Locator: 49104BULLETTRAIN.
The bill would make cap-and-trade program adjustments, including renaming the program to "cap-and-invest," and would direct CARB to address affordability. For example, it directs CARB to adjust the program's price containment reserve, or price ceiling, if it determines that is necessary to protect consumers from higher prices for energy and other affected goods, and it would set carbon offset usage for compliance to no more than 6pc starting next year through the end of the program.
SB 840, a separate bill in the climate package that the legislature approved on Saturday, updates how California spends the cap-and-trade auction revenue that goes to the state's Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF). The bill would direct percentages of the revenue into funds for specific purposes, including clean transportation, wildfire prevention, agriculture and clean energy starting with the 2026-27 fiscal year. The funds would replace the continuous appropriations of program revenue that lawmakers had previously established.
The bill also maintain $1bn/yr for the state's long-delayed high-speed rail project, a priority for Newsom in his cap-and-trade extension proposal from May.
