 

working to advance sustainable and equitable communities. 

And SB 375 is a major focus. 

It's nice to see you all again. It's nice to be 

here at this point in the process with so much success 

with SB 375 around the state. And now here we are in one 

of the most challenging regions and regions with the 

greatest opportunity. So I want to commend both your 

staff as well as the COGs here in the Valley for the 

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tremendous amount of work they've done so far getting us 

to this point where we are finally having a conversation, 

not about the targets, but about what the vision is for 

the Valley and how we can achieve those targets in a way 

that maximizes benefits. So we're really excited to be at 

this point. 

But we also do have concerns. And we want to 

encourage your leadership to make sure that we follow 

through with the remainder of this year to the finish line 

where we have strong SCSs for all eight Valley counties. 

I have some specific recommendation, as you can 

imagine, for how to make that happen. So we think that 

having a single Valley-wide target makes a lot of sense. 

This is one region. There are many trips that go across 

county lines. It makes a lot of sense. We want to make 

sure that we don't have a situation where progress is 

inequitably distributed across the region. 

When we are looking at the SCAG SCS, I'm sure you 

remember there were a lot of concerns about equity of air 

quality impacts in the region, places like L.A. that are 

investing in transit are going to see better air quality 

improvements and places like the Inland Empire, we're not 

going to see the same improvements. 

We think the potential exists for that on a 

massive scale here in the San Joaquin Valley if we have a 

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situation where some of the COGs are doing all the heavy 

lifting and others are sitting on the sidelines. We can't 

have anyone sitting on the sidelines, and we can't have 

any back sliding. That's what got San Diego into trouble. 

And currently, at least one of the COGs here in Valley is 

anticipating they are going to back slide with their IGG 

reductions. 

So we need your leadership to make sure that 

every single county is achieving the targets. There are 

ways we can encourage those counties that are doing the 

most, like Fresno, to do as much as they can. And we can 

hold the others accountable who might otherwise sit on the 

sidelines. So we really encourage you to have your staff 

work with the COGs in the coming months to clarify how 

this is going to play out, how the target of -- how we're 

going to demonstrate that we've achieved the targets in 

every county and make sure that everyone is taking 

ambitious action. 

And lastly, I would say while there has been a 

lot of progress with the technical tools in the Valley, 

there are a lot of issues that are unresolved. And we 

hope you will be paying close attention to issues like 

inter-regional travel and making sure assumptions are 

consistent across regions. Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Thanks. Appreciate that. 

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Curt Johansen. 

MR. JOHANSEN: Good afternoon. Thank you very 

much. My name is Curt Johansen. As President and on 

behalf of the Council of Infill Builders, we appreciate 

the opportunity to speak to you today. 

The Council of Infill Builders is a nonprofit 

corporation of real estate professionals committed to 

improving California throughout infill development. The 

builders seek to educate the public and decision makers 

about the benefits of well-planned, sustainable infill by 

conducting and supporting research on market based 

solutions for healthy, prosperous and complete 

communities. We are pleased to be here today to present, 

"A Home for Everyone," San Joaquin Valley Housing 

Preferences and Opportunities to 2050 by Arthur C. Nelson 

as a contribution to the scholarship on infill development 

in California. We hope this scholarship and data will 

improve the decision making process related to growth and 

development in California's Central Valley and lead to 

improved air quality outcomes for its cities and counties. 

As Lezlie mentioned, the report concludes based 

on consumer preference data and economic trends that up to 

45 percent of all the residential construction between 

2010 and 2050 will need to be attached homes, as opposed 

to stand-alone single-family residences if we are to meet 

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future demand in the Valley. That's 37 percent of the 

housing supply, compared to the 30 percent that exists 

today. 

While demand for large lot homes will still exist 

as a piece of the market going forward, since 86 percent 

of the Valley housing supply is already skewed to the 

single housing type, the great majority of all new 

detached homes moving forward should be on small infill 

lots to meet the rising demand. 

The Valley can accommodate much of this future 

demand by developing an existing urban and suburban 

centers and commercial corridors and converting existing 

non-residential buildings and vacant land to multi-family 

housing. The consequence of this would be preserved 

farmland, more efficient use of energy, support for 

transit and more livable communities with reduced air 

pollution. 

Positive legacies for the environment as well as 

for society no longer need to be seen as opposing forces. 

These legacies are not measured in months or years. They 

are measured in decades and generations. Our children are 

depending on us to get this right. 

As California transitions to an ethical use of 

its land, the Council of Infill Builders is proud to be 

working with you on the front lines of that transition. 

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Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Thank you. Thanks for your 

work. 

Keith Bergthold. 

MR. BERGTHOLD: Good afternoon. Very grateful 

for you to be in the Valley and considering what we're up 

against here. 

I'm Keith Bergthold. I lead the planning team at 

the City of Fresno, who is developing the new general 

plan. Our City Manager, Mark Scott, sent you a letter 

before this meeting. We are very admiring the work of our 

Valley COGs. It's excellent work. It's very necessary 

work. It's not sufficient for implementation. 

You have eight counties and 62 cities with land 

use zoning and entitlement powers. If they don't figure 

out how to implement SB 375, this is sort of just a talk 

we're having. I think the ground game is playing out in 

the press now with regard to the relationships of 

different cities and counties. There's lot of new 

unincorporated development proposed that does not comply 

with SB 375, unless they have their own set of facts. 

So we're really encouraging you to consider a lot 

more conversation, engaging maybe some task forces to talk 

about the reality of implementation and the feasibility of 

doing these things together as cities and counties led by 

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the kind of technical expertise that our COGs bring to the 

table. We are hoping that you won't just consider an 

aggregate target that we feel won't get traction. We need 

another conversation about this. And we're grateful for 

your consideration.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Amanda Eaken. 

MS. EAKEN: Good afternoon, Madam Chair, members 

of the Board. Amanda Eaken with the Natural Resources 

Defense Council. 

I know you've all been sitting for a long time 

and are probably very hungry, so I'll be brief. 

I do want to thank your staff and also the staff 

at the Valley cities, counties, and COGs for the last few 

years to implement SB 375. 

Now, you've heard a lot, probably too much, about 

targets, the Valley-wide target. And I can actually see 

both sides of this conversation, but I do want to say 

this: I personally would not want to be the Executive 

Director of an MPO that did not meet the five and ten 

targets. We're all for collaboration, but we feel that 

every MPO can find a way to meet this performance 

standard. And for those MPO showing back sliding, I think 

that has been proven to be a bad strategy in the past. 

As a devoted member of the Targets Advisory 

Committee, I do want to ask, could we move on from the 

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subject of targets and start talking about strategies? I 

think that's a much more interesting and important 

conversation, is what strategies we can put into place to 

strengthen our communities, clean our air, and improve 

public health. 

You heard from Ms. Kimura about two recent 

reports that offer strategies, building -- and also from 

Mr. Johansen -- building a mix of housing types to meet 

the demands of a diverse housing market, as the Counsel of 

Infill Builders recommends, can help to save farmland, as 

the American Farmland Trust urges. 

As we've seen from some of the other successful 

SCSs, preliminary analysis suggests that this strategy 

could save hundreds of square miles of farmland, hundreds 

of millions of dollars a year in public health costs, and 

reduce infrastructure cost. 

I think the nice thing about being the region to 

go last in this process, it shouldn't be a mystery at this 

point in the process what strategies -- okay. 

I just want to thank the MPOs for their efforts 

to outreach to our groups and take our recommendations and 

look forward to process moving forward. Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Thanks. I know you've been 

working hard on this issue and it is complicated and 

obviously still unfolding. So we appreciate the basic 

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message that we've been getting here. 

We have three more witnesses here, Byanka 

Santoya, Dennis Fox, and Mike Wells. I know you signed up 

for public comment, but it's about 375. So let's hear 

from them and then we'll have a little discussion. 

MS. SANTOYA: Hi again. Good afternoon. I'm 

Byanka Santoya, resident from Arvin. 

I'm in support for the SB 375 because, as our 

Valley created these plans, we ask -- we ask you and the 

county to have -- to strongly consider for our 

environmental justice our need to have these COGs help us 

to create clean air in our communities with bad air 

quality, as we want to see the benefits of the outcomes of 

the health of the communities at this point. 

So thank you very much.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Thank you. 

Dennis Fox. 

MR. FOX: Madam Chairwoman, members of the Board, 

I'm Dennis Fox. And I'm going to talk to three negative 

externalities. And some things I don't have answers for. 

I think they're in your purview. 

One is the -- we've been talking about the 

fireplace burning. And I don't know if you are aware 

of -- I'm not -- of the results of Oregon and Colorado's 

use of catalytic converters on fireplaces and stoves. And 

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I want it to be cost effective -- if people have such a -- 

this would be at the state level -- 

BOARD MEMBER DE LA TORRE: Can you raise the 

microphone a little bit, please? 

MR. FOX: Oh, okay. Thank you. Maybe you don't 

want to.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: I think if you're going to 

be standing there, we should be listening. 

MR. FOX: Well, anyway, it might be cost 

effective if you gave a tax credit to people who purchased 

a catalytic converters, if they're worthwhile, which you 

would have the information for. 

And you can fund that like Ruckelshaus founded 

the EPA by carrot and the stick, but putting a tax on 

fireplaces and fireplaces would pay it on new 

construction. But ones that have catalytic converters 

would get a tax credit. 

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: I'm sorry. Your comment 

isn't really related to SB 375. 

MR. FOX: Yeah. The main thing is the some of a 

few things that get to us is some of the things like the 

city has with -- we don't coordinate our lights here. I 

don't think we can. And we would need help for you and 

that is a major impact. 

The other major impact -- that's why I say I 

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don't think we should be blaming everybody else here that 

our air comes from other places. However, permits are 

given elsewhere for impacts here. Burning permits are 

given from San Luis Obispo County for areas in our air 

basin. How you handle that's your problem. 

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: I think you have some 

questions which deserve answers. Maybe not right here. 

Maybe you could send a letter and we'll get you some 

answers. We could do that. Okay. Thanks. 

Mike Wells. 

MR. WELLS: Good afternoon. Mike Wells from 

Fresno Metro Ministry. 

Just wanted to thank you again for coming to the 

Valley and for the work that you do statewide that helps 

us to be able to see our mountains and at the same time 

has a lot of other co-benefits, as several people have 

mentioned before. It helps our health, and that's one of 

the things that our organization is a strong advocate for. 

I love SB 375. In our organization, we have an 

environmental health program that has been focused on air 

quality. We have an obesity prevention program that's 

focused on strategies for reducing obesity. And we have 

hunger and nutrition programs that works on the local food 

slow food movement. And SB 375 has given us an 

opportunity to collaborate, pull all of these programs 

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together. Almost every strategy that SB 375 especially 

requires of local jurisdictions to reduce greenhouse gases 

has huge implications for quality of life, for public 

health. 

And one of the projects that we have is Smart 

Valley Places, is a HUD and EPA grant that helps 14 other 

cities in the Valley to implement some of these 

strategies. And it also -- we have a Community Leadership 

Institute in those 14 cities where dozens of people in 

each of those cities who normally don't engage in these 

kinds of issues, who would never show any interest on 

things that would save the polar bears, all of a sudden 

they're delighted to find out the things going on at the 

City Council, Fresno City Council, dozens of people turned 

out to speak in different languages to advocate for the 

alternative for our cities' growth that is not only saving 

our farmland, it's reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but 

it's just good for quality of life. 

And I guess the one comment I want to echo is 

that we're all for the importance of regional cooperation 

and coordination of these efforts, as Keith mentioned. 

Without the regional coordination, it's just not going to 

happen. It's not going to work. 

But we're also very much in favor of the local 

accountability that each county needs to attain their 

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targets that have been set. And so we want to just 

continue to advocate for that. And again thank you very 

much for the work you're doing.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Thank you. 

Thanks to everybody. I know we said that before, 

but not just for coming here today to talk to us, but for 

the work that you all are putting in to make this program 

succeed. It is remarkable the amount of citizen activism 

and focus that has been leveraged. 

When SB 375 passed and was signed, I think many 

of us were hopeful, but we couldn't be sure, that this 

would actually lead to the kind of results that we're 

seeing here. And somebody who has worked on some of these 

issues for a very long time, you know, even to hear the 

words "regionalism" being spoken in some quarters where it 

is today I just think wouldn't have happened a while ago. 

So it really has been a sea change, even though 

it in some cases taken a very long time and we're 

certainly not done yet, by any means. 

The basic theme that I think I have heard from 

just about every single speaker is we need to have the 

regional targets and they need to be good. But we also 

need to make sure that every county and every jurisdiction 

is participating and doing their bit. Nobody wants to be 

the one, you know, admittedly shining student, but never 

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the less the only one who's following the rules if other 

people aren't. And it is going to take a sense of equity 

if you're going to keep even the more progressive, if I 

may use that word, jurisdictions implementing programs if 

they see their neighbors not doing it. And particularly 

if people get rewarded for not participating. 

So clearly, this is a delicate task because 

people start from different places, not just politically, 

but in terms of their actual on-the-ground land use and 

economic base and so forth. All counties are not created 

equal exactly. And so getting everybody to move forward 

in parallel or working together, while recognizing those 

differences, is what the challenge is. 

But you know, we've got some amazing talent 

that's appeared here today. People who are investing not 

just their personal time and expertise, but bringing other 

resources for their organizations and doing studies and 

reports and all of that. 

So I think it's fair to say that this is a good 

news story overall and that we should, as a Board, do 

everything we can to encourage you. And I know our staff 

is spending time here and has devoted a lot of attention 

to delivering messages, but not being heavy handed, but at 

the same time, giving enough information and sense of 

policy direction so that, you know, the ARB hasn't just 

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disappeared from the scene and left everybody on their own 

until we come back in and say, "Oops, you didn't do it 

right." I think we've been present but hopefully not 

overbearing throughout all this process. And I think we 

need to just continue on that path. I think it's working 

pretty well. 

Dr. Sperling. 

BOARD MEMBER SPERLING: Just one sort of closing 

comment, not implying that no one else should say 

anything. But I know we're all in a rush to get out. 

As someone who has tracked this from the 

beginning and actually on the research side of it for 

decades, I do want to reiterate that it really is 

impressive progress here what's happened in the last few 

years and the change in attitudes and the engagement that 

we're starting to see. 

And I do want to emphasize as many -- what I want 

to emphasize is, as many speakers did say, that the goal 

here really is revitalized communities, healthy 

communities, better use of land. That's what it's really 

about in the end. 

And I also want to say that those cities and 

counties that are serious about these goals that -- to get 

more desirable communities, more sustainable economically 

successful communities, they're going to achieve that. 

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But they're also going to be well-positioned for future 

funding that is very likely to be available for those 

communities that are making good progress in achieving the 

goals that we're talking about here. 

So I just want to lay that out as just another 

inducement to be doing the right thing. Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Thank you. 

Yes, Dr. Sherriffs. 

BOARD MEMBER SHERRIFFS: We're all hungry and 

getting a little irritable. I'm getting irritable. 

I'm just reminded from this discussion -- again, 

really appreciate the testimony. And really appreciate 

the involvement of the various governmental agencies, 

particularly the public and people of the advocacy groups 

being involved in this. It's that engagement that's 

needed to move this forward. 

But SB 375 means something different in every 

part of the state. And yes, the focus is on greenhouse 

gas emissions and concerns there, climate change, but that 

means something very different in the Valley. This is an 

agricultural valley. I think I don't think there is 

anybody in the room who saw that picture of L.A. in 1955 

and said, "Oh, that's not what we want. We want a 

different vision here in the Valley." 

And this really -- there is a special threat to 

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agriculture and special opportunities. And there's so 

many co-benefits that come out of this in terms of ozone 

pollution, PM2.5, in terms of smarter planning, preserving 

agricultural land. But in terms of what we need to do in 

terms of these greenhouse gases and the threat that 

represents to agriculture and the way of life, it's going 

to change what happens with water. It's going to change 

where certain crops can be planted. This potentially is a 

huge impact on the Valley. So wonderful to hear this 

engagement.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Thank you. 

Any other comments on this item? Yes. 

BOARD MEMBER D'ADAMO: Just want to key off on 

something that Keith from Fresno mentioned. And that is 

task force. I would just say pick up the phone and call 

us, you know. This is your plan, each individual county's 

plan, the region's plan. And wherever you think that we 

can be helpful, just get ahold of us. And really want to 

complement those that are here from the COGs, the Regional 

Policy Council. That is where -- my opinion is that's 

where things started to turn around. And I know you put a 

lot of time into this, and I know you're very committed in 

going forward. Look forward to working with you.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: I would just second those 

comments. It has really been remarkable to see the strong 

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work coming out of the Valley COGs. And I think at the 

beginning people were not expecting that. So it's been -- 

that's been a terrific thing. 

Okay. We have no action to take on this item. 

We're just sending you forth with our blessings and desire 

to keep it up and do more. 

And with that, we're not quite ready to adjourn 

because we're required to take public testimony or comment 

on anything that anybody wants to say to us while we're 

sitting here. And we have two people who said they want 

to do that. They are Mr. Giegos and again Mike Wells. 

This is on matters other than those that we've just been 

hearing about, if you wish to come forward. 

MR. WELLS: I didn't have public comment.

CHAIRPERSON NICHOLS: Oh, you were put in the 

wrong spot then. Thank you. You spoke very eloquently 

before. There was a Mr. Giegos who apparently was here 

earlier. We're not seeing him right now. 

The meeting is adjourned. Thank you all very 

much. 

(Whereupon the Air Resources Board meeting

adjourned at 1:44 PM)

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CERTIFICATE OF REPORTER

I, TIFFANY C. KRAFT, a Certified Shorthand 

Reporter of the State of California, and Registered 

Professional Reporter, do hereby certify:

That I am a disinterested person herein; that the 

foregoing hearing was reported in shorthand by me, 

Tiffany C. Kraft, a Certified Shorthand Reporter of the 

State of California, and thereafter transcribed into 

typewriting.

I further certify that I am not of counsel or 

attorney for any of the parties to said hearing nor in any 

way interested in the outcome of said hearing.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand 

this 7th day of February, 2013.

 

TIFFANY C. KRAFT, CSR, RPR

Certified Shorthand Reporter

License No. 12277 

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