Glossary
R
A hold placed on a motor vehicle or motor vehicle engine to prevent registration or title being issued. Registration stops may be placed by DMV, ARB or CHP staff. Stops are placed because of illegal registration attempts, illegal sales, or placed on heavy-duty vehicles that have been retired by their previous owners. Registration stops do not expire; however, a vehicle with a stop may be dropped from the DMV computer record after 7-10 years.
Refers to the vapor pressure of the fuel expressed in the nearest hundredth of a pound per square inch (psi) with a higher number reflecting more gasoline evaporation. (See also Gasoline Volatility.)
A federal program to increase the volume of renewable fuels used in transportation fuels. Created under the Energy Policy Act of 2005, and revised by the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, the RFS program requires increasing annual volumes of renewable fuel, starting from 9 billion gallons in 2008 to 36 billion gallons by 2022. Within those total volumes, the RFS also requires certain volumes of specific fuels, such as cellulosic and advanced biofuels.
The Board's legislatively mandated committee consists of scientists, engineers and others knowledgeable, technically qualified and experienced in air pollution problems. The committee meets approximately four times a year to review proposed and completed research projects.
The quantity of health risk remaining after application of emission control.
A series of charts, numbered 0 to 5, that simulate various smoke densities by presenting different percentages of black. A Ringelmann No. 1 is equivalent to 20 percent black; a Ringelmann No. 5 is 100 percent black. They are used for measuring the opacity or equivalent obscuration of smoke arising from stacks and other sources by matching the actual effluent with the various numbers, or densities, indicated by the charts.
An evaluation of risk which estimates the relationship between exposure to a harmful substance and the likelihood that harm will result from that exposure.
An evaluation of the need for and feasibility of reducing risk. It includes consideration of magnitude of risk, available control technologies and economic feasibility.
S
Actions taken against a state or local government by the federal government for failure to plan or to implement a State Implementation Plan (SIP). Examples include withholding of highway funds and a ban on construction of new sources of potential pollution.
Changes to state law (Senate Bill 25, Escutia, 1999) established requirements for the ARB and the OEHHA to examine the impacts of air pollution on children's health. Specifically, the act required the state to evaluate all ambient air quality standards to determine whether these standards adequately protect human health, particularly that of infants and children; and, to identify toxic air contaminants that disproportionately impact children.
Mandated by AB 1807, this nine-member panel advises the ARB, OEHHA and the California Department of Pesticide Regulation on the scientific adequacy of the risk assessment portion of reports issued by those three agencies in the process of identifying substances as toxic air contaminants. For more information, visit our SRP website.
AB 32 directed ARB to prepare a scoping plan for achieving the maximum technologically feasible and cost-effective reductions in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. The scoping plan provides the outline for actions to reduce greenhouse gases in California. The approved scoping plan indicates how these emission reductions will be achieved from significant greenhouse gas sources via regulations, market mechanisms and other actions.
An air pollution control device that uses a high energy liquid spray to remove aerosol and gaseous pollutants from an air stream. The gases are removed either by absorption or chemical reaction.
Particles that are formed in the atmosphere. Secondary particles are products of the chemical reactions between gases, such as nitrates, sulfur oxides, ammonia and organic products.
Environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), or secondhand smoke, is a complex mixture of thousands of gases and fine particles emitted by the burning of tobacco products from the smoke exhaled by the smoker. Other minor contributors to ETS are from the smoke that is emitted from the smoldering end of the tobacco product and the vapor-phase related compounds that diffuse from the wrapper of the tobacco product.
An emission control system that reduces NOx emissions through the catalytic reduction of NOx in diesel exhaust to N2 and H2O by injecting nitrogen-containing compounds into the exhaust stream, such as ammonia or urea.
SB 1731 amended the Air Toxics "Hot Spots" Information and Assessment Act (AB 2588, "Hot Spots" or Program; 1987, Connelly) by adding two major elements. The first element required the OEHHA to adopt risk assessment guidelines for the program using a full public review process. These new risk assessment guidelines superseded the previous guidelines and include "supplemental" exposure information. Second, facilities determined to have a significant risk by the district, must conduct an airborne toxic risk reduction audit and develop a plan to implement airborne toxic risk reduction measures. The ARB is required to provide assistance to smaller businesses for developing and applying risk reduction techniques. As part of that assistance, the ARB developed guideline documents on how to conduct an audit, including a self-conducted checklist for certain industries.
Identifiable subsets of the general population that are at greater risk than the general population to the toxic effects of a specific air pollutant (e.g., infants, asthmatics, elderly).
see Carbon Sequestration.
"Shore power", also known as Cold Ironing, refers to providing electrical power to a vessel that is docked. The purpose of shore power is to allow the vessel operator to turn off the vessel's auxiliary engines, which would normally be providing the necessary electricity. Although there are emissions associated with the generation of electricity used for shore power, those emissions are much less than those from the auxiliary engines, which burn diesel fuel.
A combination of smoke and other particulates, ozone, hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides and other chemically reactive compounds which, under certain conditions of weather and sunlight, may result in a murky brown haze that causes adverse health effects. The primary source of smog in California is motor vehicles.
(See Inspection and Maintenance Program).
A score that ranks each vehicle's smog emissions on a scale of 1-10 (10 being the cleanest) relative to all other vehicles. All vehicles manufactured after January 1, 2009, must display this score on the Environmental Performance Label. For more information, visit our Drive Clean website.