Report 2020-114 Recommendation 5 Responses

Report 2020-114: California Air Resources Board: Improved Program Measurement Would Help California Work More Strategically to Meet Its Climate Change Goals (Release Date: February 2021)

Recommendation #5 To: Air Resources Board, State

To promote transparency and inform stakeholders, beginning in December 2021, CARB should prepare an annual report for its board and the Legislature on its progress in isolating the GHG emissions reductions attributable to each of its regulatory and incentive programs. As a part of this report, CARB should identify any measurement challenges that persist and highlight any administrative barriers that prevent it from obtaining the information it needs to perform better analysis.

1-Year Agency Response

CARB is committed to maintaining a transparent process for informing stakeholders on progress made toward isolating the emission benefits of regulatory and incentive programs. To report progress made in 2021, CARB prepared a memo for the CARB Board and a letter for the Joint Legislative Audit Committee and submitted them on December 17, 2021. CARB will continue reporting on an annual basis its progress in quantifying the benefits of CARB programs to the CARB Board and the Legislature.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 1-Year Status: Fully Implemented

The letters to the Joint Legislative Audit Committee and its board that CARB references in its response include information about the contracting activities described in CARB's response to Recommendation #1. As this recommendation states, these reports should continue annually and, when CARB's review has produced results, include information about those results as well as any measurement or administrative challenges that persist.

6-Month Agency Response

CARB is committed to maintaining a transparent process for informing stakeholders on progress made toward disentangling the emission benefits of regulatory and incentive programs. To report the progress, CARB plans to prepare a memo for the Board and submit a letter to the Joint Legislative Audit Committee in December 2021. Following the recommendation, the memo and letter will identify any measurement challenges that persist and highlight any administrative barriers.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 6-Month Status: Pending

60-Day Agency Response

CARB is committed to maintaining a transparent process for informing stakeholders on progress made toward isolating GHG emission reductions attributable to each regulatory and incentive program. CARB is in the process of identifying the appropriate mechanism for annually reporting this information and how to overcome administrative barriers, such as necessary resources, needed to implement recommendations 1 through 4.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 60-Day Status: Pending

We understand CARB's response to indicate that it plans to meet the December 2021 date in the recommendation for providing an update to its board and the Legislature. With respect to CARB's reference to necessary resources, implementing recommendations 1 through 4 will require CARB to collect additional data and more effectively analyze data it currently possesses. However, our review did not identify any clear instances of insufficient resources as the cause for the program measurement issues we identified. Therefore, if CARB believes such resources are necessary, it must clearly demonstrate why the process of implementing those recommendations requires personnel or expertise it does not currently have available with its existing resources.

All Recommendations in 2020-114

Agency responses received are posted verbatim.