(a) In considering the offset requirement for a project facility which utilizes agricultural waste products, forest waste products, or similar organic wastes as biomass fuel in a steam generator (boiler), to produce electrical energy, or to be used as a digester feedstock in a cogeneration facility, the district shall include the incremental emissions benefit that occurs because those wastes are not disposed of by open field burning or by forest land burning if the biomass fuel would ordinarily or otherwise be burned in that manner in the same air basin. The emissions credit shall be offset at a ratio of 1.2 to 1 for nonattainment pollutants if within 15 miles, and at a ratio of 2 to 1 if further than 15 miles within the same air basin.
(b) The districts and the state board, in cooperation, shall develop and, on or before July 1, 1988, and at least once every two years thereafter, reevaluate a procedure to determine the availability and magnitude of the offsets resulting from the incremental emissions benefits, including an accounting of the quantity of biomass material credits calculated for purposes of Section 42314.5 as necessary to ensure that state and federal ambient air quality standards may be achieved and maintained, or that reasonable further progress be made toward attainment.
(c) The applicant shall provide the state board or a district, as the case may be, the information not publicly available from state or local agencies which is necessary to make the determinations required by this section. The information shall include, but is not limited to, the following:
(1) The quality of fuel or waste to be burned or used in the facility.
(2) The type of fuel or waste to be burned or used in the facility.
(3) The source of the fuel or waste to be burned or used in the facility.
(Amended by Stats. 1987, Ch. 565, Sec. 1.)