In a meeting yesterday at the Association offices, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) unveiled is plan to require the replacement of 12,000 Tier 0, 1, and 2 tractors by 2024.  This requirement is contained in their portion of the measures to be contained in the State Implementation Plan (SIP) for the San Joaquin Valley to achieve attainment of the National Ambient Air Quality Standard for PM2.5.  This particular measure, called the “Accelerated Turnover of Agricultural Tractors” would use existing and new incentive funding programs to help accelerate the natural turnover of agricultural equipment.  These programs include the Carl Moyer Program, the USDA NRCS EQIP Funding and the new FARMER Program funding.  Unfortunately, it also assumes that we will be able to secure FARMER from the Cap & Trade program beyond 2019, which is all we have a commitment for.  This puts ag in a quandary, because of the back stop that CARB is also considering; another measure entitled “Cleaner In-Use Agricultural Equipment” which is designed to increase the penetration of cleaner agricultural equipment, including advancing zero-emission technology (aka “electric”) where feasible.  This program appears to be a mandatory replacement measure, that allows for incentive funds to be used, but will become mandatory if the necessary reductions are not achieved through the incentive funding.   This will be heard in a workshop in Fresno next Tuesday, August 28^th, where the Association will be presenting comments.