Existing law authorizes specified air pollution control and air quality management districts to adopt a fee applicable to motor vehicles registered in counties within that district, and requires the fee to be collected by the Department of Motor Vehicles. Existing law, until January 1, 2015, authorizes the amount of the fee to be up to $6. Existing law requires the revenues from the first $4 of the fee to be used for specified purposes. Existing law requires that the revenues from the last $2 of the fee be used for specified programs that the district determines remediate air pollution harms created by motor vehicles, including purchases of new schoolbuses pursuant to the State Air Resources Board’s Lower-Emission School Bus Program.

This bill would additionally authorize a district based on that determination to use the last $2 of the fee for programs to replace onboard natural gas tanks on schoolbuses owned by a school district that are 14 years or older, with a funding amount not to exceed $20,000 per bus and to enhance deteriorating natural gas fueling dispensers of fueling infrastructure operated by a school district, with a one-time funding amount not to exceed $500 per dispenser, pursuant to the Lower-Emission School Bus Program.

This bill would incorporate additional changes in Sections 41081 and 44229 of the Health and Safety Code, proposed by AB 470, to be operative only if AB 470 and this bill are both chaptered and become effective January 1, 2012, and this bill is chaptered last.