Bay Area Air Quality Regulators First in the U.S. to Assess Carbon Fee
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The Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD) recently became the first air quality regulatory body in the U.S. to approve a carbon fee. Beginning July 1, 2008, 2,500 hundred businesses in the nine Bay Area counties will pay $0.044 per ton of carbon dioxide they emit. The $1.1 million the District expects to raise with the fee each year will fund the collecting and tracking of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, according to the BAAQMD. The top 10 GHG emitters, including the region's five oil refineries, will together pay more than $820,000, while most regulated businesses will pay $1 or less annually. UC Berkeley energy policy expert Dan Kammen told Greentech Media's Green Light blog that the fee is "not enough of a cost to change behavior, but it tells us where things are headed. You have to think not just in financial terms, but in carbon terms." Affected businesses, in particular the refineries as represented by the Western States Petroleum Association, say they are worried not so much by the cost of the fee itself but its possible interference with the California Air Resources Board's implementation of AB 32.