Travis County Commissioners Court
December 14, 2004
    Item 13
  
 
   Number 13 is to consider and take appropriate action on update regarding 
    clean air coalition and future efforts to implement county emission reduction 
    commitments under the early action compact. 
    >> good morning, I知 celine walker the county air project 
    manager. I知 going to discuss the upcoming activities of the clean air coalition. 
    Since judge Biscoe represents Travis County on. And the county's obligation 
    under the early action compact. You have a backup memo or you should with 
    several [inaudible]. I'll just go over that briefly and then you all can stop 
    and -- stop me when you have questions or comments. Basically on November 
    17th the travis -- the Texas commission on environmental quality did adopt 
    our early action compact basically. I did not include all the measures that 
    the region had included in our clean air action plan which you approved in 
    March, but they adopted most of those stated measures that we requested. A 
    summary of most of those measures is in appendix 2. Basically the book of 
    the emission reductions that we can expect from this e.a.c. That we can take 
    credit for are within those measures. Those are really the only ones we can 
    count because they are mandatory measures. Together these measures conservatively 
    estimated should reduce max emissions in the five-county region by 4578 tons 
    a year and c.o.c. Emissions by 6,054 tons a year. That's about a 5% emission 
    in n.o.x. Emissions over the next several years and 10% in v.o.c. Emission. 
    With an additional 12% reduction from the power plant. We had to count those 
    separately because we can't do them on a daily basis. And those are daily 
    numbers. I'll be happy to go over the status measures if you would like, but 
    the book of the material in your backup is about the measures that Travis 
    County is actually going to be responsible for implementing. So i'll start 
    there. The early action compact task force is a group of staff who is working 
    with the clean air coalition to make sure that the e.a.c. Is implemented on 
    time. And per our e.a.c. Commitments, the state and local governments have 
    until December of 2005 to implement all the measures that we put in our e.a.c. 
    And our early action compact. There is a general time line in appendix 3 that 
    goes over some of the major items that we'll be doing over the next year really 
    in the next through 2007, but the book of the work for implementing this compact 
    will have to be done in the year 2005. Bulk of the work. As part of the I 
    and m program that the county and Williamson county -- Travis County and Williamson 
    county voted to participate in, we also passed a resolution indicating that 
    the county would like to work with the state to implement a low-income repair 
    assistance program as part of that I and m program. That is going to be within 
    of the major programs Travis County will be implementing. 
    >> I got an inquiry on that particular program as far as 
    the low income. Program for those persons that are in the county that need 
    the assistance, especially to either retrofit their vehicles or either replace 
    or whatever. How does that really work? In other words, how will that be funded? 
    And 6 course I think it's, what, 200% of the federal poverty guideline is 
    the qualification. 
    >> right. 
    >> aspects of that. How will that work, per se? Just tell 
    me how that will work. 
    >> there was legislation that set up the low-income repair 
    program so it's rules put in place by tceq that direct how the program has 
    to work, basically. The program will be fund understand our region by $2 from 
    every inspection. The state will collect $2 from every vehicle emission inspection 
    fee, which is a total of $16. So $2 of that $16 will come back through the 
    state to the county to fund the program. By statute, 95% of those funds goes 
    to the low-income population targeted to receive those repair dollars which 
    is 200% of poverty. Any family that falls within that threshold is allowed 
    to participate in the program. The program then works with -- I think what 
    are called recognized repair facilities in order to receive the funds you 
    have to go to a recognized repair facility, and all that means is it is a 
    repair facility that actually has the technician and equipment who knows how 
    to fix emission-related repairs. D.p.s. Works with us to make sure those station 
    know what they need to do. You go to one of those facilities and they repair 
    the car and we give them up to $600 for those repace. The average cost for 
    emission repair in dallas and houston these days is running around $450. And 
    then -- the program will pay up to $600 if -- if it looks like the repair 
    is going to be much more expensive than that, the program right now will also 
    pay up to $1,000 to go and buy a new car. We are working with the legislature 
    and tceq to perhaps change that to $2,000 to buy a new car. That's not a state 
    statute, so tceq is talking to us about that. 
    >> let me get this. If you don't have enough money to fix 
    your car, the state -- and the cost of it is going to be what people can afford, 
    so there could be 1,000 to 2,000 dollars to give to this person to go and 
    buy another car. What in the world makes sense about -- I mean first of all 
    -- 
    >> the car cannot be fixed. 
    >> if it's a waste of money. If it looks like it would just 
    be -- if the car is so old, if the repairs are going to be $1,000 anyway, 
    it might be better to just go out and try to get a new car, a newer car that 
    would have less emission problems so this car wasn't coming back every year 
    breaking down again and again. I will be honest, $1,000 does not replace a 
    whole lot of cars. It has replaced close to 350 cars in dallas and fort worth. 
    They have given people $1,000 at a time. Everybody agrees that the thousand 
    dollars is too low if you really, really are trying to help people get a new 
    car. We're not talking about a new car, another car. So there is talk about 
    trying to raise that to $2,000. That's the state telling us about that. 
    >> I mean, hey, I don't want to shoot the messenger, but 
    that's the most ridiculous thing i've ever heard. Even if you give somebody 
    2,000, you can't go out and buy a $2,000 car -- that car probably wouldn't 
    pass inspection. So you get -- and it's not like that person can go out and 
    buy a $10,000 car because they can't -- they couldn't afford to get their 
    car fixed to begin with, so they certainly can't probably qualify to go out 
    and buy a $10,000 car. I mean that -- I mean somebody needs to rethink that. 
    I know that's not up to you. I知 sorry. 
    >> [inaudible]. 
    >> okay tk-rbgs that answer your original question? Basically? 
    
    >> Commissioner -- 
    >> yeah. 
    >> I just wanted to -- I was trying to make a comparison 
    to the existing programs. I think you mention add $450 cost of something in 
    houston. 
    >> for the average repair for emission-related repair. 
    >> along with that, are there any rules that have been implemented, 
    state rules that have been implemented for the replacement of vehicles in 
    that same area already doing such things such as what we are trying to get 
    to here? 
    >> other areas that are running [indiscernible] programs 
    are dallas and houston. Five counties in the dfw area and five in the houston 
    area. 
    >> I was referring to the vehicles that need to be replaced 
    from 1,000 to 2,000. Is that already a model exists for that? 
    >> yes. We would be operating the program under the exact 
    same rules as dallas and houston. 
    >> that's what I was trying to get to is that right there. 
    Okay. I知 sorry. Please continue. 
    >> basically one of the majors things that has to be done 
    is people have to come in and get income verified. We have been discussing 
    with the county's h.h.s., With the manager sherry fleming about possibly how 
    that would work with our -- with our already set structure that we have within 
    the county, and all indications are that should be no problem, that part of 
    the program. I guess the bottom line is the state ended up having a lower 
    fee for the inspection fee than we thought they were going to have. They had 
    been telling us it was going to be up to $20. It turned out to be 16 and they 
    only are giving the program three dollars n dallas and houston it's six. Not 
    from every test, but anyway, the money that -- the 5% that we're going to 
    have to operate the program is -- we knew it wasn't going to be quite enough, 
    that we are going to have to subsidize it and we did ear mark money in the 
    budget for that purpose. But little even less than we had thought. So we're 
    looking at doing a lot of the program in-house, as is Williamson county. But 
    we are going to work with Williamson county to also see if there isn't ways 
    to collaborate to have a more efficient program. One of the key factors that 
    i've been told by the dallas group who have talked with -- who i've talked 
    with pretty extensively about their program is making sure you have enough 
    recognized repair facilities. You can't force anybody to become a recognized 
    repair facility. The legislation was set up to make people want to become 
    one, but one of the key things that they've told people is they need to be 
    able to get paid quickly. They can't sit around and wait 30 to 60 days to 
    get reimbursed for their payments. The way n.t.c. Cog who operates the program 
    ajust that situation is they set up a credit card system that everybody loves. 
    That is a very easy reporting system for everybody, it's easy to track. So 
    that's something that we would like to look at. We would like to sit down 
    with the auditor and we haven't had that discussion yet. But anyway, that 
    is just one part, piece of the puzzle that everybody up there has indicated 
    is a real key to this program. 
    >> one of the concerns the way we get our vehicles inspected 
    now, some of the concerns of some of the citizens that do automobile inspections 
    is that they would not mind going into this particular venture, but they say 
    the expense of that equipment, $40,000 and probably above, to do -- 
    >> 15,000. 
    >> some of them were quoting 40 and I didn't know. 
    >> that's in dallas and houston. We have a different program 
    from them. 
    >> they were saying this was a pretty big investment. And, 
    of course, I don't know if they are going to end up continuing to do inspections. 
    So I guess my question is to you, how many probable inspections locations 
    would we have or those that are interested in doing the new inspection that 
    will be required? 
    >> on November 18th, the day after tceq adopted our e.a.c. 
    Officially, d.p.s. Actually held a workshop for all the inspection stations 
    in travis and Williamson county. I mean they are moving ahead with implementation 
    of the I and m program. I attended that meeting along with our fleet department. 
    There were over 150 station operators there. There are about 217 inspection 
    stations in Travis County alone now. They don't think they are going to have 
    as many fall out of the program in dallas and houston because the equipment 
    is so less expensive, we're not doing the dynometer testing so it's only $15,000 
    for the test, which sounds like a lot, but the fees are designed to let the 
    station owners pay back whatever lease or loan they get to get that equipment 
    over four years. And make a profit. The experience in dallas and houston is 
    when they started the program, they had about 50% of the number of facilities 
    that normally did inspections actually buy the equipment on day one and be 
    ready to go. After a year, they were back up to 75% of the stations that came 
    in. Some stations sit back and wait to see if the program is really going 
    to go. So you are not going to have everybody participate, but they still 
    have people paying $40,000 and the program has been going on three years up 
    there now. You will have some people who stop doing the inspections. 
    >> it probably really hurts your business if you don't go 
    ahead and get fully capable of doing a full inspection. I mean because obviously 
    a lot of folks that just do the regular state inspections that we have now 
    will probably still leave their seal out there, but obviously you got to have 
    -- 
    >> right, you will not be able to -- 
    >> most people don't want to go to one and then drive to 
    another one that has spent the dollars on -- you are going to start finding 
    that station that has both seals or extra seals. 
    >> you are not going be be able to do a safety inspection. 
    If you want to do the inspection, you have to buy the equipment and do everything. 
    That's how they are setting it up in travis. But the equipment is not 40,000. 
    There was in dallas and houston there were a few stations that were allowed 
    to do only if their volume was low and they are -- they had such an expensive 
    task that in travis and Williamson county d.p.s. Has said in order to do any 
    inspections at all you will have to be able to do both. 
    >> so you won't have the choice of that. 
    >> exactly. Any more questions about -- we'll move on. There's 
    just a few other fee programs that the county committed to that I just wanted 
    to go over quickly. We in our plan asked that the state implement a prohibition 
    on heavy-duty idling equipment here in the county as they had in other counties 
    throughout the state. The state had already been looking at that state law 
    and they revised it and they talked to us during the process and we were aware 
    of this when we adopted the clean air action plan in March. That the state 
    really wants there to be a local enforcement of that kind of rule. So what 
    they did was they adopted a state rule that applies statewide so that any 
    county or city who is willing to sign an spelled moa that says we want a idling 
    prohibition will enforce it and do so. There are other regions in the state, 
    lancaster was just in the lawsuit because they tried to implement an idling 
    restrictions and the truckers sued who had indicated they want to do that 
    as well. So that is how that state rule ended up getting adopted. So because 
    we indicated all 12 jurisdictions that make up the clean air coalition indicated 
    in our clean air action plan that we wanted such a prohibition in our five-county 
    region, it is now going to be necessary to work together to adopt a m.o.a., 
    Memorandum of agreement with tceq that indicates who will be enforcing that, 
    and Travis County will need to be part of that process. We'll need to work 
    with the county attorney's office. 
    >> does law enforcement -- I mean who will be really the 
    people on the street? Is that law enforcement? 
    >> it could be law enforcement, it could be our environmental 
    enforcement officers. We have this problem all the time. People will call 
    and say there's an 18-wheeler in my cul-de-sac, the guy is sitting there, 
    you know, he lives next door and he's got his 18-wheeler sitting there running 
    30 minutes at a time, can't you do something. That's one of the issues that 
    we'll now be able to address. There's also tour buses in downtown Austin every 
    day during the summer. There's also construction equipment that, you know, 
    sometimes people have complaints that people are just sitting there during 
    lunchtime with that machine still running next to their home. So we see it 
    as a complaint-driven thing, but it will be up to us to put in that m.o.a. 
    
    >> what is it? 15 minutes. 
    >> it's really five minutes. There's a lot of exceptions 
    for emergency vehicles, for air conditioning on buses with a lot of people 
    in them, you know, at the time, but if it's just the bus driver, got to turn 
    it off. 
    >> but it doesn't count if you are just in traffic. 
    >> right. It does not count if you are just stuck. 
    >> your enforcement people to hang out at truck stops. There's 
    some places you go there and just dress up like a truck driver and hanging 
    around the coffee shop. [laughter] pretty wild about how you are going to 
    catch people. I assume if you got your next-door neighbor, 42 degrees and 
    he wants to fire it up because he wants to go somewhere and get the cab warm. 
    But I probably wouldn't want to be the guy going out there to the trucker 
    say, by the way, let me write you a ticket. How big a ticket is it? 
    >> it will all be up to us. It will be up to us whether we 
    enforce it criminally or municipally. 
    >> the county attorney's office -- 
    >> but would the enforcement team be the sheriff for Travis 
    County and also, of course, any local official? Let's say, for example, since 
    Austin is one of the participants, would it be a.p.d. And the sheriff combined 
    together on these? 
    >> right. 
    >> what would the jurisdictional -- 
    >> that's what we have to work out in this -- 
    >> who is going to be doing it where, in the city limits, 
    outside the cities limits, would the sheriff probably do both? 
    >> that's what we'll be discussing when we get down to work. 
    
    >> that needs to get flushed out. Okay. 
    >> number 3 is the Texas emission reduction program, grant 
    program. Just generally the region as a whole agreed to apply for these grants 
    that the state is really pushing as a program to help reduce emissions from 
    on and off-road heavy disease he will equipment. -- diesel equipment. We agreed 
    fleet managers would get two tons of day of nox emissions. We're already up 
    to half a ton a day so we're within quarter to our goal. We've got three more 
    years. We need to really encourage private sector fleets especially to apply 
    for these grants. It's a lot easier for them to get it. The county is looking 
    to applying for a grant in this next go-round and we'll come back to you in 
    January if we're able to find equipment we can retrofit. Ozone action day 
    for county employees. I believe, Commissioner Daugherty, you spoke about this 
    issue a couple weeks ago. Basically the county Commissioners and judge and 
    staff have always been involved in educating and outreach on ozone action 
    days, but the one thing, the step the county hasn't really taken which we 
    agreed to is actually kpheult to alter our actions on ozone action days. And 
    generally how a prom like this would work is each department, county department 
    would basically appoint an ozone action team member who would work with myself 
    and the rest of the environmental department and come up with a plan of action 
    on ozone action days. So, for instance, the parks department can delay some 
    kinds of mowing or activities maybe on those days until at least the afternoon 
    or not at all or the auditor's department could commit to so many of those 
    employees carpooling on those days, or the t.n.r. Department could commit 
    to only driving propane vehicles. I知 just thinking off the top of my head 
    here. But those are the kind of things that we need to start committing to 
    doing on ozone action days. 
    >> has there been a strategy employed by the 12 entities 
    in this five-county region that would suggest how they would get the message 
    out other than traditional ways, I guess, as far as what is an ozone action 
    day? What day is the ozone action day. You hear out the news every once in 
    a while or whatever, but -- 
    >> there's several -- a lot of dell, for instance, I believe 
    it is, or a.m.d., They change their signs. They have one entrance into their 
    complex, it must be a.m.d. A.m.d., And on ozone action days they will go out 
    and physically put a sign up. All the employees -- I think it says tomorrow 
    it will be an ozone action day as everybody is leaving work so they know they 
    need to do something differently. E-mail is obviously a real big -- gets to 
    a lot of people quickly. There's talk about putting flags up at schools. I 
    know people over in east Austin are real interested in that so that actually 
    on ozone action days that there would be a colored flag out in the school 
    yard. And because really kids shouldn't be playing outside on ozone action 
    days especially in the afternoon. The only problem is that you really got 
    to keep people on top of that because what ends up happening is somebody just 
    leaves the flag out day after day and nobody ever knows if it's really an 
    ozone action day or not. So yeah, there's a lot of work being done with the 
    clean air force and with other groups, you know, to help make sure that word 
    gets out more and more. Most people -- campo actually does a survey every 
    year, and the -- I think people who recognize ozone action days, it's like 
    93%, which surveyors will tell you pretty much market saturation. Most people 
    know about ozone action days in this region and are able to keep track of 
    them pretty well. But I don't think most people actually do something different 
    and that is the key. 
    >> 
    >> [one moment, please, for change in captioners] 
    >> 
    >> I can go over those one by one if you'd like. They are 
    in the process of implementing or have been implementing, but we need to go 
    through -- we need to stick with the programs that we already have set up 
    to make sure that they continue to get implemented on time. If you have any 
    questions, i'd be happy to answer them or if you'd like me to go over these 
    in further detail. The one last thing I would like to talk about is public 
    education and outreach, if you don't have any questions about the other measures. 
    
    >> we're in the middle of 4, right? 
    >> yes, sir. 
    >> as you're well aware, the key to getting these initial 
    reductions is everybody knowing what they theed to do and doing it. There 
    are a lot of resources throughout the state and in our local area to help 
    get the word out about these -- the new early action compact. Because we are 
    not a non-attainment area, we do not have access to federal sources of money 
    which dallas and houston do, so we are limited by which we can do with state 
    and local dollars. I tried to list most of the programs that actually have 
    some funding to do public education and outreach because I know it's real 
    important. Two that are probably -- the two that have the most money in them 
    is each biennium they give our five-county region over a million dollars. 
    In the past those monies have been used for all the technical analysis that 
    we've had to do to put the eac together, all the modeling and the emotions 
    inventory work. We had to do that on our own. They gave us money, but they 
    did not perform that work for us. Now that we are moving from the planning 
    phase of this process into the implementation phase, tceq has suggested changing 
    the wording on that appropriation rider to say you can use the money to actually 
    implement some programs, actually get some emission reductions. And we fully 
    support that. We've asked them to do that. So hopefully it will be clear after 
    this next legislative session that those monies will be used to also implement 
    emission reduction measures. You should probably think about adding that to 
    your legislative issues list, just bringing it up whenever possible in the 
    discussions on those appropriations bills. It will be important. The next 
    pot of money is a state contract that d.p.s. Signed with enviro media. Shortly 
    after -- the state has signed a contract with them to do exactly what they 
    did in dallas and houston, which is a huge rollout of the inm program. Starting 
    in March or April you will see billboards, inm is coming. They have programs, 
    a whole elaborate media campaign that will be based on the same program that 
    they did in dallas and houston, it will be called air check Texas. That's 
    a brand that has been focus grouped to death and seems to work. Everybody 
    was very happy with the outreach that was done in dallas and houston for the 
    inm program. That will include mention of the low income repair program because 
    they will talk about some of the proceed slurs and -- brochures that will 
    be coming out of that program, but it does not include a targeted outreach 
    to the low income population that will be needing the irats. The way they 
    handled that in dallas and houston is the cogz that are actually administering 
    the program up there came up with a little bit of additional money to do a 
    targeted lirate campaign. And we may want to think about doing that. The best 
    way they said to get the word out about the lirat program is not necessarily 
    radio adds. They found that mailers to targeted zip codes where you know there's 
    a lot of population that is 200% of poverty or less really worked well, as 
    well as local newspaper ads in the local papers, something tangible that can 
    be can pass on to people. The radio spots kind of fly by and nobody was really 
    getting the information. But when they actually got something in the mail 
    and they could pass it on to their sister or uncle or whatever, that seemed 
    to work better. 
    >> (indiscernible). 
    >> they did that through the newspaper. The biggest way people 
    learn about the program is when they go in and they fail their test and the 
    inspection station gives them a brochure that tells them about it. They're 
    really enterprising inspection stations and dallas and houston have learned 
    when they go out and market the lirat program, they can start making money. 
    When they say somebody can help you make your repairs, they start getting 
    in a lot of customers. So some of the biggest proponents of the lirat program 
    are the stations. 
    >> back to the lirat program, a lot of the state money that's 
    available, the $600,000 for advertising purposes, if we decide -- the Commissioners 
    court decides to invest locally into dollars that will alert persons to the 
    lirat program would the same persons be the extension? Would they do this 
    through direct mail or however it's done, would they still be a part of this 
    process? We have to go and do it globally. 
    >> some of the folks I have talked to up in north Texas when 
    I have talked to most. Enviro media did some advertising, they did some radio 
    and it didn't seem to be helpful. When they saw the most jump in people participating 
    in the program is when they did these mailouts. We could almost do that maybe 
    -- they did it through the newspaper. They worked with the fort worth star 
    telegram. It designed the ad and everything and did it as a mailout off their 
    list. So we will need to look at that and we would need to do an r.f.p. But 
    enviro media has done a lirat program before. 
    >> how long would it take someone -- the obvious place to 
    do it is you're exactly right, at the stations themselves. People have got 
    to get their automobiles inspected. And when they find out, oh, it doesn't 
    pass and what do you think it's going to be? It's going to be 450. I don't 
    have $450. Here's you the documentation that says how to go with the lirat 
    program. If you have 15 days -- if that person receives this, can they do 
    all the necessary things to apply and to -- that we can qualify them to say, 
    yeah, you can do this -- you've got to go today. Don't wait seven days because 
    you won't be able to do it. You need to start it today because that's how 
    long it's going to take. And where do they take it? Do they bring it to us? 
    
    >> all the details need to be worked out, but the way it 
    works in dallas and houston is you can either call, may melissa gale -- mail 
    it in or you can walk in. 70% of the people in dallas walk in. We are proposing 
    that they would walk into one of our intake centers already which we've already 
    got four or five of them around the county. And they would walk in and it's 
    a one-page form and you just have to show something that -- either a pay stub 
    or something that you -- or you can show a medicaid card if you're on medicaid, 
    and we income verify you. And the part that is going to be tricky for the 
    county is are we going to have a voucher system or what kind of system, payment 
    system are we going to have for these folks? Because you're right. If it takes 
    30 to 60 days to pay, are they going to be able to get their car repaired 
    in that 15 day period or not. Are the repair facilities going to make it work. 
    They found that this credit card system, they do a voucher system, they give 
    someone a voucher, they go to the station with their unique number, the station 
    owner calls back to us and says i've got this voucher number, we enter it 
    in the computer and we see it made it to this station. That's how we track 
    it. They make a credit card swipe and we know it comes from that station because 
    they call in with a unique id number on that voucher. They've got a very sophisticated 
    system that works beautifully up there. I would not propose that we try to 
    reinvent the wheel at all. 
    >> how fast do we get the $2 per vehicle. We've got $500,000 
    in Travis County, so that's a million buck. So we're going to have -- 
    >> yeah. We think we'll get 700 -- almost $800,000. It's 
    a grant program, so they'll give us the estimated money on September 1, not 
    until September 1, 2005, because they can't give us until the fiscal year. 
    
    >> it doesn't start until 2005, so it's not like we need 
    the dough before then, but starting in September of 2005 is when we potentially 
    have that. And let's say that in September that you have $50,000 that get 
    -- that have to get inspected. So you get $100,000 for that month. 
    >> they give us the money up front and we draw it down. We 
    don't necessarily have to wait for the receipts to come in. We have to wait 
    until September 1, 2005 to do anything. But we sort of have estimates for 
    how much money and they're able to give us something on top of it. 
    >> I know that the auditor's office is not overly excited 
    about this credit card thing. 
    >> I understand that that is an issue. 
    >> but they might be less excited about that if they had 
    the money, they had it in the blght knowing that they had the dollars. I think 
    that susan might be a little more amenable looking at that thing that way. 
    
    >> we have not had the chance to sit down with her, so we 
    will -- that's definitely the next step. We would like to take some folks 
    up to nct cog and show them how that works. 
    >> just listening to this now, and I know that the final 
    I want politiciantation I think -- implementation that we have to have for 
    this entire program to let folks know that we are going to put forth what 
    we are trying to do, is that in December? 
    >> no. This December? 
    >> no, December of '05. But if the inspection end of this 
    -- this is supposed to commence -- when are they supposed to commence? 
    >> September 1, 2005. 
    >> so September 1, 2005, do they get credit for that implementation 
    phase of the program even though we're looking for final approval of them 
    for implementation phase that is in December of 2005? 
    >> the final approval of the e.p.a. -- we're waiting on final 
    approval of a plan from e.p.a., Is that what you're referring to? 
    >> yeah. Because I知 looking at the implementation phase 
    of our folks and the inspection. Here we are 2005, September, we're going 
    to start the process. They're going to follow a lot of these categories that 
    we're talking about now, especially with the lirap program and stuff like 
    that. And yet we still be looking at the overall implementation of all of 
    this coming -- after we -- after December of 2005. 
    >> we have to have all of these programs implemented no later 
    than December 2005. 
    >> okay. All of them, everything. 
    >> all of them. By state rule, the inm program starts September 
    1, 2005. 
    >> so that's just a portion of the overall picture. Okay. 
    That makes sense. Okay. Thank you. 
    >> one other thing. The main local dollars for public education 
    and outreach, traditionally the county has relied on the clean air force, 
    which is a nonprofit that we sit on, as do moan many other local jurisdictions 
    and several other private sector entities for public education and outreach. 
    The county has contributed money to the clean air force every year for the 
    last 10 years as far as I know, approximately $28,000 a year. Traditionally 
    we are committed to giving them $20,000 a year. They have an allocated reserve 
    of at least $65,000. It's a little unclear exactly how much money they have 
    and what their fy '05 work plan is. But we have been asked to again cold front 
    more than $20,000 to -- to contribute more than $20,000 to them in '05. And 
    we have a contract amendment. I plan to bring that back to you in January. 
    It's up to you if you would like to earmark those funds for specific outreach 
    efforts related to the eac, it would be your prerogative to do so. If you 
    would like to contribute those funds like you traditionally have and turn 
    it over to them for their operating program, that's just an opportunity, I 
    guess, for you to sort of direct some of the public education and outreach 
    dollars if you would like. The clean air coalition and early action compact 
    taskforce do not really have a budget. We are two unincorporated entities, 
    the clean air coalition is basically a subcommittee of capcog. But the eac 
    taskforce is planning a workshop in January or early February, probably early 
    February, where we will invite all of the local elected officials who want 
    to attend from the 12 jurisdictions that signed early action compact as well 
    as their key staff who are going to be in charge of actually implementing 
    these programs so that we can talk to them more about what resources are out 
    there. There are a lot of programs that are run through campo and capital 
    metro and tree folks to help people with tree planting and keep Austin beautiful 
    with resource recovery programs and those kinds of things to let them know 
    what resources are out there to help them implement indicate of the local 
    emission reductions that everybody committed to. 
    >> so if we have questions that we want you to put to the 
    clean air force, just send those to you by e-mail? 
    >> yes, sir. 
    >> and you will bring the answers -- or they can come and 
    deliver the answers when we see the request for another $20,000. 
    >> exactly. 
    >> four or five come to mind, but I can reduce it to writing. 
    So -- so I want to make sure I am the epitomy of dlem macy when I do. What 
    action is needed today? 
    >> no action. It's to tell you where we are and what's on 
    the next page as to the next step. I hope that was clear. 
    >> we are informed, plus you did a detailed memo for us. 
    And it does include a good summary I think of the various programs that we 
    have convinced the state to adopt for us. Some of them did require state rule 
    making, and the state accommodated us and other members of our coalition. 
    And so we have come to the implementation phase. 
    >> we have indeed. 
    >> okay. 
    >> would you mind calling barbara in my office and getting 
    something set up for the three of us? I've got some things that I want to 
    talk to you about. 
    >> that would be great. 
    >> thank you. 
    >> thank you. You did a real good job. 
    
The Closed Caption log for this Commissioners Court agenda item is provided by Travis County Internet Services. Since this file is derived from the Closed Captions created during live cablecasts, there are occasional spelling and grammatical errors. This Closed Caption log is not an official record the Commissioners Court Meeting and cannot be relied on for official purposes. For official records please contact the County Clerk at (512) 854-4722.
  
  Last Modified: 
  Wednesday, October 26, 2005 2:38 PM
