HB5013 103RD GENERAL ASSEMBLY

LRB103 36384 LNS 66485 b

103RD GENERAL ASSEMBLY
State of Illinois
2023 and 2024
HB5013

Introduced 2/8/2024, by Rep. Dagmara Avelar

SYNOPSIS AS INTRODUCED:

415 ILCS 5/9.20 new

Amends the Environmental Protection Act. Establishes the Health and Equity Advisory Council. Provides that the Council shall make initial findings, conclusions, and recommendations regarding environmental justice to the General Assembly by no later than June 30, 2026, and shall make annual reports to the General Assembly no later than June 30 of each year thereafter. Describes the Council's composition. Provides that the Environmental Protection Agency shall conduct truck counting and facility emissions monitoring. Provides that, no later than 12 months after the effective date of the amendatory Act, the Agency shall adopt rules providing for the facility-by-facility review of regulated facilities, along with a menu of measures to reduce the impact of air pollution. Provides guidelines for a fee and point system. Requires the Agency to disclose air pollution impacts on maternal, infant, and child health; educational attainment; and the economy. Establishes the Insights, Jobs, and Environmental Justice Grant Program. Outlines the purpose and application of the grant program. Establishes the Insights Analysis Program and details its purpose, function, and duties. Requires the Agency to conduct a public participation process in order to maintain transparency of the program's progress. Requires the Agency to annually publish a list of warehouses and truck-attracting facilities and details the information that must be included on the list. Requires the Agency to conduct annual investigations of a random selection of at least 5% of all stationary and indirect sources in non-overburdened communities. Requires that the results of the investigation be made public and details the metrics to be included in the investigations.

A BILL FOR

AN ACT concerning safety.

Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois, represented in the General Assembly:

Section 5. The Environmental Protection Act is amended by adding Section 9.20 as follows:

(415 ILCS 5/9.20 new)

Sec. 9.20. Health and equity insights.

(a) Findings. The General Assembly finds that:

(1) pollution is distributed unevenly, impacts overburdened communities disproportionately, and varies on a block-by-block basis;

(2) disparities in impact are often missed by standard monitoring practices;

(3) identifying locations that attract high numbers of medium-duty vehicles and heavy-duty vehicles is crucial to mitigate emissions significantly;

(4) investment and policy development decisions must be made with communities and environmental justice advocates in order to reliably, effectively, and accurately prioritize impacted communities; and

(5) collaboration with impacted communities must continue through implementation of policy solutions that are designed with those same communities.

(b) Definitions. In this Section:

"Agency" means the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency.

"Board" means the Illinois Pollution Control Board.

"Community air quality monitoring" means the deployment of low-cost sensors at the neighborhood level to better identify and mitigate the large disparities in pollution exposure and health outcomes that can occur at the local level.

"Continuous fenceline air quality monitoring" means monitoring that is located on-site, that is not switched on and off, and that consistently collects data 24 hours a day, 7 days a week unless paused for repair, calibration, or servicing.

"Council" means the Health and Equity Advisory Council established under this Section.

"Department" means the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity.

"Federal Equivalent Method" or "FEM" means a method that is used for measuring the concentration of an air pollutant in the ambient air and that has been designated as an equivalent method to the Federal Reference Method.

"Federal Reference Method" or "FRM" means a method of monitoring that is certified as regulatory grade and that employs strict measurement standards and performance standards. FRM monitors are generally used by regulatory bodies, such as the United States Environmental Protection Agency.

"Local authority" means a State or local governmental entity with the authority to enable mobile monitoring as a complement to stationary and meteorological monitoring.

"Meteorological monitoring" means monitoring for meteorological data, such as wind speed and direction.

"Overburdened communities" has the same meaning as "environmental justice community" as defined and as may be updated in the long-term renewable resources procurement plan of the Illinois Power Agency and its Program Administrator under the Illinois Solar for All Program.

"Regulated facility" means the following:

(1) any facility that is at least 100,000 square feet in size;

(2) any set of facilities with a common owner or operator that, in the aggregate, is at least 500,000 square feet in size; and

(3) any facility that is deemed by the Agency, after consultation with affected communities, to threaten local health either because of its individual impact or its contribution to a cumulative impact.

"Satellite air quality monitoring" means monitoring, conducted by one or more satellites, to measure the concentration of airborne particles, such as aerosols, in the atmosphere through observations of how much light reaches the surface of the Earth and how much light is reflected off of the aerosols.

"Significant emitters" means the stationary, indirect, and mobile sources that are the greatest contributors to health-harming pollutants.

"Truck trip" means the one-way trip a truck or tractor makes to or from a site with at least one warehouse to deliver or collect goods stored at that warehouse for later distribution to other locations. A truck or tractor entering a warehouse site and then leaving that site constitutes 2 trips.

"Truck-attracting facility" means a property, including, but not limited to, parking areas and driving lanes, for trucks, trailers, or passenger vehicles.

"Truck-attracting facility" includes:

(1) a warehouse, distribution center, or intermodal facility on the property, including, but not limited to, a main building, an accessory building, or both;

(2) an entry-and-exit point for vehicle accessory maintenance or a security building; and

(3) fueling or charging infrastructure for vehicles.

"Truck count" means an accounting of the number of trucks traveling through a designated intersection.

(c) Health and Equity Advisory Council.

(1) The Health and Equity Advisory Council is hereby established. The Council shall:

(A) make findings, conclusions, and recommendations regarding environmental justice in the State and uses of federal funds provided to the State for environmental justice;

(B) file with the General Assembly, in accordance with Section 3.1 of the General Assembly Organization Act, by no later than June 30, 2026, an initial report that is consistent with the transparency provisions of subsection (k) and that delineates the Council's findings, conclusions, and recommendations; and

(C) after the initial report under subparagraph (B), file with the General Assembly, in accordance with Section 3.1 of the General Assembly Organization Act, by June 30, 2026 and June 30 of each year thereafter, an annual report that is consistent with the transparency provisions of subsection (k) and that delineates the Council's findings, conclusions, and recommendations.

(2) Voting members of the Council shall be appointed by the Governor by no later than 60 days after the effective date of this amendatory Act of the 103rd General Assembly. If a vacancy occurs on the Council, the vacancy shall be filled in a manner that is consistent with the original appointments. The Council shall consist of the following voting members:

(A) 4 members, appointed as follows, who represent, when possible, disadvantaged communities:

(i) one member appointed by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, who shall serve as co-chairperson;

(ii) one member appointed by the President of the Senate, who shall serve as co-chairperson;

(iii) one member appointed by the Minority Leader of the Senate;

(iv) one member appointed by the Minority Leader of the House of Representatives;

(B) the Director of Public Health or his or her designee;

(C) the Secretary of Human Services or his or her designee;

(D) the Secretary of Transportation or his or her designee; and

(E) at least 2 representatives of communities with heavy truck traffic.

Additional individuals may be appointed as voting members of the Council with the approval of both co-chairpersons.

(3) The Council may, at the discretion of the Council, add the following nonvoting members:

(A) one representative of a labor organization;

(B) one representative of a statewide organization representing manufacturers;

(C) 2 representatives of faith-based organizations; and

(D) 2 representatives of health organizations.

Additional individuals may participate as nonvoting members of the Council at the discretion of both co-chairpersons.

(d) Truck counting and other monitoring.

(1) Each year, the Agency shall conduct truck counting on a representative sample of local roads where trucks enter or exit a truck-attracting facility. If possible, the truck counts must include the class and age of the trucks counted. Truck-counting efforts shall build on existing efforts by community and environmental justice organizations and shall be conducted in consultation with those same entities. Any consultant hired by the Agency to conduct truck counting shall be approved by the Council. The Agency shall also take into consideration the experience of communities in deciding where to site monitors and how to move forward on subsequent policy development and implementation.

(2) A truck-attracting facility must continuously monitor on-site emissions for diesel particulate matter and nitrogen oxides. Monitoring must be conducted using at least 4 continuous fenceline monitors spaced as far apart as possible from one another around the perimeter of the truck-attracting facility.

(3) Within one year after the effective date of this amendatory Act of the 103rd General Assembly, the Agency shall cite Federal Reference Methods (FRM) and Federal Equivalent Methods (FEM) established under 40 CFR Part 53, informed by satellite and community data when available, when determining the placement of air monitoring devices at truck-attracting facilities.

(4) The Agency shall not announce in advance the days when federal reference monitors are collecting data or the days when mobile or meteorological monitoring is taking place, if the Agency does not already continuously collect data from those monitors or through that monitoring. The Agency shall identify which federal reference monitors in the State are not collecting data continuously. The Agency shall transition all instruments to continuous monitoring within 2 years upon determining which monitors are not collecting data continuously.

(5) The Agency must create a process for community representatives or companies to co-locate monitoring equipment at FRM monitors or FEM monitors managed or owned by the State. Communities may request a new FRM monitor or FEM monitor. This request may be based on satellite or low-cost local data, health data, data concerning recent changes in land use, or other qualitative or quantitative metrics identified by overburdened communities. This request should be granted as of right if the data shows the source is already identified as a high-priority emitter, or the community is already identified as overburdened.

(e) Indirect source review.

(1) No later than 12 months after the effective date of this amendatory Act of the 103rd General Assembly, the Agency shall adopt rules providing for the facility-by-facility review of regulated facilities, along with a menu of measures to reduce the impact of air pollution from these indirect sources. The Agency shall consider measures, including, but not limited to, requiring all warehouse operators to implement an air emissions reduction plan developed or approved by the Agency in consultation with community representatives and mitigation options, such as installing infrastructure and requiring use of zero-emission vehicles on-site; using alternatives to truck trips for incoming or outgoing trips; installing on-site solar power generation, electricity storage, and managed charging systems; or any combination of these types of measures. The Agency shall also consider greater stringency for all census blocks where transport-related pollution is responsible for 20% or greater of new cases of childhood asthma and all warehouses located within a half mile of an overburdened community, as determined by the Agency after consulting with overburdened communities and community leaders.

(2) Once the rules described in paragraph (1) are adopted, the Agency shall require a regulated facility to obtain a permit demonstrating that it will comply with rules and regulations concerning indirect sources in the State if the regulated facility has any development or major modification that would increase the pollution related to the facility.

(f) Fee and point system guidelines.

(1) The Agency shall create a points system under which warehouse operators must earn points based on the amount of emissions generated by trucks at their facilities, and for implementing mitigation options, such as installing infrastructure, requiring use of zero-emission vehicles on-site, using alternatives to truck trips for incoming or outgoing trips, providing air filtration for neighbors of facilities, and installing on-site solar power generation, electricity storage, and managed charging systems.

(2) The Agency shall not allow the transfer of points between facilities. If a warehouse operator earns more points than is required for an annual points compliance obligation in a given reporting period, then it may use those remaining points at the same warehouse to satisfy a points compliance obligation in any of the following 3 years.

(3) Warehouse operators transferring points to a different compliance period must demonstrate that any on-site improvements or equipment installations that were used to earn the points being transferred are still operational at that warehouse facility in the year that points are used.

(4) Points earned 3 years or less before a warehouse operator's first compliance period may be banked and transferred up to 3 years after the warehouse operator's first compliance period. This early compliance must be documented in an annual report immediately following the year in which the action or investment was completed.

(5) The minimum registration fee established under subsection (j) shall be set at a level sufficient to reimburse public and private insurance plans and facility neighbors for health care and associated expenditures due to facility operations, including truck activity at the facility. Fee investment shall be prioritized in the community where the fees were levied unless consultation with communities reveals an alternative location is more appropriate.

(6) A portion of funds, to be determined by consultation with community representatives, shall be used to fund the Insights, Jobs, and Environmental Justice Grant Program established under this Section; fenceline monitors; and materials necessary to provide education on monitoring, air quality, and impacts of pollution in communities.

(7) When considering alternatives to truck trips for incoming or outgoing trips, the warehouse operator shall consult impacted and displaced employees in selecting an alternative to truck trips and shall only use an alternative upon agreement with the impacted and displaced employees. If employees in the warehouse have an exclusive bargaining unit representative and the bargaining unit or the terms of the collective bargaining agreement would be impacted by the use of an alternative, then the warehouse operator shall consult with and obtain agreement from the employees who are impacted, displaced, or both and the representative, in writing, before using the alternative.

(g) Health impacts.

(1) The Agency shall disclose air pollution impacts on maternal, infant, and child health and health disparities at the granularity of census block group or greater, in line with the transparency requirements of subsection (k). The Agency shall provide clear information on health symptoms and outcomes. Metrics reported on at the census block level shall include, but shall not be limited to, the following:

(A) the number of emergency room visits due to pollution-related illness;

(B) the number of diagnoses of pollution-related ailments; and

(C) the number of missed work and school days.

(2) The Agency shall disclose air pollution impacts on educational attainment. Metrics reported on at the census block level include, but shall not be limited to:

(A) school attendance;

(B) academic performance; and

(C) graduation rates at the granularity of census block group or greater.

(3) The Agency shall disclose air pollution impacts on the economy. Metrics that shall be reported on at the census block level include, but are not limited to:

(A) labor force participation, measured in missed workdays;

(B) labor force productivity; and

(C) inflation and tax revenues.

(3) The Agency shall disclose the sources of air pollution at the granularity of census block group or greater.

(4) The Agency shall disclose the jurisdiction with authority over mitigation of emissions from each type of emissions source.

(h) Insights, Jobs, and Environmental Justice Grant Program. The Agency shall create and administer an Insights, Jobs, and Environmental Justice Grant Program. The Insights, Jobs, and Environmental Justice Grant Program shall be designed to:

(1) identify overburdened communities, in collaboration with residents of overburdened communities, representatives of those communities, or both;

(2) deploy an air monitoring network to collect sufficient air quality data for review and accountability for reductions; and

(3) identify sources and impacts of concern to communities.

Applications for grants from the Insights, Jobs, and Environmental Justice Grant Program should be as simple and streamlined as possible to maximize participation. Application forms and applications should be reviewed by the Advisory Council to ensure accessibility and appropriateness of awards.

(i) Insights Analysis Program.

(1) In 2025 and every 2 years thereafter, the Agency must conduct a review to determine levels of criteria pollutants in the overburdened communities and in median comparison neighborhoods. Unredacted reviews must be made accessible to the public in full, unless necessary to comply with confidentiality restrictions, and must be posted on a publicly available, multilingual website. Reviews must include an evaluation of initial and subsequent impacts related to criteria pollution in overburdened communities and in comparison to median comparison neighborhoods and may also include climate impacts in overburdened communities.

(2) The Agency, in collaboration with the Department and the Board, must identify significant emitters and their parent companies; must identify and quantify the health implications of the persistent air pollution; must identify local educational outcomes of inequitable air pollution; must identify local economic outcomes of inequitable air pollution, such as lost labor productivity, displaced residents, and tax base implications; and must develop a high-priority list of significant emitters and kinds of emissions.

(3) Where the Agency is unable to identify sources, health, educational and economic implications of pollution, the Agency must identify key areas of uncertainty and propose a research agenda to achieve the unrealized insights.

(4) The Agency shall identify or develop models for emissions inventories from ports and warehouses as indirect stationary sources; tools usable by communities to attribute air pollution to different sources and industries' models to translate concentration readings from non-regulatory monitors; and other inputs, such as meteorological data, for emissions rates, such as pounds per hour or tons per year.

(j) Funding.

The Board shall impose an annual registration fee for warehouse operators, and institute additional fees for warehouse operators that fail to comply with any rules or regulations promulgated pursuant to this Section. Fines for noncompliance with this Section shall be used for the Insights, Jobs, and Environmental Justice Grant Program, described in subsection (h), as well as needs identified through consultations with impacted communities, including, but not limited to, investment in infrastructure, other pollution mitigation measures, monitoring, and healthcare. The fees and fines shall be made payable to the Environmental Protection Trust Fund.

(k) Public participation and transparency.

(1) The Agency shall provide a public participation process, including, but not limited to:

(A) public notice of the submission of permit applications to assess potential additional contributions to any cumulative impacts;

(B) posting, on a public website in machine-readable format, the full permit application, the draft and final findings by the consulted agencies, and the agencies' response to comments;

(C) an opportunity for the submission of public comments;

(D) an opportunity for a public hearing before a determination; and

(E) a summary and response of the comments prepared by the consulted agencies.

(2) The Agency shall track progress in an easily accessible format and shall provide a transparent and publicly available rationale for policy and regulatory decisions and shall describe the extent to which community engagement and collected data informed those decisions. Such information must be updated on a quarterly basis. If progress is deemed insufficient by the Advisory Council described in subsection (c), the Agency shall be required to undertake remedial actions and, where appropriate, identify metrics of progress, as designated by the Advisory Council to ensure achievement of the provisions of this Section.

(l) Published list. The Agency shall annually publish a list of warehouses and other truck-attracting facilities that will include the following information, which will be annually reported by the facilities:

(1) location;

(2) facility square footage;

(3) operator name;

(4) owner name;

(5) secured lender name;

(6) number of truck bays;

(7) compliance status;

(8) documented labor violations;

(9) the number of electric vehicle charging stations installed and actual usage;

(10) the number of hydrogen fueling stations installed and actual usage;

(11) the number of on-site renewable energy generation systems installed;

(12) the number of vehicles used to deliver from the site that are owned by the operator but leased to a third-party and the proportion of those vehicles that are leased and the proportion that are owned by the operator;

(13) the average daily number of inbound and outbound vehicle trips by vehicle weight and class, by time of day, and by day of the week; and

(14) the average daily vehicle miles traveled for all vehicles making inbound and outbound trips to and from the qualifying warehouse.

(m) Enforcement; investigation.

(1) The Agency shall conduct an annual investigation of a random selection of at least 5% of all stationary and indirect sources in non-overburdened communities. The Agency shall conduct an annual investigation of at least 10% of all stationary and indirect sources in overburdened communities. The Agency shall conduct an annual investigation of any stationary or indirect source with more than 500 children under the age of 5 living within one-half mile of the source. Communities may request an investigation at stationary or indirect sources. This request shall be granted as of right if the source is already identified as a high priority emitter or the community is already identified as an overburdened community. The results of any investigation shall be made public along with any recommended or required mitigation actions.

(2) An annual investigation shall consist of the following:

(A) fenceline monitoring and an analysis of meteorological data;

(B) an analysis of satellite data;

(C) updates on land use, truck counts and ages, and other inputs into emissions inventories;

(D) the identification of defeat devices installed on trucks; and

(E) other metrics identified as important by community representatives.

(n) Severability. If any provision of this Section or its application to any person or circumstance is held invalid, the invalidity does not affect other provisions or applications of this Section which can be given effect without the invalid provision or application, and to this end the provisions of this Section are severable.