Bill Text: CA SB674 | 2023-2024 | Regular Session | Amended

California Senate Bill 674

NOTE: There are more recent revisions of this legislation. Read Latest Draft

Bill Title: Air pollution: covered facilities: community air monitoring systems: fence-line monitoring systems.

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 9-0)

Status: (Vetoed) 2024-08-19 - In Senate. Consideration of Governor's veto pending. [SB674 Detail]

Download: California-2023-SB674-Amended.html

Amended IN Senate April 10, 2023

CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE— 2023–2024 REGULAR SESSION

Senate Bill

No. 674

Introduced by Senator Gonzalez
(Coauthor: Senator Skinner)

February 16, 2023

An act to amend Section 42705.6 of the Health and Safety Code, relating to air pollution.

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST

SB 674, as amended, Gonzalez. Air pollution: refineries: community air monitoring systems: fence-line monitoring systems.

Existing law requires a refinery-related community air monitoring system to be installed near each petroleum refinery that meets certain requirements. Existing law requires the owner or operator of a petroleum refinery to develop, install, operate, and maintain a fence-line monitoring system in accordance with guidance developed by the appropriate air quality management district or air pollution control district. Existing law requires the air districts and the owners or operators of refineries to collect real-time data from those monitoring systems, to maintain records of that data, and, to the extent feasible, provide to the public those data in a publicly accessible format.

This bill would extend the above requirements to refineries engaging in other types of refining processes, including those using noncrude oil feedstock, and to auxiliary facilities. The bill would require the refinery-related community air monitoring system and the fence-line monitoring system to be installed on or before January 1, 2026, and after a 30-day public comment period and those systems to be updated, as specified. The bill would require the appropriate air district to establish pollutants for the monitoring systems to monitor and would include certain pollutants identified by the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment. The bill would authorize the air district to exclude a pollutant for monitoring at those monitoring systems, as provided. The bill would require air districts, on a 5-year basis, to review the list of pollutants being measured and would authorize the air districts to revise the list, as provided. The bill would require the air districts and the owners and operators of refineries to maintain records of the data collected from those systems for at least 5 years and would require the owners and operators to post online, and to notify the public of the availability of, quarterly reports containing certain information. The bill would require owners and operators of refineries to notify the air district and the public, as provided, as quickly as possible of any exceedances of the lowest available one-hour average reference exposure levels set by the office or the United States Environmental Protection Agency. The bill would require the owners or operators of refineries, within 24 hours of a fence-line monitoring system detecting an exceedance of a historical one-hour average concentration of any measured pollutant, to initiate a root cause analysis and to determine appropriate corrective action, as provided. The bill would require the owners or operators of refineries to conduct third-party audits of its fence-line monitoring system, as provided, to ensure the accuracy of the system. Because the bill would impose additional duties on air districts, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program.

Under existing law a violation of requirements for stationary sources, or any rule, regulation, permit, or order of the state board or of an air district is a crime.

Because this bill would impose the monitoring systems requirement on owners or operators of refineries engaging in other types of refining processes, as defined, and would impose additional requirements on owners and operators of refineries, a violation of which would be a crime, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program.

The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement.

This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for specified reasons.

Vote: MAJORITY Appropriation: NO Fiscal Committee: YES Local Program: YES

The people of the State of California do enact as follows:

SECTION 1.

This act shall be known, and may be cited, as the Refinery Air Pollution Transparency and Reduction Act.

SEC. 2.

Section 42705.6 of the Health and Safety Code is amended to read:

42705.6.

(a) For purposes of this section, the following definitions apply:

(1) “Auxiliary facilities” means any site necessary to support refining processes at a refinery, including storage tanks, hydrogen plants, sulfuric acid plants, port terminals, and electrical generation plants that receive or provide more than 50 percent of their input from, or production output to, the refinery.

(2) “Biofuel” means biodiesel, renewable diesel, and renewable aviation fuel, and other products derived from noncrude oil feedstock.

(3) “Fence-line monitoring system” means equipment that measures and records ambient air pollutant concentrations at or adjacent to a refinery and that detects and estimates the quantity of fugitive emissions, gas leaks, and other air emissions from the refinery and that may be useful for estimating associated pollutant exposures and health risks and in determining trends in air pollutant levels over time.

(4) “Refinery” means an establishment that is located on one or more adjacent properties that is primarily involved in refining processes and related auxiliary facilities.

(5) “Refinery-related community air monitoring system” means equipment that measures and records air pollutant concentrations in the ambient air at or near sensitive receptor locations near a refinery and that may be useful for estimating associated pollutant exposures and health risks and in determining trends in air pollutant levels over time.

(6) “Refining processes” means the production, separation, conversion, treating, handling, or blending of gasoline, diesel fuel, aviation fuel, biofuel, petroleum distillates, lubricating oils, petroleum coke, asphalt, or petrochemicals, among other products derived from petroleum and alternative feedstock.

(7) “Sensitive receptor” has the same meaning as set forth in Section 42705.5.

(b) Notwithstanding Section 42708, and on or before January 1, 2026, a refinery-related community air monitoring system shall, after a 30-day public comment period, be installed near each refinery that is consistent with the requirements and guidance applicable to the siting of air quality monitors as established by the United States Environmental Protection Agency, and be updated, as deemed necessary by the state board, within 120 days of amendments to the guidance by the United States Environmental Protection Agency, that meets both of the following requirements:

(1) A district shall design, develop, install, operate, and maintain the refinery-related community air monitoring system, which shall be operated and maintained in accordance with guidance from the appropriate district. A district may contract with a third party to implement this paragraph.

(2) The refinery-related community air monitoring system shall include equipment capable of measuring compounds emitted to the atmosphere from refinery processes, meteorological parameters, and digital components capable of enabling real-time access to air pollution and meteorological measurements via an internet website and application programming interface, as determined by the appropriate district.

(c) On or before January 1, 2026, the owner or operator of a refinery shall, after a 30-day public comment period and approval by the appropriate district, develop, install, operate, and maintain a fence-line monitoring system in accordance with guidance developed by the appropriate district. The fence-line monitoring system shall cover the entire perimeter of the refinery, unless it is infeasible based on substantial evidence. The fence-line monitoring system shall include equipment capable of measuring compounds emitted to the atmosphere from refinery processes, meteorological parameters, and digital components capable of enabling real-time access to air pollution and meteorological measurements via an internet website and application programming interface.

(d) (1) The appropriate district shall establish pollutants for monitoring at refinery-related community air monitoring systems and refinery fence-line monitoring systems and shall include pollutants identified by the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, including, but not limited to, the following pollutants identified in the office’s March 2019 Analysis of Refinery Chemical Emissions and Health Effects as candidates for air monitoring at a refinery:

(A) Acetaldehyde.

(B) Ammonia.

(D) 1,3-butadiene.

(E) Cadmium.

(F) Diethanolamine.

(G) Formaldehyde.

(H) Hydrogen fluoride.

(I) Hydrogen sulfide.

(J) Manganese.

(K) Naphthalene.

(L) Nickel.

(M) Oxides of nitrogen.

(N) Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.

(O) Particulate matter.

(P) Sulfur dioxide.

(Q) Sulfuric acid.

(R) Toluene.

(2) A district may exclude a pollutant for monitoring at a refinery-related community air monitoring system and refinery fence-line monitoring system if substantial evidence supports that real-time monitoring of the pollutant is technologically infeasible or the pollutant would not be released by refining processes during routine and nonroutine operations at the refinery.

(3) A district shall, on a five-year basis, review the list of pollutants being measured and may revise the list of pollutants after considering advances in monitoring technology, reported refinery emissions, ambient air data collected by the refinery fence-line and refinery-related community monitoring systems, and any other relevant emissions information.

(e) (1) The district and the owner or operator of a refinery shall collect real-time data from the refinery-related community air monitoring system and the fence-line monitoring system and shall maintain records of that data for at least five years. The owner or operator of a refinery shall post online quarterly reports that summarize pollutant levels, variations, and trends over a three-month period timeframe and notify the public of the availability of the reports.

(2) The data generated by these systems shall be provided to the public within 24 hours in a publicly accessible and machine-readable format. The data shall be archived and made available to the public online for download through an application programming interface or other widely recognized standard and backend components shall be optimized to minimize delays in accessing data. The data shall include all historical and meteorological data, and pollution measurements and metadata, including latitude and longitude, detection limits, signal strength, calibration, and quality control checks.

(f) The owner or operator of a refinery shall conduct third-party audits, using an auditor approved by the district, of its fence-line monitoring system to ensure the system is providing accurate data, including conducting quality control checks, system calibration, and evaluation of quality control and assurance plans. The audit reports shall be submitted to the district and made available to the public online by the refinery. The third-party audits shall be conducted in accordance with the following schedule:

(1) An initial audit shall be conducted as follows:

(A) For a fence-line monitoring system installed on or after January 1, 2024, within three months after the installation and operation of the system.

(B) For a fence-line monitoring system installed before January 1, 2024, by July 1, 2024.

(2) ~~If the initial, subsequent, or followup audit does not identify deficiencies in the fence-line monitoring system, subsequent~~ Subsequent audits shall occur every two years and review at least one year of monitoring data.

(3)If an initial, subsequent, or followup audit identifies deficiencies in the fence-line monitoring system, a followup audit shall be conducted within six months of the completion of actions taken to correct the deficiencies identified in the audit.
(3) If an audit makes recommendations or identifies deficiencies in a fence-line monitoring system, the owner or operator of the refinery shall develop a corrective action plan within one month of the audit report to describe actions that will be taken to address all recommendations and deficiencies within a timeline of no more than six months. A follow-up performance audit shall be conducted within one month of completion of the corrective action plan to document the resolution of the recommendations and deficiencies identified in the audit. The owner or operator of a refinery shall implement all recommendations of the auditor for correcting deficiencies, except those that would cause a safety concern. The corrective action plan shall be submitted to the district and made available to the public online by the refinery.

(g) The owner or operator of a refinery shall notify the district and public as quickly as possible of any exceedances of the lowest available one-hour average reference exposure or concentration levels set by the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment or the United States Environmental Protection Agency that are detected by the fence-line monitoring system. At a minimum, the notification to the public shall include email and text message notifications to members of the public requesting notification by email or text message notification, as appropriate.

(h) (1) Within 24 hours of a fence-line system detecting an exceedance of a historical one-hour average concentration of any measured pollutant, the owner or operator of a refinery shall initiate a root cause analysis to locate the cause of the exceedance and to determine appropriate corrective action. The owner or operator of the refinery shall prepare and submit a report to the district and post online within five days of the exceedance explaining the root cause analysis findings and corrective action performed by the refinery. The root cause analysis shall include a visual inspection to determine the cause of the exceedance and any of the following:

(A) Optical gas imaging.

(B) Leak inspection using Method 21 under Appendix A-7 of Part 60 (commencing with Section 60.1) of Title 40 of the Code of Federal Regulations.

(C) Other test or monitoring method approved by the district, the State Air Resources Board, or the United States Environmental Protection Agency.

(2) If the root cause analysis requires corrective action, the refinery shall conduct a reinspection of the source within 14 days of the corrective action and submit a report to the district and post online.

(3) The refinery shall be assessed a civil penalty pursuant to Article 3 (commencing with Section 42400) of Chapter 4 by the district for failing to conduct a root cause analysis and take corrective action within five days.

(4) A fence-line monitoring system approved by the district shall presumptively yield credible evidence that may be used to establish whether a refinery has violated or is in violation of any plan, order, permit, rule, regulation, or law.

(i) (1) Guidance developed by a district pursuant to this section shall require the preparation of a quality control and assurance plan to ensure data quality and take into account technological capabilities and incorporate input from affected parties and, to the extent feasible, shall be informed by refinery-related guidance in the monitoring plan prepared pursuant to subdivision (b) of Section 42705.5 and the United States Environmental Protection Agency guidance on quality assurance and management plans.

(2) Guidance and rules or regulations developed by a district pursuant to this section shall be reviewed and updated every five years through a public process.

(j) (1) Except as provided in paragraph (2), the owner or operator of a refinery shall be responsible for the costs associated with implementing this section.

(2) To the extent a refinery-related community air monitoring system is intentionally used by a district to monitor emissions from sources under its jurisdiction other than a refinery, the district shall ensure the costs of the system are shared in a reasonably equitable manner.

(k) This section does not limit the authority or jurisdiction of the Environmental Protection Agency, the State Air Resources Board, or the districts, and does not prohibit a city, county, or city and county from imposing more stringent regulations, limits, or prohibitions on a refinery.

SEC. 3.

No reimbursement is required by this act pursuant to Section 6 of Article XIII B of the California Constitution because a local agency or school district has the authority to levy service charges, fees, or assessments sufficient to pay for the program or level of service mandated by this act or because costs that may be incurred by a local agency or school district will be incurred because this act creates a new crime or infraction, eliminates a crime or infraction, or changes the penalty for a crime or infraction, within the meaning of Section 17556 of the Government Code, or changes the definition of a crime within the meaning of Section 6 of Article XIII B of the California Constitution.